THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 ,1924. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19271, 8 September 1924, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 ,1924. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

The Fifth Assembly of the League of Nations has opened with an important discussion very closely related to the great primary object for the furtherance of which the League was brought into existence. Mr Ramsay MacDonald had the honour of leading off in a speech which has attracted a good deal of attention and has inspired considerable comment. The circumstances seem again to illustrate the influence that is wielded by Great Britain in the deliberations at Geneva. It cannot be said that the summarised version of a speech, the delivery of which, we are told, occupied an hour, is a very satisfactory basis for an entirely adequate appreciation of either the significance or the weight of the arguments developed by Mr Ramsay MacDonald. He expressed his sense of the “tremendous importance” of the League of Nations, but that does not mean that he necessarily regards favourably all proposals under discussion by the League with a view to the promotion of peace and security. The ..Pact of Mutual Assistance,' evolved at Geneva after much labour, has been rejected by the British Government. • Mr MacDonald has given his reasons for the rejection, and these naturally introduced his own views of the lines upon which the League should proceed if it is to achieve success as an international mediator. His idea is to secure the strengthening of the League in the part of an international arbiter. He has had the better opportunity for an effective enunciation of his views in the circumstance that for the first time a meeting of the Council of Allied Premiers, of which by rotation he is chairman, is being held simultaneously with the Assembly of the League, and in a sense is merged with it. If his plans have been correctly interpreted, one of the purposes of his concentration upon the problem of the League has been to discover practical means to supply it with the executive power and physical force which it lacks at present. Presumably his speech at Geneva is to be accepted as an index to the results of inquiry along these lines —results which in some quarters are evidently not regarded as particularly satisfactory. In the course of an interview en route for Geneva Mr MacDonald expressed himself as emphatically opposed to the use of force in giving effect to the decisions of the League. To employ force, he affirmed, would only destroy the power of the League. His conception, as unfolded to the Assembly, is the development and elaboration of an effective system of arbitration, with particular regard to a solution of the disarmament problem. Mr Ramsay MacDonald’s conclusion is evidently that the best hope for the attainment of the objective that is so desirable, yet so elusive—that of international security—lies in the direction of disarmament. Had M. Poincare been still in power it is probable' that his voice would have been raised in strong dissent at Geneva to' the British Prime Minister’s views. The utterances of M. Herriot indicate, however, that he is quite in sympathy with the general principles for which Mr MacDonald is endeavouring to secure acceptance, and it is to be noted not only that M. Tbeunis has expressed a similar attitude on behalf of Belgium, but also that the Italian opinion is likewise favourable. No doubt there is considerable significance in this general agreement in placing arbitration, with disarmament, in the forefront as a basis for the League’s operations. The test lies, of course, in the transition from the ideal to the practical, from the general to the particular. In his strong advocacy of arbitration Mr MacDonald is presumably only endeavouring to concentrate the efforts of the League more directly upon a method of, procedure that is always much to be reckoned with as part of its machinery. The League exists for the purpose of examining disputes between nations with the object of their adjust-

ment, if possible, on a peaceful basis. In urging the necessity of placing its functions as an international arbiter on a really effective footing Mr MacDonald is not making any proposal, therefore, that is contrary to the objects of the League, but is counselling the more strict adoption of a course for the fulfilment of which the League exists. After the experience of the Great War and its aftermath it is inconceivable that any body of statesmen would fail to exert themselves to their utmost to avert the recurrence of war. ’ The discussion at Geneva of the means to the attainment of that essential objective will be followed with an interest not entirely devoid of hope respecting the results.