LEAGUE ASSEMBLY

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 75, 26 September 1933, Page 7

LEAGUE ASSEMBLY

OPENING AT GENEVA

THE NEW PEIESIDENT

EXAMPLE OF SOUfTH AFRICA

WAR AND WORLD OUTLOOK

(Britlsh Official Wireless.) (Received September 26, 11 a.m.) RUGBY, September 25. The fourteenth assembly of the League Assembly opened at Geneva this morning under the Presidency of the Norwegian Premier (Herr Ludwig Mowinckel). In the. opening session of the League Assembly the retiring President (Herr Mowinckel) reviewed the world outlook, and expressed a keen regret that since the Great War little progress had been made towards securing a better understanding between peoples. On the contrary, fear of the possibility of war, which it had been hoped the League would render inconceivable, was ever hanging as a constant menace over the future of the nations. It was natural, but wholly unfair to blame the League, and it was the primary duty of League members to strengthen the credit of the League in the eyes of the world; . (

Referring to the World Economic Conference and the Disarmament Conference, he said that if the great nations -, came to such conferences with views that were difficult to reconcile, it might he said in advance that a favourable result couid not be reached, even if all the other powers were agreed. He expressed hope in the Four-Power Pact as an instrument of appeasing FrancoGerman differences, and possibly bringing understanding, even friendship, in torn and divided Europe, and he also referred with satisfaction to the successful League efforts in securing peace in South American disputes.

Mr. Te Water, who *is the South African High Commissioner in London, was elected President of the League of Nations Assembly for the coming year by 53 votes to 30.

In a brief speech he said that South Africa had known war and experienced all its bitterness, but in latter days peace had obliterated the past, and he offered her example to some of the greater nations. "I shall bring to my task the valuable experience of the young nations that comprise the British Commonwealth of Nations. There are no nations more determined to keep the peace than that group."