GENEVA POLICY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23866, 21 July 1939, Page 7

GENEVA POLICY

MR JORDAN’S ACTIVITIES CONTINUANCE DESIRED AN ATTACK ON DIPLOMATS (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, July 20. “ I hope that the Government will instruct the New Zealand High Commissioner in London (Mr W J. Jordan) to persist in the attitude he has always taken in the League of Nations,” said Mr J. Thoi (Govt., Thames) during the Ad-dress-in-Reply debate in the House of Representatives to-day. Mr Thorn replied to criticism of Mr lordan’s activities at Geneva made by Mr F W. Doidge (Opposition. Tauranga). “ I hope that the Government will tell Mr Jordan always to speak with frankness and honesty and 5 n plain language that ordinary people can understand, and that it will instruct him to avoid in all circumstances the obscurity, the diplomatic finessing, the dishonesty and the humbug with which diplomats have brought the world to its present situation,” Mr Thorn added He paid a tribute to Mr Jordan and said that he was as highly respected in Geneva as he was in London When he expressed his views there he was expressing the views of millions of people in Britain tens of millions on the Continent and the majority of the people of New Zealand. Mr Thorn asked whethei the socalled diplomats who had had long training were after all so expert. He criticised the Treaty of Versailles and suggested that diplomatic bungling had been responsible for the chaotic state of affairs to-day both in Europe and in the East.