WORK OF THE LEAGUE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 32, 7 February 1935, Page 6

WORK OF THE LEAGUE

SETTLING DISPUTES

LECTURE BY OFFICIAL

Aspects of the work of the League of Nations, and its place* in world affairs we're placed before members of the Wellington branch of the League of Nations Union on Tuesday evening by Mr. J. V. Wilson. Mr. Wilspn, who is a New Zealander, is chief of the central section of the League Secretariat. He is at' present on furlough.

Mr. P. J. O'Regan presided. ' Mr. Wilson said that he assumed his I audience to be familiar with the general principles on which the League I was based, and to know something of its achievements. • Of the latter a' very fair notion could be obtained by 1 careful reading, of , the newspapers, which in New Zealand gave a very fair ampunt of space to foreign news, /including news from the seat of the jLeague. For; any who might wish to study any particular activity of the League in detail the official publications were available. His own purpose was. to attempt to give some impression of the position of the League at the present stage of its development, especially as viewed from Geneva.'

There was" no denying the formidable* growth in recent years of nationalistic policies, both in the political and in the economic field inimical to the development of that international co-operation,, which the League was founded/to .promote. Geneva was, in fact often :the first to feel the effect of such policies. But there they were judged, though' not less gravely, at any rate less despairingly than at a distance. ,Thls was no doubt partly due to the natural bent of the human mind to be; hopeful about its own concerns, but it was also due to the fact that at" Geneva one was inevitably more conscious than elsewhere both of the deep-rootedness and of the requperative powers of the League. Delegates and officials employed in the various and undoubtedly useful business of: the League;: which was largely ■unreported. because it was so unsensational, knew what an indispensable part the League now played in the conduct of international relations. Moreover, the League was always meeting crises, and had so far always survived them. It had even recovered to a great extent Xrom the last and worst, the withdrawal of Germany, and perhaps its prestige had never stood higher than at the last Council meeting, when' the Saar question and the Hungarian-Yugoslavian question were, so far as could be" foreseen,'successfully settled. - > UPS'AND DOWNS. As regards membership, important had to be made both on the credit and on the debit side. In the last two or three years the Argentine had resumed membership, and Mexico, Turkey, Ecuador, .Afghanistan, and the U.S.S.R. jhad .become members. The U.S.A. was now. closely associated With the League, 'and had formally adhered to the\ International Labour Organisation; Hete also there were ups and'downs, as the recent refusal <Jf,the Senate to enter the World Court showed.* The "withdrawals'of Japan and- Germany,' were serious blows, but'in spite of them, there was, nc need to be discouraged if the great body of Statfes,' and,, especially the various parts of the British Empire, continued Jo, profess and practise the rules of the Covenant. As an' organ of conciliation,. supplementing the efforts of national diplomacy, the League's usefulness should by now be manifest to anyone who paid the slightest attention to foreign affairs. "Among 'crises 'which had been successfully handled by the Council in the last two or three years should be mentioned the 'dispute between Great Britain and Persia in regard to the Anglo-Persian-Oil Company," in which immense financial interests were .involved; the dispute which arose between Columbia and Peru as a result of the occupation by Peru' of the territory of Leticia on the Upper Amazon; the problem of the Saar; and ,the recent very dangerous dispute between Hungary and Yugoslavia. It was interesting to note that in.two r of these cases—ColumbiaPeru and the' Saar—the League had, in addition to its ■ usual methods of investigation and mediation, made use —fortunately a preventive > and bloodless use—of the military- arm. MANCHURIA. In v other cases, namely , the Manchurian dispute and the' s 'Chaco War, the League's mediatory powers, though fully and perseverittgly employed, had not availed. In each case the, League had had recourse to a form of pressure. In the case of Manchuria it had established , a united-diplomatic i'front on the basis, of the non-recognition at Manchukuo. In| the case of the Chaco, it had prganised the embargo on the export of arms to vthe two belligerents, Bolivia and Paraguay. The action taken by' the League had ndt ,so far produced the intended effect, and it was a matter of opinion whether the members of the League had used the resources'of the Covenant as well as they might. . It was, however, unjust to accuse the League of inaction in these two most difficult cases. The way to meet jn the international field the disruptive tendencies of the present time was shown more , and more clearly to'be the full acceptance and application of the Covenant of the' League. However things might appear from afar, seen from, Geneva they left no doubt that= when the members of the League acted fully in accordance with its letter and spirit, it worked. The failures of the League could in every case, he believed, be attributed not to any defect in the Covenant but to - half-heartedness' in applying it. , '