Background to the League > Aims, methods and activity of the League of Nations

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outline of the system under which the former German
colonies and certain Turkish territories were to be
administered by individual Allied Powers, not in
their own interests, but in the interests of the popu¬
lations, and under mandate from the future League of
Nations.
On the same day. Lord Robert Cecil also published a
plan full of useful suggestions. The idea of the League
was steadily gaining shape.
The Peace Conference
Then came the Peace Conference, one of whose first
decisions was to create a League of Nations. At its
second plenary meeting, held on January 25th, 1919, a
Committee was appointed, with President Wilson as
chairman, to draft and elaborate the “ constitution ” of
the League. This Committee took as basis for its work
the document in which a British member of the Com¬
mittee, Sir Cecil Hurst, and an American member,
D. H. Miller, had combined the American and British
ideas.
After numerous meetings, during which various
Governments, including the French, represented by
M. Leon Bourgeois, were heard, the final text was
approved at a plenary meeting on April 28th, 1919.
This text was incorporated in the Treaty of Versailles
(June 28th, 1919) and in the other peace treaties, to
which it forms the preamble.
Different Conceptions
The Covenant appears to be a compromise between
Anglo-Saxon and Continental conceptions, with perhaps