"HAS IT FAILED?"

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 128, 1 June 1934, Page 10

"HAS IT FAILED?"

LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

INDIVIDUAL CITIZEN'S POWER

ADDRESS BY MR. AIREY.

The work of the League of Nations was reviewed by the president of theLeague of Nations Union, Mr. W. T. G. Airey, in an address to members last evening. The title of the'address was: "Has the League Failed." Mr. Louis Phillips presided.

Mr. Airey said that the- idea of the League of Nations had not been shown to be unsound,, but it had only been very imperfectly tried. The League was a society oi nations, and also a set of principles for international conduct. It also embodied machinery for the practice and extension of those principles. It was the member States that had accepted and pledged themselves to the 0b1i.2-al.ion3 of those principles. They, acting through accredit* d delegate's in the Council, the Assembly and other conferences, or through their Foreign Offices, did or did not carry out those obligations. It was the citizeiw of the member States who had it largely in their power to determine the policies of their Governments, if they really desired.

When it was said that the League had failed, the true view was that the States that were members of the League had failed to carry out the principles to which they were pledged. People thought of the League as "that body at Geneva," as something outside and independent of themselves. Actually the men who met at Geneva were only the embodiments of the wills, or of the indifference, of citizens all over the world. It was these citizens who shared the responsibility for failure. It was idle to condemn the League itself, or Governments in general, or particular Governments, while they as citizens had not actively shown their will for peace. Yet it was hard to find people who did not want peace. The Obstacles. The obstacles were the narrow tradition of patriotism, and the worship of the nation-State, embedded in educational tradition, said Mr. Airey. They had inherited tho habit of thinking of other nations as a single person, good or evil, instead of as a living community like their own. There was also ignorance of tho conditions of the modern world, of its material independence, and of the annihilation of States. There was a lag of social intelligence behind their material power over the resources of Nature. Hence there was waste and destruction, and poverty amidst potenial plenty. The remedy was education in all fields. Educational systems should stress the development of community as the real stuff of human history. It was a matter of intelligence as well as emotion. They jnust face the situation. Tho alternatives were to givo up the League and revert to pre-war international anarchy, admitting they were not fit for a League of Nations, or to adjust their policy to League principles. The real' issue -.ras either international anarchy or a society of nations. The real enemy was not some other nation, but war. and war preparations in all countries. War as an institution had it 3 home not in any particular nation, but in all nations, and it was against the institution of war that men of courage and determination in all countries must combine to fight with heroic and combative spirit. The real desire of the masses in all countries was peace and security. Pooled Security Advocated. It had been said by the Spanish delegate, to the League of Nations that when Britain stopped the League stopped, and when. Britain went forward the League wont forward. It was for British policy, concerted with the Dominions, to accept clearly and beyond doubt the obligation to help possible victims or aggression. They would thereby give France a greater sense of security, and they must clearly rely on the same in return. Sir Norman Angell had advocated a system of pooled security, and it was only by that means that arbitration, security and disarmament, which were the basis of the French attitude, could be realised.