Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, MONDAY, SEPT. 21, 1936. THE LEAGUE CRISIS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19125, 21 September 1936, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, MONDAY, SEPT. 21, 1936. THE LEAGUE CRISIS

jjjl’he Longue of Notions, in the eifursc of its. stormy career, has been §1 fronted with many difficulties, but is doubtful whether it lias ever meed such a grave crisis as that which will present itself at the present Assembly. Previously it has had to deal with isolated issues, many of them admittedly serious, but fo-day it i.s confronted with au accumulation of all the: problems that have arisen from past differences and disputes. In colloquial parlance, the chickens are coming home to roost, and the outlook i.s anything but encouraging. The League meets for the first time in its palatial new £l,000,000 building, the symbol of grandiose hopes and ideals, and, in the eyes of the cynic, perhaps, a mausoleum for their burial. This magnificent edifice itself can play little part in the regulating of international affairs, for everything depends on those who inhabit it and the spirit with which they arc imbued. And it is a study of the personnel of the League which gives rise to so much misgiving. In its original conception it was a banding together of the nations of the world in the interests of peace. What is it today} How many of the leading nations remain combined for the common good? T» United .States, by whom it was originally sponsored, is still as fllooT as ever, and within the past few days its Secretary of State has reiterated the policy of “friendship for all; ally of none. 1 * The definition is rather suggestive of the kind of friendship that takes all it can get, but is not prepared to lift a hand or spend a dollar when the need of a real friend might arise. Japan, the predominating power in the East, has severed her membership; she was prepared to support the League so long as the League supported her in her illegalities. In the same category comes Germany, admitted to membership on a basis of equality, withdrawing.when the rules of the League proved a handicap, ottering to re-enter on her own terms, and thou, when There is a chance of the

offer being accepted, retreating again. Less honest, and therefore less reliable, Italy, retaining her membership in the hope that, it may one day serve her ulterior purposes, yei not. hesitating, when national interests demanded it, to make war on Ihe League itself. Spain, whose former delegate took a leading part, in handling the last crisis, is to-day in the throes of civil war, and knows not hoi own future, let atone the future of the League. France, distracted by her internal problems, is unable to decide whether the advantages to be gained from League membership arc outweighed by the responsibilities entailed by it. The smaller Powers are equally divided and uncertain. Abyssinia—i it her hour of need basely forsaken—felt, perhaps, that the League policy was strangely akin to thatTof America, “Friendship for all; ally of none.” Danzig, the special responsibility of the League itself, lms been virtually confiscated by another Power, and all the small States of Europe arc rapidly aligning themselves with those nations from whom they believe they have the best hope of protection. lie is an optimist, indeed, who can study this picture and see a silvct lining to the clouds. And so long as Geneva is content to utter pious platitudes and make empty gestures there can be no hope of any improvement. The real remedy, of course, lies, not in Geneva, but in those Governments which comprise the League. There be little doubt that their failure in t i, e past has been due to the politi,;il oimnges that have been going o» during the past few years. Who can doubt that the peoples of Europe, at heart, are bitterly opposed to war and all that it entails, and are, therefore, .supporters of the League prin ciples? That view can hardly be challenged, yet the fact remains that public opinion is not reflected in the attitude of Governments to the League. There is little need to search for the explanation, for noth is more obvious than that public opinion to-day is inarticulate in the greater part of Europe. Democratic government is a thing of the past; opinion lms been levelled, as one writer recently put it, to the level of mechanised noise; and there iS no longer that freedom of ■ the press which alone can adequately reflect the condition and mind of any country. Dictatorships are the antithesis of all that the Longue of- Nations implies, since under them it is impossible to obtain that community of view and concerted action without which the League can never succeed. The totalitarian State is ’essentially nationalistic in its aims; the League is essentially international and can survive only so long -as it is- supported by a confederation* of democratic States. The future of the League, must, therefore, be bound up with the re-establishment of democratic government; and the failure of the League cannot be entirely dissociated from Us willingness to yield to dictatorship. It yielded, perforce, to Japanese ag-n-rcssion, but it more or less voluntarily, if not willingly, acquiesced in similar conduct in Europe itself. Had the League taken a firm stand when Germany first renounced her treaty obligations, is it conceivable, that the German dictatorship would have suivived? Had a stand been taken with Germany would action even have been necessary in connection with Italy, Surely it. is a case of one evil begetting others, and because the League failed to support democracy when it was first threatened its overthrow has continued until to-day chaos spreads almost throughout the whole of Europe. The League, then, cannot function until the real basis of a collection of democratic States working in tlie common interest .is restored, and it m this problem, than which none can bo more difficult, that now confronts the League.