WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

IMPERIAL WAR CABINET AND CONFERENCE 25
With regard to the question of a League of Nations, Lord
Robert Cecil pointed out that there were really two main
alternatives, namely, an International Court of Arbitration
or a system of International Conference and Consultation.
He did not believe that matters affecting the vital interests
of the British Empire could possibly be submitted to the decisions
of an International Tribunal. On the other hand, he
did believe that a great deal could be effected if the habit
of conference and consultation could once be firmly established.
He thought one of the chief causes of international
conflict lay in the fact that treaty terms attempted to settle
for all time matters that were inherently subject to variation
and development. Under a system of International Conferences,
the situation could be periodically reviewed. To begin
with, at any rate, the most hopeful plan probably was to say
that no one should declare war till a conference of all the
Powers had been summoned, the summoning and decision
of such a conference taking place within a reasonable time.
In the discussion which ensued, it was pointed out that
a periodical conference to readjust the map of Europe might
possibly create causes of friction as well as allay them.
There was the further difficulty that, under any procedure
which could be suggested for a League of Nations, or
for a Conference of Nations, called together to deal with
such problems as those of nationality, a United Italy could
never have come into being, or the subject races of the
Ottoman Empire have been delivered from Turkish oppression.
Lord Milner said that he did not believe that any attempt
to establish an International Court would be successful
or be a good thing in itself; but he did believe that a
great advance could be made if the nations who entered into
the next Treaty of Peace bound themselves not to go to war
without submitting their cause to a conference. Failure to