WORLD ACHIEVEMENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 94, 21 March 1939, Page 9

WORLD ACHIEVEMENT

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Nothing is easier than laughing at the Iwague of Nations, unless it is proving its inefficiency, and the fact that so far it has proved incapable ol doing what everyone long years ago expected that it would do.

Criticism which is not constructive is always easy—and always cheap, those who would scrap the League lie<■au.se up to now they are disappointed with it show themselves, by that argument alone, to he blind as well as unimaginative. They also show themselves lo he misinformed or merely ignorant, lor an impartial judgment (once the facts are considered honestly) reevals the amazing fact that the League has more than vindicated its existence, and that it has accomplished more for the good of mankind in its short and difficult career than almost any other institution under the sun.

That it lias failed thus far to keep the peace, we admit. But the League is an achievement of the first importance. It is tlie world’s gesture towards peace, the world's imperfect expression of a glorious and .sublime hope—indeed a determination that one day (if not in your day) there shall he some body of this sort capable of settling international affairs in what is simply conimonsense and decent fashion. At the moment we should remind ourselves that if our ship is in a rough sea with rocks ahead, we shall he foolish to sink our raft on the pretext that it is not a motor-driven pinnace.

Let us number the League among the achievements of our time. —(L-)