A.—s

2

Election of Officers of Assembly. —The committees having elected their Chairmen, the Assembly proceeded to elect its six Vice-Presidents, who, together with the President and the Chairmen of Committees, form, under the Rules of Procedure, the General Committee, which on this occasion was composed as follows : — Committee No. 1 : Chairman, M. Scialoja (Italy). Committee No. 2 : Chairman, M. Jonnesco (Roumania). Committee No. 3 : Chairman, M. Branting (Sweden). Committee No. 4 : Chairman, M. Edwards (Chile). Committee No. 5 : Chairman, Mr. Doherty (Canadaj. Committee No. 6 : Chairman, M. le Comte de Gimeno (Spain). Vice-Presidents of the Assembly : M. Bourgeois (France), M. da Cunha (Brazil), Mr. Balfour (Britain), Viscount Ishii (Japan), M. Hyinans (Belgium), Dr. Bones (Czeeho-Slovakia). Bolivia and Chile. —On the 7th September, during the examination of the Agenda, occurred an incident which might have had considerable bearing on the future of the League. Bolivia had made a request for a revision of the treaty of 1904. with Chile, and based her request on Article 19 of the Covenant. The representatives of both Chile and Bolivia spoke, and their remarks will be found fully reported in the Provisional Verbatim Record of the Fifth Plenary Meeting, copy of which has already been sent to you. At the; suggestion of the President, discussion of the matter was adjourned, and on a subsequent date he announced that the, officers of the Assembly had invited three jurists, nlembers of the Assembly, to give their joint opinion on the powers which the Assembly possessed according to the interpretation of Article 19, on which the question turned. The delegate for Bolivia then wisely adjourned procedure until this interpretation had been made known. One cannot but deplore the fact that many of the articles of the Covenant are loosely worded. Indeed, one lawyer of considerable ability confessed to me that he did not know what the English text of Article 19 exactly meant, and the French text does not seem to be much clearer. On the 27th September the report of the committee of jurists was published (see No. 20 of the Journal enclosed, page 21.8), and on the 28th the President invited the delegates of Chile and Bolivia to make their observations in the Assembly. Mr. Edwards, the delegate of Chile, expressed his satisfaction with the committee's report, and stated that his Government was willing to enter into direct communication with Bolivia. This offer the Bolivian delegate apparently accepted, but at tho same time reserved to his Government the right of again appealing to tho League should occasion arise. The request for intervention being thereupon withdrawn, the matter was considered closed. Work of the Council. —With the discussion on the report of the Work of the Council (Document A. 9, with supplement) I will not trouble you. The speeches were, as a whole, neither so animated nor so interesting as those of last year, and it was obvious that many delegates were anxious to get on with the work provided for the committees. " C " Mandates. —It was during the discussion on this report, however, that there occurred another incident, and one of interest to New Zealand as a mandatory State. Mr. Sastri, one of the Indian delegates, and, as you know, a fine orator, made reference, in tho course of a long and interesting speech, to the provision in the " C " mandates by which the mandatories are empowered to administer mandated territories under their own laws, and argued that that provision would make for " invidious distinctions between white and coloured races." He confessed that his remarks were aimed at the Union of South Africa, the mandatory for ex-German South-west Africa. The whole speech is worth reading, and the part to which I have particularly referred will be found towards the end of the Provisional Verbatim Record of the 12th September. . . . Permanent Court of International Justice. —Probably the greatest work performed by the Assembly was the election of the, Judges and the Deputy Judges of the Permanent Court of International Justice. You are doubtless familiar with the somewhat complicated machinery of election, which is briefly described on page 13 of the enclosed book, marked " A." It was generally supposed that the election would not work very smoothly, but, fortunately, this was not the case, for there was no real difficulty in coming to an agreement as to who should be the eleven Judges and three of the four Deputy Judges. For tho position of fourth Deputy Judge, however, the Assembly again and again voted Monsieur Alvarez, and the Council, as persistently, voted Monsieur Descamps. In the circumstances recourse was had to the provision for a joint conference of six, three members of the Council and three of the Assembly. This was arranged, and it was subsequently recommended that Monsieur Beichman should be accepted. He was duly elected. I give the composition of the Court, with the nationality of the Judges (see Document A. 114) : — Judges : Monsieur Altamira (Spaniard) ; Monsieur Anzilotti (Italian) ; Monsieur Barboza (Brazilian) ; Monsieur de Bustamante (Cuban) ; Viscount Finlay (Briton) ; Monsieur Huber. (Swiss) ; Monsieur Loder (Dutchman) ; Mr. Moore (American) ; Monsieur Nyholm (Dane) ; Monsieur Oda (Japanese) ; Monsieur Weiss (Frenchman). Deputy Judges : Monsieur Beichman (Norwegian) ; Monsieur Negulesco (Roumanian) ; Monsieur Wang (Chinaman) ; Monsieur Yovanovitch (Yugo-Slavian). It is regretted that the efforts of many members of the Assembly to elect a representative of Mohammedan law wore, not successful, but representation of this judicial system is to an extent provided for in the person of Monsieur Nyholm, who is President of the Mixed Tribunal at Cairo. Repatriation of Prisoners of War.—A report by Dr. Nansen on the repatriatipn of prisoners of war (Document A. 86), considered by tho Assembly on the 21st September, will be found of interest. It is to the credit of the League that this great humanitarian work should have been so successfully carried out under its auspices, and Dr. Nansen may well be proud of what he has done. Dispute between Lithuania and Poland. —Lithuania having boon admitted to the League (which admission I will mention when dealing with the work of the Sixth Committee), the whole of the