The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1926. THE SIXTH ASSEMBLY OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 11011, 26 January 1926, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1926. THE SIXTH ASSEMBLY OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

The Assembly, of the League of Nations, which met last September in Geneva, was engaged mainly with routine business. Nothing very sensational or very spectacular falls to be recorded in its proceedings, which have now come to hard. This does not mean that the meeting, at which forty-nine of the fifty-live States members were represented, was in any way an unimportant one. Still less does it signify that the League is showing any sign of losing its place as the supreme organ of international consultation and co-operation. The very opposite is the cose. The League grows in efficiency and its beneficent activities increase year by year: one might almost say day by day. The very fact that no crisis occurred indicates that the great organisation is working smoothly, and a cursory review of its work is sufficient to make clear the immeasurable value of its achievements accomplished and in progress. The personnel of the Sixth Assembly is worthy of study. No longer do the Great Powers content themselves with sending subordinate officials to represent them. Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries are their delegates. Great Britain Gent Sir A. Chamberlain, Lord Cecil, Sir George Graham (Ambassador at Brussels), the Duchess of Athol, Mr A. M. Samuel, and Sir Cecil Hurst—a very impressive group. M. Painleve, M. Briand, M. Paul-Boncour and others represented France. Apart from Spain and Italy, every European State sent either its Prime Minister or its Foreign Secretary, or both. This shows the growing importance of the League in the eyes of the various Governments, and is a striking witness to tlie success of the League as a great international institution. The first dozen sessions of the Assembly or so, are taken up with the debate of the report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Council and the Commissions during the year. This is the opportunity for the discussion of any matter whatsoever that comes within the League’s purview. It corresponds to the debate on the Address-in-Reply in our Parliaments. On this occasion, the subject which practically engrossed the attention of all the speakers was the fate of the Geneva Protocol. When Britain refused her adherence to that notable effort for the securing of the pence of the world, most of us thought that its fate was sealed. But the world will not have it so. The Dutch delegate voiced tlie conviction of many other speakers when he said: “The Protocol is not dead : it is most certainly not buried ; it only slumbers.” The feeling was general that, if we may not have the Protocol at once, we shall reach it ultimately, or something equivalent to it, by way of such regional pacts as were subsequently initialled at Locarno. All those discussions about pacts and protocols are affecting the minds of tlie nations. They have arisen out of the changing attitude of the nations towards war, and they are reacting on that attiude and accelerating the change. Lord Cecil, in his speech at the end of the Assembly, ilgid' stress on the value of the declaration, once more linanimously adopted, that war of aggression should be regarded as an international crime, since, as he observed, it was not so long since war had been regarded as essentially a national right. The man in the street is apt to clamour impatiently for disarmament, and to wonder what the League is about that so desirable an end should not he reached at once. We are admittedly a long way from disarmament; hut we are travelling in the right direction. Progress must of necessity he painfully slow. It is a tremendously complicated and difficult question. Before disarmament there must be security, and you cannot transform the condition and temper of the nations in a decade. Someday h great Disarmament Conference will he convened. Such a conference requires much preliminary preparation. Facts have to be got at and' all the aspects of the problem explored and defined ■"file Assembly determined to lose no more time in getting to work on tlie’ preliminaries, so that when circumstances eventually permit of the conference being held, as much as possible of the work of preparation shall have been done. The following is the resolution.adopted : “The Assembly. . . requestsf’tllo Council to make a. preparatory study with a view to a Conference oh the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, in order that as soon tas satisfactory conditions have been assured from the point of view of general security .... the said conference may be convened and a general reduction and limitation of armaments may be realised.” Meanwhile the hands of the League are full of good works. The financial rehabilitation of Austria and of Hungary proceeds most satisfactorily. By next Assembly, Austria will be on her own feet again and independent like of Lelague help and control. Hungary reported that her last budget, instead of showing a deficit of a hundred million crowns as was anticipated, showed a surplus of sixty-three million. In Greece, 760,000 refugees have been settled on the land or in cities through the efforts of the League’s Commission, and the work goes on. Danzig ("uid Esthonia have received welcome assistance and advice, and steps have been taken towards settling some thousands of homeless Armenians in the Republic of Erivan. The work of such bodies as the League’s Economic and Fir (uncial Committees and tlie Committee on Communications and Transit, concerns business life and is important to business men. By them it is increasing!}' appreciated, as is shown by the growing association between the International Chambers of Commerce and the League’s technical organisation Mr Walter Leaf, the Chairman of the International Chambers, who •visited 'Geneva during the -Assembly, has written in terms of the highest praise of everything he saw there connected with 'the G work in which the Chambers of Commerce are ' mainly interested. Space will not ' permit more than the mention of come - of the many other activities of the

League Tlie Assembly expressed warm satisfaction with the general working of the Mandate system and furthered the prospect of finally abolishing slavery and the slave tjjade throughout the world. AAork in connection with'the control of opium and in the interests of women and cniidren goes on without abatement. i lie preservation and promotion ol health affords a most popular and successful sphere of operations. Measures to prevent the spread of plague and cholera have been taken. loanee has applied for and received assistance in combating malaria. Jugo-Shma, ,Spain, Turkey, Persia find Albama have all been helped by the League s Commission to solve problems of national hygiene. The care of minorities in countries v.there such exist vas also dealt with. Great Britain and France pointed out that their countries contained no minorities at Vn> while the Chinese delegate showed himself not devoid of the sense ol humor bv observing that m his curetry, at present, it was a majority which needed protection against a minority. Not the least beneficent of the aims which the League cherishes is tbat-of co-ordinating the work of scientific research and promotoig intellectual co-operation .urjugnout the world. Those many act*vimes—subordinate perhaps to the great object of securing the peace of loe wot id —are by no means unimportant, and play their part in furtherance of that great end. For they train the different peoples of the earth to think •rte.rnatiomlly, to realise their dependence upon one another, and to work v, ith each other towards the achievement of many desirable results. And tee exoerience gained in those si'hsidiaiy works tends to mutual knowledge and confidence, and to the dispelling of suspicions and fears which are lacgrlv the poisonous fruits of ignorance. And wh»?t does it all cost? The League's budget for the current year is 6 >20,000, of which Great Britain’s share is £103,000. On a single battlesnin, built as an insurance of national security, British taxpayers are content to pay £7,000,000 in capital expenditure and £450,000 in annual upkeep. Beside that, the annual oontr : hnt;on to the League’s funds-—another foim of insurance of the national security—can hardly cause anguish to the most impassioned economist who ever breathed.