LEAGUE OF NATIONS AT HOME

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 200, 27 August 1935, Page 10

LEAGUE OF NATIONS AT HOME

Headquarters Worthy of Ideals

NEW BUILDING PROCEEDING

’J’HAT INTRIGUING GAME of diplomacy—where is it played today? As the spotlight of publicity follows Europe’s most distinguished diplomats to Berlin, to the Wilhelmstrasse —to Moscow —to Warsaw—to Prague—to tiny Isola Bella on Lake Maggiore, and finally to the musty old Hotel National, now the League of Nations Building in Geneva —just where are all of these momentous decisions reached? Contrary to public opinion—built up by stories in the Press—these decisions are not reached around a green-topped table with a distinguished visitors’ gallery aud intent newshawks drinking m the words of noted statesmen. These meetings are merely to satisfy public curiosity. Everything said here—with few exceptions—has been decided beforehand. The decisions to-day are reached in high-ceilinged, deep-carpeted, smokefilled hotel rooms; in tiny train compartments, as the Medite ranee Express streaks from Paris to Pome; in small committee rooms at the temporary League of Nations Annex in Geneva or as diplomats pace up and down thy gray-walled corridors of the annex. Temporary meeting places. Temporary decisions. Everything seems temporary —oven peace. By September of this year a permanent meeting place, where permanent decisions may be reached, is expected to be ready for the sixteenth regular session of the League in Geneva. The new League of Nations Peace Palace, nestling white against an evergreen hillside just above the always blue Lake Geneva, is a permanent monument to peace. At a cost of nearly £l,ooo,ooo—not to mention the, £500,000 library presented by the Rockefeller Foundation—it has taken live architects —two French, an Italian, an Hungarian and a Swiss —five years to build the marble peace palace. More than 400 yards long, the new building—in which it is hoped all the present office force of the Secretarial will be housed this fmumer -will be furnished by gifts from the 60 member nations. These g’-ll:' rival any ever written about in the Arabian Nights or Andersen’s Fairy Tales. Many of the gifts already are in Go- • I neva. Man;. h;• •• Ita r promised ami , I many mor.- ore to <•• no. Some of tin 1 fills Jllicad'’ i ‘; c. 1 ' ,'i 1 • sets of « II r nitiivn for toe ohms ■ ! 1 iie high off! I offices oi the Secretary-General and foi

the President of the Council of the League. Persia has offered special rugs for these offices. {Siam has sent handcarved bookcases. {South Africa and New Zealand are panelling committee rooms with native wood. Sweden is sending special furniture for a High official’s office and Greece has offered a bronze reproduction of an ancient statue. The tiny state oi Luxembourg’s gilt will be wrought-iron gates for the entrances. A gilt of £5OOO from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation will be used to construct th 3 . monumental Wilson bronze doors lit the main entrance of the Assembly Hall. {Spain and Switzerland will furnish committee rooms, while China is sending a complete set of embroidered panels C.nd Trinidad some hand-woven curtains for a committee room. Permanence is the moving thought behind this giant structure, ;he largest administrative building built in Europe in many years. Each member nation of the League—and the United States by individual contributions —is taking part in the construction. This co-operation in construction may be more evident than some of the co operation evidenced politically, but it is hoped by all League officials and diplomats tliac the feeling of unity in building the palace.will have its fruits in framing permanent pence in its committee rooms. “If a building and what it stands fur arc any criterion of the pcrinfiii- < ncy oi' the League, then just uno visit to the white marble building among the green trees of Geneva is proof enough for me,” remarked a British statesman recently shown through tliu building. Thu- lhe change from the dingy old Hotel National —which has serxed it purpose \ ery well to the bright new palace with windows looking out across blue Lake Geneva to whitecapped Mont I’.lanc standinif out with razor sharpness 10 miles away, may not only loing a cliange of locale but s cials of tlie League. Holland and India Lave sent full office furniture for the

change in attitude toward peace from scepticism and temporary co-operation to one of practical permanent peace. The building itself has been constructed under the watchful eye of Air F. 1. Lloyd, of England—{Secretary ol the Building Committee and genera, manager of the building. Mr Lloyd, tall, gray and tremendously enthusiastic over the progress of the building, is most adept in transforming forests of scaffolding along a wall into the beautiful Italian tapestry by a piere wave of his walking stick and a fexv well-chosen words. The building is his pet —if a building spreading over 18,000 square yards and containing more than 500 offices besides two great halls (one for the Council of the League and the other for the Assembly) and a library capable of holding 1,000,000 volumes, to say nothing of nine large committee rooms—may be called a pet. On September 7, 1029, he will tell you, the first stone was set in place, and since that time more than 400 workmen have been steadily employed in the construction work. But before the stone could be laid the architects I.ad to be chosen. A long competition was held in 1028-29, and out of 600 competing architects five were chosen. They arj; M. Nenot, of France, the architect of the Sorbonne in Paris; I\l Lefevre, also of France, the inspector general of all the public buildings of France; Signor Broggi, of Italy, ]\T. \ ago, of Hungary, and At. Flegcnheimcr, of Switzerlan d. Tiny nave divided thr bi|ilding iniv I luce parts following the structure of thu League. The Council of the League, which is the executive body, lias its special chamber and section. The Assembly, the Lciigue’. legislature, is fitted with the most spectacular section perhaps. A giant Assembly Hall, to seat over 600 delegates, 500 members of the Press and some Soo spectators, is the main attraction. That allows nearly .10 delegates from each of the 60 member nations, nearly one “gentleman of the Press” for each delegate, ami a .lull view of each and every delegate special or.- -

overflow the Geneva hotels during League sessions. “And at last,” said Mr Lloyd, “we have devised a way so that no matter how low a delegate may stumble into his written speech he may still be heard in the galleries.” The Architectural Acoustic Committee of the British Department of Scientific and Industrial Research has collaborated both, in the construction of the Assembly ayd Coun cil Halls and the nine committee rooms. One of “the eight wonders of Geneva” to the visiting public during the last few years has been the amplifying system provided for the delegates and the Press to enable them to hear the speakers from the tribune in their own tongue—regardless of the language spoken. Earphones are placed over the head and by a simple twist of a dial m front of him the listener may either hear the speech as it is being delivered in its original form or he may dial to a trans lation being delivered in his own tongue by a special translator. As most of the delegates and correspondents speak French and English, the simultaneous translations have been eliminated, but are still possible. The present amplifying system, loudspeakers and all, now installed at the Batiment Electoral, where the Assembly meetings have been held, will be enlarged and modernised through a gift of Edward A. Fileno, of Boston, who will install complete apparatus for simultaneous telephonic interpretation. The Library Wing is attached to the regular building by a narrow corridor which leads off the main corridor with its tall 27 foot windows that look down across the green, fouutained terrace where peacocks strut and spread their fan like tails. The wing of the building holds the largest of the. nine committee rooms, which is to bo the seat of the Disarmament (‘onferem v. If M. Maxim Lilvinoif, Russian Foreign Commissar, lias his way this room will be the meeting piaci of a permanent 1 Jisarmamcnt Commission. It seals appro.ximatelv 9(m delegates, Press, and visitors. \ small museum for Hie jireservatiou of historic documents ami treaties will .also be a vital pari of lhe library, Am! as delegatus always seem to lie hungry—they arc constantly munching on cakes and cookies from the bar in to-day’s temporary building—there is to be a special “delegates’ restaurant roof garden’’ ID si cries above the lower ground level. Tim building is built in terraces, lo stoiies in ITonl and Lour in rcaiE.