THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19357, 9 July 1928, Page 11

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE P3ESS. Sir,—l was greatly surprised to read in your paper of Saturday, July 7th, the report of an interview which I gave to one of your reporters, and in which arc several statements which are either altogether wrong or else distorted. I did not speak of the League as "a mockery." On the contrary, I said: "By not giving the League of Nations tlie power to carry "out its decrees, it is made a mockery, ,-just as an ordinary court would be if it could only give advice and judgment, but lacked the power to see them enforced." It is not the League of Nations I criticised in mv interview, but those who refuse to' give it the power it needs, and then blame it for its inability to stop war.

There are many more errors in your I report,' such us, for instance, the ■ phrase. "If tin; European Nations became the United States of Europe tomorrow, America would quickly join up." I never suggested such a patent impossibility; America can never "join .up" with a United States of Europe, not being, as everyone knows,, a European nation ! In reality I suggested that a "United States of Europe" would be a guarantee of good faith to America, and enable it to bring about the end of war. One final mistake. I took especial pains to explain that the Order of the Star, for which I lecture, is not a theosophical bod}', or associated with the Theosophical Society. Tour reporter > opens his article by the words: "Representing the Order of the Star, a Theosophical Society, ... ." There is rcaliy no 1 excuse for such mistakes,' and I sincerely hope that in future due care will be taken to prevent them.—Tours, etc., DR. Y. Y. VAN DER LEEUW. July Bth, 1928. [Though we are glad to give him an opportunity of doing so now, Dr. van der Leeuw did not "take (especial pains" to tell The Press reporter that the Order of the Star is not a Theosophical body. He may have taken pains to make this clear to the reporter of another paper. In other respects the report of the interview given in The Press does not differ materially from that given in the columns of our contemporaries.—Ed. The Prks?.]

TO TUB EDITOB OF THE FBESS. Sir,—ln view of the teaching with which lie is associated it is surely surprising to find Dr. Van de Leeuw saying in the interview reported in your paper on Saturday: "People looked on it (the Leaguo of Nations) with goodhumoured contempt, for the simple reason that although the League was given power to issue judgments, it had not been given the means to carry out its decrees. Without that power it was ridiculous." It would appear that in this connexion the Doctor is suffering from the all-tob-prevalent delusion that the "power" which we must look to for salvation is that of armed force. He appears to have overlooked his own belief and teaching that the greatest, indeed in ultimate effects, the omnipotent "power" is that of the Divine creative spirit which, among countless other ways, manifests itself in international understanding and good-will, and in the fast-spreading recognition of the essential unity of the whole human family, and consequently of the very real and actual independence of all peoples. The root cause of the existence of the League of Nations is the ideal of human brotherhood, and leaders of thought everywhere have recognised that the old belief in force is futile, and worse, and are seeking to teach the world that the only security, the only possible salvation, must and will be fouhd in" mutual understanding, mutual goodwill, and the knowJedge, now scientifically demonstrable, that an injury done to one is definitely and positively an injury {o all. ■ It is certainly disappointing to find a gentleman of Dr. Van der Leeuw's attainments taking such a superficial view of a subject of such momentous import for the future. —Yours, etc., MEMBER OF LEAGUE OF NATIONS UNION. July 7th, 1928.