LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 50, 28 February 1921, Page 3

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

ITS FIRST BIRTHDAY

WHAT HAS SO PAR BEEN

ACHIEVED.

(rftQit OCR OWN COSHSSrOKSIXT.)

t LONDON 1, 12th January. In one of the speeches to the Assembly in Geneva, Lord Robert Cecil declared that publicity was the very lifeblood of the League of Nations. So far as this country is concerned, the first anniversary of the League's coming into existence lias been marked by a wide recognition of the great objects which the organisation has been formed, to promote and a full exposition of what has been achieved during the past year in. promoting international peace. This has been due mainly to the activities of the League of Nations Union, whose promoters recognise that if success is to be attained the principal factor must bo the organised public opinion of the world. It is not in paper conventions or in agreements between Governments that the power will be found, but in tha determined will of the peoples of the various nations that never again shall ambitious rulers be allowed to deluge the world with blood and waste incalculable treasure to further their own selfish plan's. That will of the peoples can only be known by its expression through public meetings and the

press. A year ago the League of Nations became an established fact-with a legal constitution binding together the th;rteen nations which at that time ha-d deposited their ratifications of the Treaty of Versailles. Since 10th January, 1920, it has increased its membership to 47 States, and its l'ecord of woTk includes the .drawing up of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice and securing unanimous agreement thereon, all such previous efforts having ended in failure. Already twentytwo nations have signed the project, and there is every reason to hope that before the next' Assembly, in. September, the final act of ratification by. the various Parliaments will have taken place and the Court will have become an established fact.

MILITARY ESTIMATES AND :'.->. ARMAMENTS. It'has also secured agreement to submit for the consideration. of the fortyseven members of the League the acceptance of an undertaking not to exceed the current military budget within the next two years unless required to do bo by recommendation of the League or by exceptional conditions notified to the League. A series of studies has also been authorised to be undertaken by both military, naval, air, and civilian experts to gather the facts as to the redaction of armaments a*nd to suggest common international agreements for exchange of information, for control of the State manufacture of munitions, and for the suppression of the traffic in arms and munitions with backward countries. There have been, received for registration and publication, sixty-nine treaties, or international agreements, affecting not only members of the League but also several States not members of theLeague. Four volumes of the Treaty series of the Official Journal have already been published, and seven more are in preparation.

100,000 PRISONERS REPATRIATED,

The League, moreover, has been successful in repatriating over 100,000 prisoners of war who.had been suffering, many' of them for five or six years, in Siberia; it lias raised an appreciable fund, and has issued an appeal for a still larger sum, to combat the spread of typhus which is now raging in Poland and Eastern Europe; it has brought abut the mediation, of the United States, Brazil, and Spain to save the Armenian people from destruction; taken over from the Netherlands Government the supervision, of the suppression of ths opium traffic, and has created an organisation for Mie suppression of the traffic in women and children.

JAPANESE PREMIER'S SUPPORT.

Baron Hayashi, Japanese Ambassador in London, has forwarded to the 'Manchester branch of the' League of Nations Union a message which he has re-' ceived from the Premier, Mr. Hara, of Japan. Co-operation among the people of the world, the Premier' states, was never more necessary than at the present moment. The East, with its untold natural resources, should be of great service in the work of reconstruction in. the West, and he-sincerely hopes kindred associations in the two countries will co-operate in. efforts to bring about their most desired end.

"When it begat) its existence a year ago, the League (says The Times) was surrounded by inordinate hopes and fears, which the first twelve months of ite activities have not justified. Some enthusiasts held it a panacea for all ■political ills'. Some detractors decried it in one breath as Utopian and in another as super-State that would essay to dictate its will to all States. In reality, it suffered both from the disorganised condition of the worfd into which it was born and from the drawbacks incidental to all attempts to apply a, ready-made constitution to human affairs. The past year has' been spent by the League in efforts to 'find itself,' efforts not entirely successful, but far from being entirely unsuccessful. The difficulties under' which its organisers have worked cannot bo fully apprehended by the public at large; but, in spite of them, it has placed a distinct balance'of achievement to ite credit and has acquired experience thot should be a valuable guide in its future action. In the straggle for existence which it has still to fight the League will require th.c sympathetic and intelligent support of all who beb'eve in the ideal of international association for the prevention of war, which, in essence, it represents." ,•■ THE POWEE OF PUBLICITY.

At the annual conference of the Geographical Association, Sir Gilbert Murray, in his presidential address, remarked that out of the strange chaos of passions: which possessed the world at the close of the great war emerged Article XXII. of the Covenant, the Article on Mandates. An - agreement which might have been drawn up by the most wholehearted idealists in Great Britain, which might have been drafted in Exeter Hall and corrected by the Aborigines Protection Society, which would not have had a ghost of a chance of passing into law in any British, French, German, Italian, or American Parliament, had been signed by the representatives of 42 nations, and is part of the Statute. Law of. the world. In the new territories the idea of possession was definitely abolished, and the idea of trusteeship substituted. " Will this wonderful article be sincerely .and honestly carried oi\t by all the Mandatory Powers:? Of course not. The interested parties will exercise overwhelming pressuro to prevent anything of the sort."

In the power of publicity Dr. Murraysaw hope for the, future. Publicity was the only real weapon the League of Nations possessed, and, if properly used, it would prove the most powerful weapon that oxiated in human affairs. Let us not look to force, lie said. Force Is against us. There is no sillier spectacle than the sight of the weak appealing to force against the strong.' We have no .fofcfij ws have only thu power of putting facts and questions before

public opinion of the world. Then the world—that is to say, chiefly, the electorates of the great nations —will be able to say whether they wish their Governments to do justly or unjustly, to be world-plunderers or worid-bnflders.