U. S. Entry?

Potent U. S. Senators have laid down by a vote of 76 to 17 the conditions* on which the U. S. will adhere to the World Court./- (TIME, Feb. 8, THE CONGRESS). For almost half a year 42 Court-adherent nations have been pondering requests (despatched to each individually by the U. S.) that they accept these reservations.

Stock-taking at Washington last week revealed that:

A) Fourteen nations have not yet acknowledged receipt of the State Department's communication. (Great Britain, Japan, Belgium, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Esthonia, Hungary, Brazil, Chile, Luxembourg.)

B) Nineteen nations have returned simple "acknowledgments" without comment. (France, Bolivia, China, Colombia, Denmark, Haiti, Latvia, Lithuania, Panama, Paraguay, Persia, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Portugal, Salvador, Siam, Switzerland, Uruguay, Venezuela.)

C) Six nations have announced that they are "reserving decision." (Austria, Norway, Albania, Finland, Rumania, Yugoslavia.)

D) Acceptances of the U. S. Senate's reservations have been received from Liberia, Cuba, Greece.

The U. S. State Department issued a statement last week that this status of the matter is "completely normal."

Significance. Point was lent by last week's stock-taking to a remark by British Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain (TIME, March 29, THE LEAGUE) that "It may take years" for the U. S. to thrash out the whole matter of World Court reservations by diplomatic notes among the interested powers.

Sir Austen's pet scheme for abridging this difficulty is a World Court Conference called by the League of Nations (TIME, April 12, THE LEAGUE) ; but to which the U. S. has refused to send a delegate to "explain" the Senate's reservations (TIME, May 3, THE LEAGUE).

The Court Conference will meet in Geneva coincident with the regular September League Assembly, and will presumably crystalize international opinion on the U. S. reservations. Since the Senate's conditions for adherence are somewhat ail-inclusively vague, and since no U. S. representative will be present to explain or defend them, the usual European barrage of recrimination may be expected to burst forth.

*Keynotes: explicit denial by the U. S. on adhering to the World Court of any obligation under the Treaty of Versailles or in connection with the League of Nations; and the stipulation that the World Court shall not render an opinion on a matter of interest to the U. S. except by consent of the U. S.

/-Not to be confused with the Hague Court, though located at the Hague. The Hague Court is not actually a court, but a panel of international jurists from among whom several are assigned to consider a given case, if and when it is presented for adjudication by the disputants. The World Court, on the other hand, consists of a definite court of judges who sit together on every question. They are nominated through the machinery of the Hague Court and elected by the Assembly of the League of Nations.