for a League of Nations to abandon that great principle
in the settlement of international disputes of a justiciable nature
causes speculation as to Mr. Wilson's real opinion of the American
political system which emphasizes the separation and independence of the
three coordinate branches of government.

That a provision found its way into the draft of the Covenant, which the
President, on February 3, 1919, laid before the Commission on the League
of Nations, declaring for the creation by the League of a permanent
court of international justice, was not due, I feel sure, to any
spontaneous thought on the part of President Wilson.

My own views as to the relative value of the settlement of an
international controversy, which is by its nature justiciable, by a body
of diplomats and of the settlement by a body of trained jurists were
fully set forth in an address which I delivered before the American Bar
Association at its annual meeting at Boston on September 5,1919.

An extract from that address will show the radical difference between
the President's views and mine.

"While abstract justice cannot [under present conditions] be depended
upon as a firm basis on which to constitute an international concord
for the preservation of peace and good relations between nations,
legal justice offers a common ground where the nations can meet to
settle their controversies. No nation can refuse in the face of the
opinion of the world to declare its unwillingness to recognize the
legal rights of other nations or to submit to the judgment of an
impartial tribunal a dispute involving the determination of such
rights. The moment, however, that we go beyond the clearly defined
field of legal justice we enter the field of diplomacy where national
interests and ambitions are to-day the controlling factors of
national action. Concession and compromise are the chief agents of
diplomatic settlement instead of the impartial application of legal
justice which is essential to a judicial settlement. Furthermore, the
two modes of settlement differ in that a judicial settlement rests
upon the precept that all nations, whether great or small, are equal,
but in the sphere of diplomacy the inequality of nations is not only
recognized, but unquestionably influences the adjustment of
international differences. Any change in the relative power of
nations, a change which is continually taking