In other words, war is not like a litigation which ends in the settlement of a particular dispute. Any war, in its settlement, goes far beyond the dispute which brought it about; every war opens up every possible ambition and desire of the victor.[6] Did the World War end merely in deciding the question about the rights of Austria and Serbia in connection with the murder of the Archduke? Where was the fate of the German colonies decided--in East Africa and in the Pacific, or on the Western Front?
This whole question is of vital importance in connection with the Protocol of Geneva. If that Protocol comes into force and is accepted by Germany, by Austria, by Hungary and by Bulgaria, it will have this effect at least; it will change what I may call the status of the _status quo_ in regard to these countries to this extent, that in lieu of that _status quo_ being one imposed by force, it will have become one agreed to, at least to the point that it is agreed that the _status quo_ may not be changed by war but only by agreement.[7] As a practical example, it will mean, as we now see, that the German effort to regain some of her lost colonies under the mandate system, will again be an effort of negotiation[8] and not an effort of force.
All that the Covenant or the Protocol of Geneva attempts to do about the _status quo_ is to say that frontiers shall not be changed _as a result of aggression_. Indeed, the Protocol[9] protects even an aggressor against loss of territory or of independence as a penalty for its aggression; discussion, leading up perhaps to peaceful agreement but to nothing else, is permitted by Articles 11 and 19 of the Covenant, but that is all.
My view is that these provisions are sound and that they should not be extended.
In saying, as I did, that the possibility of change in the _status quo_ is along only two lines, the line of agreement and the line of war, I did not lose sight of the proposals made in various forms that there should be some method under the League of Nations or otherwise by which a tribunal of some sort would be empowered to make such changes from time to time. Most of these proposals envisage plebiscites in one form or another.
These proposals by their advocates are thought to have the advantage of adaptability to changing conditions and to be more conformable to the theory of the consent of the governed as a basis of Government.[10]