MODERN COMEDY

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 80, 5 April 1933, Page 7

MODERN COMEDY

PALACE OF PEACE DELAY AND MUDDLEWIENT A COSTLY BLUNDEE

Some three years must elapse before the League of Nations can take up its new quarters in the Pare Ariana. Even if the great palace is completed in eighteen months —and that is a matter for speculation —it will take a further eighteen months before the League is financially sound enough to pay for the extra charges and staff required to run a home costing £1,500,000, writes Norman.Hillson in the London "Daily Telegraph." No doubt the buildings could have been completed six months ago if there had not been live years of muddle and confused thinking. Money lias been wasted while committees sat for weeks on end and decided nothing. The story of tho new palace of the nations • makes dismal reading. The foundation stone was laid in the unremembered ljing ago. Then came a lengthy delay, and the late M., Briand, of the caustic tongue, suggested that the original foundation stone should be given a little brother to keep it company. For months the foundation stone was practically all there was of the new palace. Now, by painful process of time, a skeleton-has arisen in the Paris Ariana. You can see the gaunt white walls rising through the mist from 'a miasma of mud, half-felled trees, and the flotsam and jetsam which invariably accompany construction on damp ground. There are holes for windows in. the part which one day will - house the Secretariat. But there arc no windowframes. To reach the main building you have to traverse a miniature bog. No road leads to this wilderness —only a track. "Vhen the building is finally ready it will be kilometres from the centre of the city in a, spot of almost complete isolation. > I have just made a long tour through the- once beautiful park. It was a perilous adventure. So much, remains to be done. Sometimes one feels that the official estimate of three years is not generous enough. It may be -even five. REDUCED INCOME. v I am able to disclose certain facts concerning the sorry story of the new palace. For one thing the League's income.has declined 25 per cent, in the last year or two on account of the inability or unwillingness of certain Powers to pay their dues. Thus the entire League is stifled by an economy campaign which has hit the actual staff hard and the building plans even- harder. Certain countries like Mexico have honestly:" announced their withdrawal from the League i-ather than default in their obligations. But such things are rare in Geneva. Thus, with an income reduced by a quarter, and with the advance of prices in this fantastically expensive country, work is proceeding very slowly. y , But that is the least serious aspect. From the beginning it was the subject of delay, jealousy, and mismanagement. Originally it was decided to build it on tho lake side in a beautiful bijou park, called, the Pare Perle dv Lac. Designs were requested from tho architects of the world, and architects came from all parts of the world to make plans for this monument to international endeavour. . It was then discovered that the site of the Pare was not big enough, and bo a site had to bo sought elsewhere. Eventually, by negotiating with the city of Geneva, an exchange was made whereby the Pare Ariana was given in place of the Pare Perle dv Lac, It happens that the Pare Ariana is on high ground above a railway line and far removed from the lake. That did not deter the authorities to any extent They decided to use the same plans. Contracts were given out, sixteen huge cranes were erected, and enough concrete was poured into the ground to make foundations for -a Tower of Babel on the Biblical and not ordinary Geneva scale. Then two discoveries were made. WATER UNDER THE SITE. One was that there was water beneath the site. The other was that the League had not made up its mind which of the nine plans originally approved was to be the final plan. In regard to the first problem, exactly five times the estimated amount of money was used to drain away the water and secure a dry foundation. In regard to the second problem the authorities decided to give each of the nine architects who had submitted designs first prizes, and then appoint a committee of five international architects to roll all nine plans into one. These architects have wrangled for years in making their composite plan. And meanwhile their expenses-•have soared. It is stated that one of the original architects spent 45,000 Swiss francs on travelling expenses from Paris to Geneva. But whether this is so or not, at. least 800,000 gold Swiss francs have been expended on architectural expenses and office rents, altogether apart from professional fees. It may sound like a story out of the Arabian Nights, but it is a fact that the League and the architects debated for nine months on one occasion whether a certain debating hall should be square oblong, i-ound, or oval.

And thus the greatest international institution in the world must continue to exist cramped within tli-e walls of an ancient Jiotel and two or three apartment houses linked to it by a wooden corridor. " • . " '