Evening Post. MONDAY, APRIL 7, 1924. "A FINE IDEALISM!"

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 83, 7 April 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, APRIL 7, 1924. "A FINE IDEALISM!"

Nearly twenty years ago Mr. Richard Jebb made a name for himself and rendered the Empire good service by his work on " Colonial Nationalism." A tour of the Empire which was sufficiently deliberate to enable him to make a careful study of opinion and sentiment in the self-governing coloniesconvinced Mr. Jebb not merely that their ultimate destination was complete nationhood but that most of them had substantially reached the goal already. To.the Downing Street of those days the idea was unfamiliar, nor was Fleet Street much better informed. It was thus a very valuable pioneering work that, by his book and afterwards through the " Morning Post," Mr. Jebb was able to do in educating British opinion regarding _ the changing conditions of the Empire. In one, at least, of the Dominions Mr. | Jebb seemed to be getting a little ahead of the.clock, and it is probable that if he ,could visit New Zealand again he would be' disappointed to find how little progress the national spirit has* made during twenty, eventful years towards that aggressive , independence which he regards as inevitable and perhaps admirable. The development of the Imperial Conference and the establishment of the League of Nations have been two of the great events of tho_se years, and in-the relation between ) the two Mr. Jebb^has now found the material for an interesting. and stimulating study. The text of the ai-ticle which Mr. Jebb has contributed to the February number of " The Empire Review," and which was summarised in our London- letter on Saturday, is taken from the following reference toUhe League of Nations in the report of the last Imperial Conference : , There was.a full"accord that the League should be given the unabated support of all the British members of the League as a valuable instrument o.f international peace and the sole available organ for the harmonious regulation of many international affairs. The number of those who can have found any ground for cavil in this declaration must be very few. Even those who are least sanguine of the complete success of the League and most fully alive to the danger that -is threatened by the exaggerated claims often made on its behalf are glad to see it given a fair trial, and see no other "available organ for the regulation of many international, affairs." • The attitude of the Conference towards the League has, therefore, .excited no serious dissent, but received a general, though not very enthusiastic, ap^ proval. But Mr. Jebb,;. who is always original, first attaches to the resolution of the Conference a much greater weight than it deserves, and then expresses his deep regret that the Empire should be tangled up with so mischievous an institution as the League of Nations.; '. ' The obvious weakness 'of the League of Nations is commonly attributed by its partisans, at any rate in large measure, to the abstention of the United States, but they urge that in spite of this disappointment the .best must be made of a ,bad job. To Mr. Jebb, on the other hand, " the manifest instinct of the United States and the British Empire to work in conjunction for world-peace," and the repugnance of the United States to entanglement in the affairs of Europe, appear to justify the opposite conclusion. Instead of endeavouring to overcome that repugnance, the Empire should, he considers, quit the League and join the United States in an uncovenanted co-operation outside of it. He accordingly calls upon both the partisans and the critics of the League to revise their ideas. In particular, says Mr. Jebb, this appeal may be made to the younger Britannic nations, which have always been among the most ardent supporters of the League. Their enthusiasm springs irom a fine idealism, which, whether misdirected or not, is surely one of the most encouraging .facts for a world depressed by baffled hopes. We should be. sorry to deprive a despondent world of any crumb of comfort that may make its outlook Jess forlorn, but duty compels us to point out that these hopes which are based upon the devotion of the Dominions to the League of Nations have no foundation in fact. If Mr. Jebb's article had been written, as his first book was written, with his eye upon ihe object, so to spe.^k, and after a first-hand 'study of the facts, the inaccuracy of his present diagnosis would not have been as conspicuous as was the accuracy of his previous diagnosis. " A fine idealism" has very little to do with the attitude of the Dominions towards the League of Nations, and in our haste we had almost said that there is no enthusiasm at all. To be quite accurate, one must concede that the League of Nations has filled the' representatives of some of the Dominions with a genuine enthusiasm through the idea that membership oi. the League has greatly increased the Dominions' power and importance and made full-blown nations of them. But though this egotistical enthusiasm may add a hMa tw thq Ktiiefcy of utHi».)B».!i it is not of the kind to which Mr.'

Jebb refers, nor is there any solid comfort in it- for a distracted world. How much is there in troops or ships or money behind the support given by, say, Canada o;' South Africa to the resolution of the Conference on the League of Nations? The fact is that Mr. Jebb, mistaking the Imperial Conference for a really responsiblebody, takes its resolutions a good deal too seriously. Another mistake is that, while he himself quite pioperly treats the obligations of tne League's Covenant as a veryserious matter, he does not see that the Dominions are not taking them at their face value.