ACOUNCIL of Europe has been added to European institutions
in recent years. But Europe had a Council, if only an inter-
mittent and imperfect one, from the Congress of Vienna to the
outbreak of the First World War. Why did it not develop into
something more permanent? What principles determined its
character? What was the manner of its working? You will look
in vain for a book which deals with these questions except in a
superficial and inadequate way. The absence of such knowledge
had an influence on the character of the Covenant of the League
of Nations. Much of the experience of the nineteenth century has
become demoded. But there is still much to be found out on this
subject which is of value today.

When one remembers the immense amount of attention paid
by historians to the origins of national institutions it seems extra-
ordinary that the history of international institutions should have
been so neglected. After a lapse of one hundred years there existed
no account of the procedure of the Congress of Vienna. Many
books were written which deal with the Conference of London of
1830-32, the first European conference, but their authors were
not interested in its procedure. It is perhaps, therefore, not sur-
prising that there is no comprehensive study of the machinery for
international co-operation in the nineteenth century. There are,
indeed, so far as I know, only two authors who have much con-
cerned themselves with the subject. Attention was first directed
to it in France by M. Charles Dupuis, who wrote two books, in
1909 and 1920, which surveyed some of its problems. ¹ But these
pioneer works are mainly descriptive. They are not founded on
any very deep knowledge of the material available nor do they
dwell much on the machinery or consider the reasons for its em-
ployment. Sir Ernest Satow wrote a short handbook on Inter-
national Congresses for use at the Peace Conference of 1919, and he

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