FATE OF THE LEAGUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 12, 15 January 1934, Page 7

FATE OF THE LEAGUE.

DISSENSION MAY IMPERIL. LONDON, January 9. Prestige plays a dangerously important part in the policies of dictatorships, and may make more perilous the position of the League of Nations, says Dr. Lange, Norwegian delegate to the League Assembly, in an article in the "Manchester Guardian." Only two great Powers, Britain and France, which Bismarck would have described as "saturated countries," are at present standing by the League, he says. Italy, Germany and Japan were all malcontents, more or less dissatisfied and ambitious, and not one of them apparently contemplated the possibility of leading the smaller nations through a constructive policy favouring peace" and international co-operation. They only aimed at carving out privileged positions and pursuing a particular national policy.

If these Powers, with America and Russia, persist in enmity or aloofness, the League's usefulness will be so impaired as to make it hardly worth retaining as an instrument of international peace, he adds.

Mussolini was apparently aiming at a "directorate" of big Powers as a superstructure of the League, presumably empowered to make decisions, but the smaller nations would never agree to them.

It would be different if Mussolini were to persuade the Great Powers to join the League's work, provided they sat on a consultative committee, the findings of which were transmitted to the League Assembly.