DISARMAMENT MOVE

Taranaki Daily News, 1 December 1934, Page 5

DISARMAMENT MOVE

WORK OF THE LEAGUE RENEWED VITALITY SEEN. VISIT OF SECRETARIAT OFFICIAL. “The withdrawal of Germany and Japan, was a great blow to the League of Nations, and perhaps might even have been fatal if it had been generally felt that the League was to blame. The final result of these withdrawals cannot well be foreseen, but it is safe to say that the position of the League today is much more solid than it appeared immediately after Germany withdrew. Indeed, the last Assembly was able to record the entry to the League of Russia, Ecuador and Afghanistan, and with the entry of the United States of America into the labour organisation this gave an impression of renewed vitality.” These remarks were made in an interview with the Dominion by Mr. J. V. Wilson, a Naw Zealand member of the Secretariat of the League of Nations, Geneva, who arrived on the liner Rangitane from London, with his wife and child on a holiday visit. Mr. Wilson, who' has been with the League for the past 13 years, is attached to the central section of the Secretariat tc the Assembly and Council of the League. Every three years members of the staff are entitled to visit their own countries, and Mr. Wilson is making his fourth trip to the Dominiop. He will ' spend most of his time in Christchurch and return again next February. PROBLEMS CONFRONTING LEAGUE. “The League has felt the effect of the economic depression and the exasperation of national feelings resulting v: from it,” said Mr. Wilson, “and in this unfavourable atmosphere it had to deal with major problems, such as the Manchurian question, which at any time would have been extremely difficult. “It to be remembered that the League has no force at its disposal exec- 1 such as may be imparted to it by the member States. If these States do not feel that the occasion requires vigorous measures the action of . the League is necessarily confined, in a conflict,, to measures of investigation and conciliation. These functions were fully discharged .in the Manchuria trouble by the dispatch of a commis- ■' sion to inquire into the circumstances of the dispute. “The result has been that the members of the League have adopted a common policy—namely, of undertaking not to recognise the State of Manchukuo on the ground that it was brought into being in a way inconsistent with the Covenant of the League. As an officer of the League, I cannot comment on whether or not this policy will, in the long run, prove effective.” More immediate problems confronting the League, said Mr. Wilson, had been the war between Bolivia and Paraguay, which had already been described by a League commission as singularly pitiless and horrible. _ Here again, however could be done in' the way of mediation both through the American Powers and, the other members of the League'and . the United States of America, had been done, so far without effect ' PROGRESS TO DISARMAMENT., Furthermore, at the instigation of the British Government, all important Governments had now undertaken to prohibit the export of arms to both belligerents, an action novel in international relations and which might prove effective. The Council of the League was meeting in a special session this week to deal with the situation. ..“The problem of disarmament naturally raises very great political difficulties. The chief one at present is the tension between Germany and France, and the most immediate obstacle in the way of the improvement of their relar:-— ' the Saar problem. This, in all its complexity, had been dealt with by the League, and should be removed as a result of the plebiscite to be held in J—nary. “In the general disappointment that a convention for the reduction and limitation of armaments has not yet been negotiated, it is sometimes forgotten that the disarmament conference has att-'-cd a large measure of agreement on matters on which a few years ago agrement would not have been thought possible. Examples of this work concern t'” number land y--ctives in cor 1 ' — ntal armies, international trade in munitions of war, and the establishment of permanent machinery for the investigation of the armament situation ’• all countries at a given time.” FU' OF THE LEAGUE. “It is well that all those interested in the future of the League of Nations (— ’ I can hardly see how any British citizen, whether at Home or in the Dominions would fail to be so interested), <hould realise how great the di .cutties are, and that to achieve the objects of the League, as the Covenant of the T eague itself already implies, requires effort and perhaps sacrifice,” continued Mr. Wilson. “Though frankness requires that these difficulties should be realised, it also requires that the real success of the League in other matters should also be made known—for instance, the settlement of the incipient war between Columbia and Peru, and of the dispute two years ago between Britain and Persia over the Anglo-Pers ! -' Oil Com-p-r-. These are considerable achieve- - and there are many others. “It is needless to say that the great and ”*ried work of the League in the interests of the health of the nations and the suppression of the drug traffic continues,” concluded Mr. Wilson.