PARLIAMENTARY PRECEDENT

That the arbitrary establishment of mandates by the Council of the League of Nations has its critics abroad is evident from the attitude assumed by Lord Ishington in a recent letter to the London Times. He frankly opposes the opinion expressed by the British Foreign Secretary that mandates should not be discussed by Parliament before being approved at Geneva, and would not be open to extensive revision by Parliament afterwards. This position, as he points out, is but another instance of the curious degree of respect in which the executive has grown to hold the central authority of Great Britain.

Inasmuch as the English long ago did away with royal autocracy, they can find no comfort in a despotic executive. Their mandates threaten to cost them over twenty-eight billions of pounds in the coming year, and have already involved them in complications with other governments, notably with the United States. This burden has been assumed not only without the consent of the English people but in the face of a conspicuous lack of precedent. With former German possessions still being parcelled about by the League, it is only just that assumption of these mandates be subject to parliamentary control.

Probably no age is without its Edmund Burke,--some prominent Englishman who sees the case as America sees it. "Much as one may regret the absence of American participation in the League," says Lord Ishington, "one is driven to recognize by the present attitude of the executive in this matter that American apprehensions are not without justification. It is curious that it should be left to the American Legislature to give the British Parliament a lesson on its own Constitution by insisting on full Parliamentary control. "The demand for the recognition of Parliament in the mandate question is in complete accordance with the traditions of British government, bought at the cost of countless lives and centuries of struggle.