LEAGUE AND SOVEREIGNTY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22139, 19 June 1935, Page 14

LEAGUE AND SOVEREIGNTY

g,- r) —x n Thursday's leader it is stated that this question, is not a matter of ideals and theory, but one of actual statement and practice. This is true, but the whole argument is centred in the word "sovereignty." In theory, the sovereignty of the State is absolute. hut in practice it is only relative —relative to the influences which are brought to bear upon it. A despotic monarch in theory is absolute, but his sovereignty is restricted to the amount of tyranny' his subjects will bear; the sovereignty of the modern democratic State is continually restricted by the mass of public opinion, even though the individual people express and resign their sovereignty every four years or so. Again, the British Government in theory possesses absolute sovereignty in the question of Britain's meat and butter supplies, but no matter how much they may desire the Dominion and Home producer to have unrestricted access to the British market, their sovereignty is restricted by £400,000,000 invested in Argentina. Several months ago Mr. Baldwin stated that Britain's frontier was on the Rhine—only half the truth; he did not say which side. We hare no sovereignty in this matter; it is for the aggressor, France or Germany, to give us our marching orders under the Locarno Pact. We certainly can assert our sovereignty in the matter, but the price is our national honour, and another "Scrap of Paper." With every national alliance or treaty, the State delegates part of its absolute sovereignty. But from a practical point of view the State has no one sovereignty, but rather an assortment of sovereignties, each varying in intensity with the problem with which it deals, but all based on the support or tolerance of public opinion. In every community there are hundreds of potential thieves who are kept respectable citizens, not because of the police, but because of the thought of the opprobrium of their friends. This is the basis of modern law and order, and as civilisation develops, the rule of rightful conduct lessens the absolute sovereignty of the State and makes it more and more reside in the individual conscience and public opinion. Mr. Anthony Eden, whom you mention, goes to Geneva not to receive or give orders, but merely to contribute responsible British public opinion to that body of world opinion, and the sovereignty of every State is restricted by what it dare not do in the face of world opinion as expressed at Geneva and telegraphed all over the world. Thus does the League support and participate in the sovereignty of all nations which desire right above might. The weakness of the League is the barbarian. the nation or the individual that knows not the right from the wrong, but only his own selfish gain. But the League is not impotent or dying; it possesses the greatest- weapon of modern times—world public opinion. In spite of Nazi ruthlessness and Japanese militarism, their nationals were stung to the quick by the verdict of the League. Mussolini's speeches to _ Sardinian black shirts show that he is not unmindful of the power of the League. In spite of the wording of the Covenant of the League (which I am sure is a sop to the timid entrant), the League does assert a sovereignty over every civilised individual. Let us strive that the sovereignty of the State," and that of the League, are synonomous—the law of rightful and civilised conduct. B.