AN UNFAIR POSITION.

Auckland Star, Volume 246, Issue 246, 16 October 1926, Page 8

AN UNFAIR POSITION.

San Salvador, with a payment of under £1000 a year'to the League of Nations Budget, has a seat on the Council and occupies the same position in this respect as the British Empire with a contribution of over £250,000. Is this fair or

just? This is a question which will come up for consideration at the Imperial Conference.' The last League Budget

showed an expenditure of just under £1,000,000 per annum, and the increase for last year was £40,000. The growing expense was criticised at the last Assembly, and Sir Joseph Cook, the Australian delegate, earned a motion in

favour of a Supervisory Committee to consider the whole question of the growing cost of League administration. A large part of the difficulty has arisen through the default of certain countries. The total amount of unpaid contributions is £260,000, of which China owes £200,000 and Peru £40,000. The other defaulting States are Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. The money

owing by these defaulters has to be

made good by the other members.

The system under which the expenses of the League are divided up among the various members has been the subject of much debate since the first Assembly. The original scale on which the members contributed to the League's expenses was based on the scale in use by the universal postal union. This from the very beginning was felt to be unfair. Under this scale Australia was liable to the same contribution as France, and Abyssinia would have been placed in the same category as Great Britain. The present scale is based on the supposed ability of members to pay and is divided into units, each unit representing just under £1000. Great Britain is assessed at 8S units, France at 78, Italy and Japan at 61 each, and India at 56. Our own assessment is 10 units, while Australia is assessed at 27 and Canada at 35. The British Empire is thus paying just over a quarter of the League expenses and yet it has only the same position as a State paying a one-thousandth part.

It cannot be said that £1,000,000 a year is too much for 58 nations to pay between them as an insurance against war and a means of facilitating international co-operation in humanitarian work. In the case of Great Britain a loan of £2,000,000 that had been made to Austria, and was regarded as irrecoverable, w_.s recovered and paid in full, with interest to date, owing to the League's successful financial reconstruction of Austria. The recovery of this money will go a long way towards Britain's contribution to the League. But it is open to question whether the Budget is being wisely administered, and it certainly looks as if defaulting countries should be made to pay as far as they are able, and that in allotting seats on the Council financial contributions should be taken into account.