The Evening Star SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1934. LEAGUE PROBLEMS.

Evening Star, Issue 21636, 3 February 1934, Page 12

The Evening Star SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1934. LEAGUE PROBLEMS.

A noteworthy clause in the British Government’s new Disarmament Plan is that which lays emphasis on the Government’s view that the return of Germany to the Disarmament Conference and to the League of Nations should be an essential condition of any agreement. It is at least a hopeful fact that the inclusion of this requirement has not prevented the Plan being given a very encouraging reception in' Germany. Herr Hitler has expressed his appreciation of the efforts of the British Government to improve international relations, stating that the memorandum is already receiving earnest consideration. The ostensible reason for Germany’s leaving the conference and the League was that she could not get all she wanted from their discussions. Now that she is offered more, there would be no loss of face involved in her saying that she is satisfied with the new prospect and returning to both bodies. It would be almost necessary for her to return to them if armaments are to be supervised by a permanent commission of the League, and the advantage to that body of including every leading nation that can be affiliated with it requires no pointing out. A different view has been expressed, but it has found very small support in British countries. When Mussolini suggested recently that Italy might get out if the small Powers wore to continue to have as much influence as they possess, Dr C. Delisle Burns, one of the intellectuals

of the Labour movement, in effect replied, in a letter to 1 The Times,’ that that might not be altogether an injury. After referring to the contrast between dictatorship and democracy in international affairs, he urged that the League was the natural outcome of the principles of government which have been developed in the nineteenth century in North-western Europe, America, and the British dominions. “ The League system is intelligible only on the assumption of the 1 democratic ’ tradition —that force is not to be used in a conflict of claims, even if consent of all parties cannot be obtained, and that free criticism of any authority reinforces the moral weight of that authority. Most of the States which have developed the League system during the past, twelve years have been ‘ democratic ’ in their professions, if not always in practice; and the League system is a first attempt to apply the jirinciples of the democratic tradition in international affairs for the elimination of war. Those principles imply the ‘ legal ’ equality of States—not the absurd idea that States should be equal in power, but the correct idea that in the adjustment of rights differences in power are irrelevant. . . . It may be better for the League to exclude from its membership all dictatorships. ... A great step forward could be made if the League balanced the loss of Japan, Germany, and, perhaps, also Italy, by a closer association with the United States. . . • The

moral authority of the League would be greatly enhanced when the principles upon which the system is based were more obviously accepted as the basis of its membership.” One answer to that contention was that if all the dictatorships, virtual as well as formal, in South America as well as Europe, were cut out of the League not many States might be left. Fortunately Mussolini has made it clear that he is quite willing to discuss alterations in the Constitution of the League from a position within that body, and no one has argued that its Constitution is necessarily so perfect that further consideration, of it must bo for ever superfluous. One criticism has been that, by the methods of procedure laid down by the Covenant, unnecessary difficulties are made for treaty revision. That objection seems to be sufficiently met by the fact that never in the history of the world have such important treaty revisions been carried into effect without war as those which have already modified the treaties of 1919. :