The Dominion. MONDAY, MAY 18, 1936. THE FUTURE OF THE LEAGUE IDEAL

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 197, 18 May 1936, Page 8

The Dominion. MONDAY, MAY 18, 1936. THE FUTURE OF THE LEAGUE IDEAL

Though there were instances also of imperfect knowledge and illogical thinking, Friday’s debate in the House of Representatives on the achievements and future of the League of Nations was notab e for members’ continuing adherence to the League ideal. The failuie of international intervention in the Abyssinian war. has convinced many of its friends that the League’s present organisation is ineffectual to preserve peace when once peace is seriously challenged by a majoi Power. The immediate problem of international politics, therefore, is that of reshaping the League’s organisation, and especially o devising ways and means whereby the principle of collective security can be applied in practice. . It is easy to say the League of Nations has failed. Under the Covenant we have signed, the League has been a complete futility, is how Mr. Forbes puts it. But the League is made up of nations, and the nations of individuals; so to say that the League.has is to say, in other words, that nations have failed, and the individuals who make nations. “With Japan, Germany and America standing out,” says Mr. Forbes, “it was impossible to carry out a system of sanctions that was effective.” True, effective sanctions were not imposed; but the fault does not lie with Japan, Germany and America. Had the French Government been as positive as President Roosevelt and Mr. Cordell Hull were in the closing weeks of last year on. the question of oil supplies to Italy, the whole course of the war might have been changed. Mr. Hargest struck much nearer, the core w.ien he said the League had displayed ineffectiveness by failing to enforce the most vital sanctions. Also Mr. Lee, when he said it could not be claimed that the system of collective security had failed; so far, it had been tried only very timidly. . . Most nations are agreed that the League ideal is one worth striving for. And now in its hour of greatest need the League seems to have more friends among ordinary folk than ever before. There is something pathetic in that: that so many millions. of people in of the countries of Europe and throughout the British Commonwealth should be saying, with Mr. Denham, that although the League has failed, the only hope for the peace of the world is to stand by the League and rebuild it on a sounder foundation. Because failure would not have occurred had the peoples of the world been ready with their support twelve or fifteen years ago. A cynic might be inclined to doubt their sincerity when they take an ideal, build.round.it an institution, by their apathy and selfishness allow that institution to wreck itself, and then come forward to repledge their allegiance to the ideal and their determination to build a new institution which shall be worthy of the ideal. Why not, it may be asked, have shown this earnestness long since? The proper reply is that civilian sentiment in favour of the League of Nations, and of international action to protect the peace of the world, was not nearly as strong formerly as it is to-day. ’President Wilson saw a vision in advance of his times, and the vision was written into the Covenant of the League of Nations. The statesmen of his own country repudiated it from the beginning. Until the last few years, the statesmen of other countries have been curiously perfunctory in their loyalty to it. “Governments,” they have said, “cannot go faster than public opinion, and public not ready for the full realisation of the League of Nations dream. But in this vital matter of peace, public opinion of. late has been outrunning Governments, until now, in the British Empire, in France, in the United States —and, one hopes, beneath, the surface in .Germany and Italy also—there is forming an irresistible body of citizen opinion ready to go to the uttermost lengths first to establish and secondly to enforce the rule of law in international affairs. Fifteen, ten, even five, years ago, when if the League had had the support of the world, it could have strengthened itself against later collapse, public opinion was not concerned. Now it is very much concerned. It is catching up on President Wilson’s vision; and, provided the leadership can be found, is ready to venture the heroic task of building a new, a better and a workable League of Nations on the partial ruins of the old.