THE "EXPENSIVE" LEAGUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 284, 30 November 1932, Page 6

THE "EXPENSIVE" LEAGUE.

COMPARISON WITH ARMAMENTS. (By NICHOLAS WOOD.) At the instance of the British Government a strict inquiry has just been made into the expenses of thfe League of Nations with a view to effecting any possible economies. The result of the inquirv is that since the League demands from its *ervants a combination of very special qualities it is re com mended that the salary scale of- officials now in the League service should remain intact. The whole cost of the League of Nations, including the Permanent Court of International Justice "and the International Labour Office, is about £1.347.000 for 1932. This seems a large sum until expenditure on war is considered, and then the cost of the League dwindles into insignificance. As Lord Cecil pointed out the other week at Geneva, the amount spent on the League is a mere fraction—an infinitesimal fraction—of what the nations were spending in preparations for war. The world spends £900,000,000 every year on armaments and other war measures. Great Britain pays £182,000 for the League and over £104,000,000 for armaments. It has been calculated that out of every pound every Briton pays in taxes 14/6 goes to the -payment of war debts and preparation for another war, and one halfpenny on the League of Nations. In the face of these figures, it is. absurd to talk about the League as an expensive luxury. The League .machinery when it has been used has proved effective and efficient in solving international problems and removing international mistrust and suspicion. The troubles of the world to-day are due to the fact that certain of the Great Powers have been reluctant to apply the League machine to their own particular difficulties. By its work for public health, reconstruction of those European countries that were smashed and shattered by the war, in transfer of populations, in the supervision of date system of governing backward races, in the long and endless struggle again&t slavery, the traffic in women and children, and the traffic in dangerous drugs, the League has fully justified, the pittance spent upon it. It is neither expensive nor a luxury, but on the contrary a remarkably cheap experiment in -world co-operation and world government.