Russia and the League

Inangahua Times, 6 November 1934, Page 4

Russia and the League

Tear after year Russia showed nothing but hatred and contempt for the League and spared no effort tn bring discredit upon it. But she now desires admission. Why ? asks the Manchester Guardian. Principally because there is an aeuta danger of war in the Far East and because the League is not so contemptible and helpless as she made it out to be. Japan continues' to hesitate between peace and war. To attack Russia is one thing, to attack her when she has become a member of the League is another—not much more dangerous, perhaps, in a strategic sense, but much more awkward morally, and in a political sense perhaps very dangerous. It is, therefore, by no means inconceivable that the election of Russia to permanent membership of the Council will avert war in the Far East.

* That Germany does not want her in the League is clear, but Germany has ceased to count for much in Geneva. The present German-Polish understanding would seem to go farther than appears on the surface, and it is a matter of relative unimportance whether there is a secret treaty ’or not. ‘ In itself such an understanding between two Powers that for years abandoned themselves to extreme mutual hostility would be all te the pood. But there is reason to fear that Germany and Poland have trot made peace merely for the sake of peace, hut for the furtherance of political adventure. There are also reports that they are coming —if they have not already come — to an understanding with Japan, and the accompaniment of a conflict in Eastern Asia might be disturbance in Eastern Europe. * There is bo doubt as to the enormous discontent and distress in Russia. In Tokio, as in Berlin a»d Warsaw, there is much speculation about a possible collapse of the Russian Dictatorship under the first shock of such a conflict, or at least about the weakening of central authority in Russia, that resistance not merely to an evading force (which might not exist), but to bands armed by outside Powers might be paralysed.

'lt is possible that speculations of this kind are based an underestimate of the strength and solidarity of the Soviet Union. But that thev are being made is beyond a doubt.

* Russia should have bad a permanent seat on the League Couucil long ago. That her arrival at Geneva is so belated is principally her own fault. But it has now become more necessary than ever. The aggression with which she is menaced will become mere diftcult, and, therefore, less likely, if she is a member of the League. ‘ Also, by seeking admission to the League, Russia is paying it a tremendous tribats. The more the League is weakened by secessions and the more its influence languishes through its failures, the more has every efforts to be made to bring reinforcements to its aid, and of these the greatest there could be s’ the moment is the adhesion -of Russia. ,