Nations to hold a conference or to
summon a conference to take up this whole matter and draft an
international treaty dealing with the constitution of arbitral
tribunals and radically revising the procedure.

"On account of the difficulties of the subject, which do not appear
on the surface, but which experience has shown to be very real, I
feel that it would be impracticable to provide in the Peace Treaty
too definitely the method of constituting arbitral tribunals. It will
require considerable thought and discussion to make arbitration
available to the poor as well as the rich, to make an award a
judicial settlement rather than a diplomatic compromise, and to
supersede the cumbersome and prolonged procedure with its duplication
of documents and maps by a simple method which will settle the issues
and materially shorten the proceedings which now unavoidably drag
along for months, if not for years.

"Faithfully yours

"ROBERT LANSING

"THE PRESIDENT

"28 _Rue de Monceau_"

At the time that I sent this letter to Mr. Wilson I had not seen the
revised draft of the Covenant which he laid before the Commission on the
League of Nations. The probability is that, if I had seen it, the letter
would not have been written, for in the revision of the original draft
the objectionable Article V, relating to arbitration and appeals from
arbitral awards, was omitted. In place of it there were substituted two
articles, 11 and 12, the first being an agreement to arbitrate under
certain conditions and the other providing that "the Executive Council
will formulate plans for the establishment of a Permanent Court of
International Justice, and this Court will be competent to hear and
determine any matter which the parties recognize as suitable for
submission to it for arbitration."

Unadvised as to this change, which promised a careful consideration of
the method of applying legal principles of justice to international
disputes, I did not feel that I could let pass without challenge the
unsatisfactory provisions of the President's original draft. Knowing the
contempt which Mr. Wilson felt for The Hague Tribunal and his general
suspicion of the justice of decisions which it might render, it seemed
to me inexpedient to suggest that it should form the basis of a newly
constituted judiciary, a suggestion which I should have made had I been
dealing with any one other than President W