LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 January 1935, Page 6

LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

i The review of the work and aims of the League of Nations given at New Plymouth on Sunday by Dr. J. B. Condliffe was a refreshing contrast to much that has been said and written about the futility or ineptitude of the League, Its critics should remember that the League has been in being less than 20 years. To expect any international organisation in that period to overcome all jealousies, mistrust and fear between the nations was like imagining that gold is to be found at the end of the rainbow. Speaking as one who knows what the League has accomplished and is doing, Dr. Condliffe was able to bear ample testimony to the value of the institution. If it has not removed the doubts and hates of cen-tury-old growth it has at all events created a centre in which international problems can be examined in an atmosphere that makes for peace, and where individual quarrels are treated as having wider repercussions than their effect upon the parties chiefly interested. To have such an opportunity for dispassionate consideration of world affairs is worth . a good deal, and with the perfecting of < the machinery for international inter- i course the counsels of peace are likely ; to receive greater heed. Dr. Condliffe ; stressed the fact that such an organise- . tion depends for its success upon the j force of public opinion behind it, and he : urged that the truth about the League * should be taught in the schools. It was sound advice, for if the opinion of the League as a gathering of futile elder ] statesmen is the only one available to j boys and girls, an increase in its support 1 as they grow up, and a development of j the good work of which it is capable, is ; not very likely to. follow. The future of , civilisation lies in the hands of the c younger generation. If it can see only £ brute force as an effective arbiter in in- * ternational affairs the outlook for the t future i? not cheering. But unless the j way to other methods is taught—and ] taught continuously—how is the necessary knowledge to be obtained by young f people? That was the question upon 1 which Dr. Condliffe left New Zealand 1 teachers and parents to ponder. J