any action was permissible.  Would not the alternative between breaking the engagement and undertaking a bitter and ruinous war against a powerful and friendly nation put us in an intolerable position?  Half a dozen States in the League might for one reason or another wish to resist the claim of the United States for redress.  Names of States which might possibly so combine could be given, but it is better to refrain.  It is not inconceivable that German penetration and intrigue at some future time might promote a combination of the kind.  All sorts of influences might be brought to bear on certain of the States and on their representatives.  Dynastic claims might even affect them.

Unless it be with some country which she can trust and whose Government and its aims she can thoroughly rely upon, and then only for some limited and specific purpose, Great Britain, or any other naval or military power, ought not to bind itself to go to war and employ its forces.  We must be free to reduce those forces or to refrain from employing them in making war.  An engagement which might in circumstances, the real character of which no one can foresee at present, compel us to undertake a war at the bidding of others is a thing to which we ought never to consent.  Engagements to make war are not a safe way of promoting peace.  They may possibly be justified where there is some clearly specified object, some defined case in which nations ally themselves to prevent some particular wrong, such, for example, as guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium.  Even for a single specific agreement of this kind a very strong case is required, but that is a totally different thing from agreeing to provide a kind of world police to enforce and execute the orders of a Council of heterogeneous States under conditions the nature of which no one can predict now.  We cannot tell beforehand with any certainty what will be the real character of the proposed League Council, nor what motives may inspire its members at some future time, nor whom the majority of them will in fact represent.  It does not necessarily follow that there can be no sanction of any kind to enforce the rules of International Law or the decisions of a League of Nations to prevent a breach of international peace, no penalty attaching to those who disregard those rules or are guilty of breaking that peace.  As already stated, the economic boycott, every member of the League agreeing to treat an aggressor as an outlaw, and without actually going to war ceasing to have any dealings with him, and forbidding all intercourse of its subjects with the peace-breaker, is likely to be really effective.  Lord Shaw, whose interest in the subject is no new thing, and who has devoted long and careful consideration to it, later in the debate gave the weight of his authority as to the efficacy of such measures.  “Let it,” he said, “be known once and for all that from the moment a nation becomes a traitor to the League it becomes, ipso facto, an economic outlaw, then the motive both for being included within and for remaining within the League will be increased a hundredfold, and wholly for the benefit of mankind.”