The question as to the legality of the Ruhr occupation is partly a question of fact and partly a question of law. It is common ground that the measures taken by the French and Belgian troops in the Ruhr valley could not have been authorized by the Treaty of Versailles if the Reparation Commission had not found as a fact that there had been “ voluntary default”(manquement volontaire) on the part of Germany. The question as to whether or not such voluntary default had in fact taken place is not one of those which under Sec. 13 of Annex II to Part VIII of the treaty requires a decision to be taken by a unanimous vote, and as the decision on that point was actually taken by a majority of three to one, the discussion as to the legality of the measures taken in consequence of such decision must proceed on the footing that “voluntary default” on the part of Germany had been established to the satisfaction of the Reparation Commission. The fact that Sir John Bradbury, the British representative on the Commission, gave an adverse vote cannot, however, be left out of consideration,as it proves that at least one eminent expert who, as the representative of his country, was bound to do his best to secure the payment of reparations from Germany, was of opinion that no voluntary default on Germany's part had been proved. The doubt thus thrown on the fact on which the application of sanctions depended ought to have been an additional reason for the utmost care in the endeavor to apply only such sanctions as were clearly provided for by the Treaty of Peace. I propose to show in the following pages that if that care had been applied the occupation of the Ruhr valley would not have taken place.

The completion and transmission to the Reparation Commission on April 9th last of the report of the expert committees appointed by it to “consider the means of balancing the budget and the measures to be taken to stabilize the currency” of Germany and to “consider the means of estimating the amount of German exported capital and of bringing it back to Germany” mark a further step in the efforts of the Allied Governments to give practical effect to the reparation clauses imposed upon Germany by the Treaty of Peace signed at Versailles on June 28, 1919.

Growth of membership. When the Covenant of the League of Nations came into force on January 10, 1920, there were twenty-three members of the League. By the expiration of the two months allowed by Article 1 for accessions to the Covenant, on March 10, 1920, the number had been increased to thirty-three. When the First Assembly met on November 15,1920, the League had forty-two members, and when it adjourned on December 18, 1920, the number had been increased to forty-eight. The Second Assembly in 1921 admitted three more members, the Third Assembly in 1922 admitted one, and the Fourth Assembly in 1923 admitted two.So that since the Fourth Assembly, the members number fifty-four. These include all but seven of the twenty-four Powers represented at the first Hague Conference in 1899, and all but seven of the forty-five Powers represented at the second Hague Conference in 1907.

The section of the Constitution dealing with the treaty-making power was the result of extended discussion and consideration. In the so-called Virginia Plan presented on May 29, 1787, by Edmund Randolph, there is no mention of the subject of treaties, the inference being that he assumed that Congress, as the treaty-making power under the Confederation, would continue to exercise the same powers under the Constitution.

“ The whole constitution of prize courts, taken in connection with the conclusive effect of their sentences . . . and the exercise of their functions, being admittedly a belligerent right, is an anomaly in jurisprudence.. . . Hence it is that while its authority is derived exclusively from one nation, and that a belligerent, it passes a conclusive sentence on the title to property belonging to another, and that a neutral state, whose only appeal in the last resort is through diplomatic inference to the justice of the sovereign of the captor.”