The New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 1922. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11223, 31 May 1922, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 1922. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Oversea people have forgotten the League of Nations, and the rest of the world seem to be in a conspiracy not to remember it, yet no one can forget the wonder of its introduction, introduced by the impassioned periods of the most powerful Republican ruler ;in the world, the League of Nations was very widely accepted as the ruling executive of the regime of the New Earth about to be established. While the world was in this frame of mind, the Treaty of Versailles came into being, with consequential establish rr.ent of the League of Nations. But the world had by that time ceased to be unanimously behind the League. Cu the contrary, a large portion of tlio world began to regard that body tilth marked disfavour. Hostile oi itiru denounced the League as a <1 earn, a thing without power to en f rrce its decrees; as a body too representative of varying interests to be able to bring stability out of the existing economic chaos; and some went so far as to Warn their countrymen that the League, if not a device for breaking np the British Empire, would infallibly produce that effect. The League marched on its way, nevertheless, and everywhere men of goodwill took up its cause. The League continued to march on its appointed way, but the world looked ou coldly, and the statesmen of the world turned their backs deliberately on the League. Their arrangements for the New Earth had broken down. They had turned to the League for help, as for the questions of Silesia, Poland, navigation of tho Danube, and others. But their action showed a practical lack of confidence very notable. They continued the Supreme Council—a war authority—as the main diplomatic arbiter of the distracted world, and under itG shadow held thirteen conferences, the last of them at Genoa, all resulting in words, all beginning with hopes expressed with an inspiration almost Biblical, and all ending, after bickerings sometimes concealed and sometimes distorted for publication, in postponement. Such has been the Genoa Conference. It is time someone asked where is tho League of Nations? That question was answered yesterday at the Rotary Club’s luncheon by Professor Pringle, of the Otago University, and very well answered. As one who hae closely followed the work of the League of Nations, the Professor had no difficulty in showing that the League has justified its existence, both by what it has done in the past, and by demonstration of its capacity to do in the future. To understand this fully, it is necessary first- to realise in what way the League can clo good—to avoid war, and to adjust all the peace interests of nations which clash with one another. To avoid war is impossible so long as nations discuss their differences armed to the teeth, manoeuvring for position to get in the first blow in ease of need. A worse consequence of this armed condition is its enormous cost. The war cost the world, in fighting cost alone, between forty and fifty thousand millions sterling—we are not quoting Professor Pringle—and though that prodigious expenditure has paralysed all the nations and ruined some, there is still wild talk of more war. It is really talk of the possible total extinction of human civilisation, this beginning with the ruinous cost of armaments and reaching destruction and devastation worse than that for which Supreme Councils, League of Nations, politicians and “business” prophets are unable, singly or collectively, to offer even a palliation. The League of Nations being all nations but two—Germany and Russia—is in a position to consider disarmament effectively. Tho Professor did not say so, but it is true that the success of the Washington Conference has encouraged the belief that what a part of the world did at Washington for tnawal disarmament, the whole may as readily do for disarmament, both of the military and naval kirn}.

The League can settle economic dif. ferences so long as the world abides by reasonable settlement. There is, in fact, no authority hotter qualified, for it is the world itself; it knows every side of the world, every thought, every desire, every interest of the world. If it is able to disarm, it will have no difficulty in persuading compromise to the disarmed. As to cases, take the worst case, the chief cause of the economic breakdown of Central Europe. Tho Versailles Treaty, tho Professor said, tore asunder the States forming tho old Austrian Empire, broke the old trade tunnels, and ruined all tho

great centres of commerce—for example, the once rich city of Vienna—to the irretrievable ruin of the country. It is true, of course, that tho Treaty of Versailles did this, but had there been no treaty the thing would have happened all the same. The war smashed the Austrian Empire, and the Versailles Treaty really only recorded the fact that the component nations had flown asunder. They, not the treaty, set up tariff harriers whereby the course of trade is stopped. To restore the course of getting the harriers down is not beyond the power of the League of Nations, any more than it is beyond the power of humanity, for the League is very nearly all humanity ; indeed, in relation to these States at commercial war, it is quite all humanity. If this is done, much of the evil in Central Europe will disappear. The League of Nations is the hope here, both for economic stability and for disarmament. It has more than theory or opportunity to justify its claim. The close of the last session of the League at Geneva, on October sth last, was followed by the publication of a list of activities. The League had been two years m existence, hut it can only be said to have had one year’s uninterrupted work. During that time it had prevented four wars, not three only, as Professor Pringle said —war over the Finland question of islands, war betweeh Germany and Poland over the Silesian participation, war over the Polish-Lithuanian frontier, and war between Jugo-Slovakia and Italy over the Albanian question. These are four important services. A fifth is the establishment of the International Court of Justice, a service which goes nearly as far towards establishing the goodwill necessary for permanent peace as a general disarmament by agreement. The Silesian question, we must bear in mind, is a very awkward economical problem, and, therefore, the fact that the settlement has so far given satisfaction is a good augury for the League as a sojver of economic problems on just lines, even in the midst of violent contention by no means bloodless. The League • hae helped materially in the rehabilitation of Austria, and is actually thus on the road to the solution of the Central European problem. The League has kept the plague of typhus out of Europe, and has already regulated the traffic in opium and barred effectively the white slavery abomination. On the whole, the League has done out of sight more than the Supreme Council and the whole of the thirteen conferences. Its friends have rallied round it with a union, known as the League of Nations’ Union. The appeal of Professor Pringle is for the formation of a Wellington-branch. It is the most practical thing for the permanence of peace mooted since the war.