THE GENEVA PARLIAMENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3743, 8 December 1925, Page 56

THE GENEVA PARLIAMENT.

INTERNATIONAL OPINIONS. POINTS PROM SPEECHES. MFFPERENCE& IN MENTALITY. (From Oub Own Correspondent.) LONDON, October 7. M. Paul Painleve, delegate of France, in his opening address to the Assembly of the League of Nations at Geneva, said: “Speeches and conventions may cast their glamour over a gathering of men, but, however persuasive or legally sound, they cannot immediately convince all the nations of the world and the Governments which rule those nations’ destinies. The object of your discussions is not, by progressive attempts, simply to draw up the final ani perfected text of a great international law; your discussions are also intended to bring into being that new international morality,without which the most perfect law in the world must remain a dead letter, ltut, if we are to attain so noble an object, we shall need to do much-more than appease hatreds, rancours. and long-standing rivalries. We shall have to create among the nations a state of mutual understanding. We must" do more than conciliate conflicting interests and ambitions; we must eliminate the class of different mental outlooks. It is to these differences of mental outlook that the resistance to the Protocol is mainly due. The Protocol’s universality, the severe and unbending logic of its obligations, were framed to please the Latin mentality, which delights in starting from abstract principles an I passing from generalities to details. Th 1 Anglo-Saxon mentality, on the other hand, prefers to proceed from individual concrete cases to generalisations, and is averse, when it cannot discern the facts on which they are based, to principles which are too wide in scop*;. Yet the Latin and Anglo-Saxon races both ardently desire, as indeed you all do, to uitaiu the same goal —namely, peace.” STRENGTH OF MORAL SANCTIONS. In referring to the strength of moral sanctions the Right Hon. Austen Chamberlain spoke as follows: “ Do not let us lose sight of the fact that if the only result of our efforts is to punish war and not to prevent it wo have failed in the achievement of the very purpose which we are created to pursue, and that it is only in so far as we prevent war that we can justify the hopes which humanity sets upon this great international society. . . . Our ultimate aim, our only aim, like that of other members of the Assembly, is to promote peace, to establish peace firmly, to abolish war, if you can, and, if not, to do everything to render it difficult to make war, to give time for the friends of peace to make their influence felt, and for the moral feeling of the world to pronounce a judgment on the attitude of the disputants and to indicate where justice lies. Much of the attention of the last Assembly and of its committees was directed to the physical sanctions to be applied against flagrant aggressors. I do not underrate their importance. I do not deny their necessity. But 1 say to you with profound conviction that the moral sanctions are as influential os the sanctions of force, and that the moral sanctions act earlier, act more surely, and in the long run—and history is there to prove it —decide the issue of the combat. “ Our object is not merely that there should be peace, but that all should feel that peace is secure. Disarmament through security, seouritv through arbitration —arbitration, security, disarmament are the common platform of the whole League of Nations But there is another disarmament which is not less important, which, indeed, is more urgent for it is a necessary preliminary to the physical disarmament of nations. It is the moral disarmament of the world. The need of creating a new international soul and a new international morality. Unless we find some method to allay the distrust, to remove the suspicions, to take away those fears which now brood over not merely Government offices and Councils of Ministers, but the mansions of the rich and the cottages of the poor in the lands which have been devastated by war or the populations of which have paid their toll in blood and sacrifices—unless we can do that we shall never succeed in achieving the great programme which we have set before us. ’ THE MOST DECISIVE EVENT. M. Motta (the representative of Switzerland) said : “The creation of the Permanent Court of International justice at The Hague is the most decisive event in the recent history of international law. This institution will acquire an even wider range of action when— and I most earnestly hope that the day may not be far distant —the United States of America also give their adhesion to that court. There can be no State where there are no law courts. We are accustomed, in examining the nature of our several States and the State as an abstract, to regard law courts and State as inseparable ideas. It is impossible to conceive, within n State, a tribunal not possessing oompulsory jurisdiction. The day will come. I think, when a truth that holds good for each State will be seen to bold good in international relations also. Moreover. setting aside the question of the Protocol as a whole, those chapters which refer to arbitration are already, and inevitably, producing their effect. The proof lies in the negotiations for the Security Pact between Germany and her former enemies, for arbitration is regarded in that Pact as one of the means of realising tne contracting parties’ aim.” FORMATION OF THE FUTURE EDIFICE. M. Skrzyn.ski (Poland’s reprsentative) spoke eloquently of the future and in a flowing tribute to the Protocol spoke as nllows:— “The Protocol, though it has not become law, nevertheless remains the noblest and purest manifestation of the spirit whioh animates, guides, and dominates, which inspires and vivifies this Assembly—the spirit of the League. Before the Great War the world was based upon the balance of power; but history has taught us that the greater the weight and counter-weight of power the more surely the merest Irembling of the scales suffices to overset that balance and bring about disaster. Time the new world has come to seek its security in the balance not of material hut of moral forces. . . . We still have to evolve our methods of work, and this will be a complex and difficult task; if it is true, in tne world of science, that an invention has to be made several timoe, it is even more true in political life. . . ,

“It is useless to look back ; we must look forward. We must talk politics. Politics is nothing but the art of creation; otherwise it would not even be a profession. We have before us a carefully prepared plan; we are on fairly clear ground; and we are already unanimously agreed upon the main outlines of the edifice we are to build. Now is the time for each State, in accordance with its size and strength and responsibilities, to bring its wrought stone, which, joined and cemented to the others, will form the future edifice. More especially do I desire to say that we regard war a* a crime, that we desire to conclude arbitration treaties, and to submit to arbitration all disputes, without, however, infringing treaties which constitute the immovable and changeless laws of nations. We desire justice based uoon lawful right, for to seek justice in desnite of it is revolution. Arbitration involves the definition of the aggressor. This definition must be simple, clear, automatic as far as possible and devoid of ambiguity, for ambiguity in such a matter gives an advantage to the aggressor. Along this path, in this direction. on these lines, we shall collaborate with all our strength, convinced that in serving our own interests wo are serving the great common cause of peace.” FRANCE’S CONFIDENCE. M. Paul Boncour, the French, delegate, expressed France’s confidence in the League of Nations. “I am here,” he said, ‘‘to say that France still has the fullest and the most implicit confidence in the League of Nations, and not merely in its future destiny, but in its present work. This confidence I do not derive from our own wishes or ideas, but from a dispassionate examination of the international political situation of the moment . . . Weapons will not fall from the hands of men or nations at the first sound of the magic word. These reductions of armaments will have to be measured by the needs of each country, and those needs must be weighed not only against the extent of the country’s territory, but against what we may call -since modem warfare is waged as much by means of industry as by armies—its ‘potential mobilisation strength.’ It is essential that our technical organisations should go to the root of the problem, lest when the time comes, if it does come—and come it must—this conference on the reduction of armaments should dash our hopes, and prove the deathblow of the League of Nations. . . . “My earnest hope is either that, some day, custom, aided by the operation of the separate pacts which are now in course ol negotiation, will show us that these incom plete experiments justify the wider apd more comprehensive experiment of the Protocol, or else that by the very multiplication of these pacts applying tiie principles of the Protocol, we shall reach a position approximating- to that which the Protocol itself would have created. However, that mav be, we must link this year’s problems with last year’s work. ... The time has not yet come for us to fling over the Protocol that gold and purple pall beneath which the dead gods sleep. The structure we once built on the shore of this lake is still there, firm and unshaken. The passing wave may distort and dim its image, but its essential features form once again in the passing river. The fragmentary structures in which diplomacies must perforce put their faith can only be built upon the plan which we have drawn.”

A TRINITY OF INSEPARABLE TERMS. Viscount Ishii, of Japan, endorsed the general agreement in the principles of the Protocol. “All Governments are. of course, in agreement as to the principles of the Protocol, lhey disagree only as regards the method of applying those principles. They are not opposed to the noble ideals which inspired last year’s agreements, but they have found that the world is not yet readv for its application, which has accordingly been postponed. We therefore think it would be wiser for the present not to press it to be put into force. ... I am quite convinced that since the League of Nations heralded to the suffering world the dawn of a new era of peace, an evolution has taken place. This has been crystallised, as it were, in the formula, ‘arbitration, security, disarmament.’ It has been duly noted not only by Governments bat also by public opinion, which sees in these words a trinity of inseparable terms. No one of these conditions can be fulfilled unless the others are also fulfilled ; but no solid or lasting progress can be made except through the Blow evolution of ideas and a steady adaptation to facts. If the question of the Protocol cannot as yet be splved at a stroke, we may place our hopes, above all. in conciliation. The idea, long upheld by the Scandinavian nations, of setting up a special organisation to deal with conciliation. mav very profitably be applied here.” NO STOPPING, NO GOING BACK. M. Hyams, the first delegate for Belgium, spoke of the work already accomplished by the League. In the course of his address he said: “May I refer to two important decisions, taken three days ago by the Council of the League, which may possibly have escaped the notice of the public—namely, it? confirmation of the admirable work that has culminated in the financial and economic restoration of Austria and of Hungary? “This is tho League’s own work. The League initiated it. We have saved two nations and brought back to them life and hope. Such a success should not bo allowed to pass unobserved. It is a positive proof of our power, and shows that the League can whenever it wishes, accomplish great things in the economic sphere. Wars of aggression are a crime, disputes must be settled by justice and. not by vielenco The expression ‘Arbitration. security, disarmament.’ in which the system of the Protocol h»s been summed up, still holds rood. It is graven on our minds. The idea of arbitration is making steady progress; the Assembly and all the peoples of the world approve it. The day has not yet come when the political situation and the public mind and conscience make it possible to apply the Protocol in full, but in the meantime partial treaties of arbitration Increase and multiply. . . All of us, to whatever party we belong, beliove in Right, and in international affairs wo have no other ambition than to collaborate in the pacification of the world, and to place our country beyond the machinations of violence and the agony and suffering of war. It was in order to give expression to this thought, which the whole Belgian nation shares, that I desired to address this Assembly, in which Belgium after the terrlblo trials which she bore with such stoicism, has found so cordial and so fraternal a sympathy. I conclude with an affirmation of confidence and hope. The work of the League goes on. Thore is no stopping, no going back. We move forward slowly, step by step, towards justice and peace. Let us endure to the ana.”