The Evening Star MONDAY, JANUARY 15, 1934. LEAGUE PROBLEMS.

Evening Star, Issue 21619, 15 January 1934, Page 6

The Evening Star MONDAY, JANUARY 15, 1934. LEAGUE PROBLEMS.

The Council of the League of Nations will have its hands full at the session which begins - to-day. A cabled summary which has been given of the agenda states that it will include a further examination of the BoliviaParaguay situation, the Danzig question, and slavery. The report of the committee on the future of the Assyrian community in Iraq will also' be considered, and at a later stage of the proceedings the question of preparatory measures for the Saar plebiscite will probably be under discussion. The variety and importance of these matters. affecting three continents, to be dealt with at a single series of meetings must impress even the most lukewarm believer in the League’s activities. If no international authority existed for the safe handling of such problems it would be a first necessity to constitute it. The League may fail to find ideal solutions of any of the

problems, and a long time may be required to get its recommendations accepted, but solutions that will preserve peace for a much-troubled world are far more likely to be found than if the discussion of each was left to the directly interested and contending parties.

An early conclusion of the South American war looks less hopeful than it did a few weeks ago. Then the report of a disastrous defeat suffered by the Bolivians, in which more than 700 officers and 10,000 troops and large quantities of war material were captured, seemed to bring peace in sight. The movement seemed opportune tor the League’s Commission which was being sent to South America to begin its work. But the Paraguayans, flushed with their triumph, have refused to extend the armistice of eighteen days by which that encounter was followed, and it looks as if more blood must be shed in a conflict which has lasted now well over a year. The Danzig question has made anxieties for Europe ever since the Free City, with its accompaniment of a Polish Corridor to the sea, was established, but it is something that the Nazis who now rule the Danzig Parliament have refrained from doing anything to make it worse. The chief headquarters of slavery at the present time, from which its ramifications extend into two continents, is Abyssinia, ■ whose enlightened Emperor seems to be doing his best to abolish the scourge.. But the difficulties of the task, while the Emperor’s peace in frontier regions has to be maintained •‘by garrisons who are neither paid nor disciplined, but “ live on the country, ’ and who see only virtues in an age-long custom, can hardly be exaggerated; and Lord Noel-Buxton has pleaded that the Emperor will best be aided by all the publicity that can be given to the subject, alike by the League of Nations and by the British Foreign Office. It seems a slender hope that the troubles of the Assyrian minority in Iraq can be healed by inducing 20,000 of them—roughly, half their number—to settle in Brazil. Concessions in Brazil and other South American States, to induce them to become immigrants, have been offered to Japanese, but few of them have been able to resign themselves to such a long hegira. The most important question that is expected to come before the League’s Council is that of the Saar. Herr Hitler’s, hint to France, given some weeks ago, that it might be possible to use the Saar Basin to clear up the disarmament mess was not slow in being taken up by the British Government. The statement was that “ when the Saar territory is returned to Germany there is nothing to put Germany in apposition to France.” Under the Treaty of Versailles the Saar Basin was transferred to the control of the League of Nations for a period of fifteen years, after which a plebiscite was to be held to find out whether the inhabitants want union with Germany or France, or would prefer to remain under tho League. In the event of their choosing to unite with Germany, which there appears to be small doubt that they will do, the latter country would be obliged to repurchase the Saar coal mines which the treaty gave to France. The fifteen years’ term expires early next year, but it is understood that Germany is anxious .to have the plebiscite expedited and an equitable agreement made as to the mines.’ Hopes have been felt in Britain that Germany will be prepared to make concessions on the disarmament issue in return for 'the French concessions on these points. Herein may be fpund a possibility i.f ending not only the Saar complexity; but the deadlock of a greater issue which threatens otherwise to be unyielding in its obstinacy.