LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 18729, 3 September 1924, Page 6

LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

The fifth Assembly of the League of Nations opens at an auspicious moment in Geneva, following the ratification of the Pact of London made between the Allies and Germany, and the League has reason to bo satisfied with its own achievements of the year. Complacency, however, was not the note of its acting president’s address. It was pointed out by M. Hymans that there was one problem which neither the Pact nor the League had solved. They had not given security to Europe against future wars. Some measure of security is given by the provisions of the League’s Covenant, under which the nations that are affiliated to it pledge themselves not to attempt to settle differences at the sword’s point before they have been submitted to arbitration; but a bad defect is obvious in that provision while Germany and Russia are not members of the League. Frequent hopes have been expressed that, at this Assembly meeting, Germany will apply for membership and be admitted. Dangers to peace will always continue, however, while Europe remains a powder magaaino as it is at present, and it is to be expected that a chief subject for consideration at this Assembly meeting will be how an extension of disarmament may be achieved. The idea of a Treaty of Mutual Assistance, of which Lord Cecil is one of the strongest advocates, has been broached with that intent, but the idea has not commended itself to the British Government. There appears little prospect of that plan being approved by the Assembly, or of its having any practical value if it were approved.

Lord Cecil has committed himself to tho opinion that, if the League does not succeed in putting into force some scheme for disarmament, whether by this treaty or another, and that soon, it will have failed to justify its existence. "But that statement was am eia'ggeration born of excessive zeaL Its Covenant declares the prime objects of the League to be “ to promote international cfc-operjttion and to achieve international peace and security.” If it has not done all that could be wished yet to attain the second object, its existence already has been more than justified by the success it has had with the first; and success in the first object stands at least for progress in the direction of the second. The more the nations grow used to working together, the less they will be likely to fight each other. International cooperation has been carried further through the League than it ever went before. And its work is cheap. The Upper Silesian question was settled by the League after the country had hem in military occupation during many months and the Supreme Council bad failed to reach an agreement on it. The whole cost of a permanent settlement enabling all Allied