LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 58, 10 March 1931, Page 11

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

CONSTRUCTION AND PURPOSE AN ADDRESS TO ROTARIANS “The League of Nations, like governments, depends, upon public opin ion,” said Major E. Harston, who addressed members of the Rxary Club at their weekly luncheon yesterday. The League, he continued, was not an organisation of individuals, but an organisation of governments, trying to persuade each other to beliUK'e witu common sense. In order to prevent a recurrence of the hopeless position in which Europe found herscl” at the beginning of the war, it was necessary to form a permanent organisation of nations, so that there would always be a chance of settling disputes by other methods than war. A man did not settle his quarrel with his fists nowadays, he settled it by negotiation. (A voice: “Oh, doesn’t he”)-

Composition of the League The League of Nations was composed of three divisions, the Assembly, the Council and the Secretariat, said Major Harston. The Assembly of the League of Nations met once a year and 54 nations were represented at those meetings- Russia, Tumey and the United 'States of America were not represented. The Council was composed of 14 nations and formed a Cabinet- The Cabinet met four times a year and dealt with anything that was brought before it, such as the recent dispute between Germany and Poland. The Secretariat did tne work of a Civil Service, and was composed of about 1000 members. The two chief functions of the League were (1) the anticipation and the prevention of the causes of trouble that would lead to war and (2) settling disputes which arose. Major Harston gave illustrations of the League’s work in those directions and of the amicable settlements that it had achieved. The Secretariat was divided into many sections, such as the legal, health, intellectual co-operation, economic, finance and transit sections and so on. The legal section had been working to codify an international law; the health section was engaged in .acquiring in formation on all kinds of diseases, so that it could give help and advice to any country in which an outbreak might occur. Much good work had been done in connection with the recent outbreak of parrot’s disease- The financial sectiort was composed of men like Sir Otto Niemeyer, who was a member, and assisted nations who were faced with bankruptcy. Every nation was not willing to sign one common treaty by which it would promise not to go to war, said the speaker, and thus tnere had grown up an enormous number of treatiesTreaties were torn up bef«fc the war, he said, and no doubt they would get torn up again. But it was more difficult to tear up treaties now, because other members of the League are there to see that those treaties were carried out- All the treaties were public. Thus the obligations of a country were known. The country which would not listen to the League of Nations, but declared war, would find that she would not be able to borrow money from any of the countries which belonged to the League, while the country which was attached would have a certain sum of money available so that it would not be placed at a disadvantage.

Disarmament Disarmament was the main objective at the present moment. It had taken three years to draw up the basis of a Disarmament Convention, but there were two obstacles which had to be surmounted in this direction, (1) fear and (2) the technical question of disarmament. Every country was so used to having an army that it did not care t • be left without one in case of attack. Differences of the composition of the armies arose, such as voluntary and standing armies and conscripted. France wanted her army in France, while England wanted her army overseas; there were hundreds of problems of this nature, said the Majcfr. New Zealand and the League People would ask: “What does New Zealand get out of the League?” The chief reason was that nobody wanted to see a war agaiu and as the Dominion was chiefly an exporting country, we did not want to have our overseas markets destroyed. Anything that affected London affected New Zealand. Nobody wanted the drug traffic to invade this country, as it had done in other parts of the world. Opium, heroin and cocaine were the most dan gerous drugs in the world and once we found that they had made their way into New Zealand there would be no getting them out. The League was doing its best to prevent the spreading of this drug traffic- Taking tho recent disaster in Hawke’s Bay for instance there was a fund being formed into which all the nations would gay a contribution; in time of disaster they would be able to draw upon that fund- Unfortunately it was not in operation at the present.

No Thanks Yet! “I am not going to thank you for your speech yet,” said Mr O- Holst, on the conclusion of the Major’s remarks. It was appropriate that such a talk shofild have been given to Rotarians who were a kind of League of Nations of their own; they were the taxpayers. It was their privilege to pay not only for the sins of their own Government, but also for the shortcomings of the League. They were to benefit by what the League *had done in the past and what it would do in the future; it was an experiment and an extraordinary experiment. But he was sorry that Major Harston did not dwell more upon the economic section of the League; everybody was hard up, at present owing to a general lowering of price levels. He said he would like to bear more about lhe cause of the maldistribution of gold and the cus-| toms barriers with which the country was confronted; whether there was any possibility of getting those custom barriers removed. Major Harston replied that, the present trouble had been foreseen for years. It was the result of every na tion trying t be self-contained, of every nation tryii;'j to export its own goods and not buying other countries’ goods- But no political party was strong enough to act acconyng to its own desires and had to consider its constituents. The League had tried to persuade the countries to reduce tariffs, but none would- However, different, countries were negotiating with each*

other for the lowering of tariffs and certain amount of progress was being made. Mr Holst then thanked the speaker for his address