The character of a mandate, a mandatory, and the authority issuing the mandate presented many legal perplexities which certainly required very careful study before the experiment was tried.

Until the system was fully worked out and the problems of practical operation were solved, it seemed to me unwise to suggest it and still more unwise to adopt it.

While the general idea of mandates issuing from the proposed international organization was presumably acceptable to the President from the first, his support was doubtless confirmed by the fact that it followed the groove which had been made in his mind by the Smuts phrase "the heir of the Empires." In any event it seemed to me the course of wise statesmanship to postpone the advocacy of mandates, based on the assumption that the League of Nations could become the possessor of sovereignty, until the practical application of the theory could be thoroughly considered from the standpoint of international law as well as from the standpoint of policy.

The experiment was too revolutionary to be tried without hesitation and without consideration of the effect on established principles and usage.

At an appropriate place this subject will be more fully discussed.
As to the organization and functions of the League of Nations planned by Mr.Wilson there was little that appealed to one who was opposed to the employment of force in compelling the observance of international obligations and to the establishment of an international oligarchy of the Great Powers to direct and control world affairs.