WORLD COURT: International Squabbles

The Permanent Court of International Justice began its second annual regular session, the first part of which was private.

Among the agenda:

¶ Germany is summoned by the Allies to appear before the Court with reference to refusing to allow the British steamship Wimbledon to pass through the Kiel Canal. (Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles the Kiel Canal must remain open to all vessels of all nationalities at peace with Germany.) The Wimbledon was carrying munitions of war to Poland. Germany contends that to have allowed the ship to pass through the canal would have been an act prejudicial to her neutral attitude. The Allies maintain that a preliminary treaty of peace ending war between Poland and Russia was ratified November 2, 1920, and the final treaty was signed at Riga, March 18, 1921, or three days before the incident. It appears that Germany had no right to detain the ship. Professor Walter Schücking (German) was appointed a judge ad interim in conformity with the statutes of the Court.

¶ The Council of the League of Nations on the application of Finland presented an advisory case concerning the status of East Karelia (labor commune in Russia). The population of East Karelia is largely Finnish; the Finns are anxious to know if the Soviet Government did or did not undertake to make the internal administration of East Karelia an international affair, when it signed the Treaty of Dorpat, 1920.

¶ The League of Nations asked for a ruling as to its competency to deal with the question of German minorities in Poland. It appears that the Polish Government has been expelling German colonists from their holdings in Upper Silesia. The Germans, following a practice inaugurated by Bismarck in 1886, occupied holdings granted by the German Colonization Commission (an organization for the Germanization of German Poland). The Polish Government now considers these holdings as its property under Article 256 of the Treaty of Versailles; it will not recognize leases granted before Nov. 11, 1918, by the German Government to German nationals since become Polish citizens.