HOW DOMINION MAY GET COUNCIL SEAT

Manawatu Times, Volume LII, Issue 3615, 16 September 1927, Page 7

HOW DOMINION MAY GET COUNCIL SEAT

Preferential Voting On Australian Model AMERICAN BLOCK COULD BE OVERCOME [By Electric Cable-Copyright,] fAust. and IS.Z. Cable Association.] {Received Thursday, 7.50 p.m.) GENEVA, Sept. 15. M. Hambio, the Norwegian delegate, made an interesting suggestion' to the Sixth Commission— ■ that a single transferable vote equivalent to tho Australian preferential vote should he used in Council elections. Students of the League consider this method is possible and is tho only chance of the Dominions obtaining a scat. At present the solid block of fourteen Cential and Southern Americans will vote IhStly for their own candidature and then vote again to fill the remaining vacancies. They will also be susceptible to lobbying on behalf of small European Powers. Their vote will be decisive. A Dominion cannot be elected without at least part of the American votes. While South Africa and Canada supported tho suggestion, Mr. Hilton-Young opposed it on the grounds that the present method of election ought to be further tried. A sub-committee has been appointed to consider tho matter. MEANS OF SECURITY WITHOUT INVOLVING ALL PROTOCOL CONTROVERSIES. NANSEN’S ARGUMENT. (Received Thursday, 7 p.m.) -GENEVA, Sept. 14. The explorer, Fridtjof Nansen, made a notable contribution to the disarmament debate when the Third Commission was tabling the proposed optional arbitration treaty under which signatures in addition to their obligations under the Covenant of the League undertake to accept the decisions of the Hague Court for a legal question and a committee of arbitrators for other questions, thus covering the whole field of international differences which ordinary diplomacy or the League Council arc unable to settle. Nansen argued that the proposed obligation would make a State voluntarily undertake to provide means of security without involving all the controversies concerning the Protocol. Armaments of tho world wore at present costing £760,000,000 annually. PROTOCOL OBLIGATIONS MISUNDERSTOOD, THINKS ARTHUR HENDERSON. (Received Thursday, 7 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 14. Tho “ Daily Herald ” states that widespread interest has been manifested in Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s proposal for a special Imperial Conference to discuss tho Empire’s obligations under the Protocol. Mr. Arthur Henderson, the Labour M.P. for Burnley, says the Protocol is not tho final tvord in the regulation of international relations. But there has been much misunderstanding. Tho proposals (Tid not receive the dispassionate consideration to which they were entitled owing to tho conditions in October, 1924. He approves of a special Imperial Conference. Lord Parmoor says that full publication of correspondence with the Dominions on tho Protocol is essential.