A.—s

Representation of New Zealand. This year, in deference to the need for greater economy, the Now Zealand Delegation consisted only of myself and my personal staff, Mr. C. Knowles and Miss B. M. Hannam. Having been appointed by the Government sole delegate, it seemed advisable that 1 should nominate myself as the member of each committee, but, at the same time, to appoint Mr. Knowles substitute. It would, however, have been quite impossible to attend every committee meeting, so it was decided that preference should be given to those meetings at which any subject of importance or interest to New Zealand would be discussed. Debate on Annual Report. The Assembly opened in an atmosphere of pessimism, and I am doubtful whether the speech of Mr. de Valera dispelled it. Some attempts were made to give life to the debate on the annual report, but they cannot be said to have resulted in complete success ; indeed, but four sittings were devoted to the debate, in which a number of subjects were touched upon. There is no doubt that the Assembly was overshadowed by many issues of grave consequence to the world. These issues bore heavily and caused a lassitude which even affected the majority of the optimistic enthusiasts whose speeches have been hitherto a regular feature of the Assembly. Certainly M. Herriot, who is not to be numbered amongst the pessimists, made a speech which was one of the few bright patches in the prevailing gloom, but he was immediately followed by Lord Cecil, whose advocacy of the League does not diminish in strength as the years pass. He made an interesting and thought-provoking speech and summed up in a neat phrase what many were thinking —that the League was " extravagantly doing nothing " —although it is true he did not subscribe to that view. His speech, if not gloomy, showed that he realized the position to which the League has been brought by certain failures. Perhaps it is unfair to the League to forget its many brilliant successes and to dilate on what it has not done when put to the supreme test; and Lord Cecil himself made a distinction between the League as an organ and the Governments which form it. Election of Three Non-permanent Members of the Council. Peru, Yugoslavia, and Poland were due to retire as members of the Council and it was desirable to elect their successors as soon as possible. On the 27th September Poland requested that she should be declared re-eligible for membership of the Council, and on the morning of the 3rd October she was declared eligible. On the afternoon of the 3rd October the election took place. Poland received forty-eight votes and Czechoslovakia and Mexico forty-six votes each. Committee of Nineteen. The recent elections to the Council having changed its composition, it became necessary to elect to the Committee of Nineteen (which has charge of the Chinese-Japanese dispute) a member not represented on the Council. Turkey was elected a member on the 14th October. The Assembly rose on Monday, 17th October. COMMITTEE No. 1. Ratification of the Protocol concerning the Revision of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice. The position has not materially altered since the Twelfth Assembly. Eight States which ratified the Protocol of 1920 setting up the Court have not yet ratified that concerning the revision of the statute, and the revised statute is therefore not yet operative. Document A. 27 sets out the position, and in the course of the debate on the motion by the Rapporteur, M. Pilotti (Document A. 1/3), M. Huber, who himself has been a Judge of the Court, gave it as his opinion that, in the case of a multilateral convention creating a collective body, a protocol for the revision of such convention must be ratified by all the States parties to it. The motion was amended in the light of the debate and was embodied in Document A. 45, which received the assent of the Assembly on the 14th October. Proposal to amend Articles 4 and 17 of the Rules of Procedure. This proposal by Norway to amend Articles 4 and 17 of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly had as its object the avoidance of precipitate decisions and the safeguarding of the resort to normal procedure, which consists in the reference of the subject in question to one of the committees of the Assembly. An amendment providing for not more than ten signatures to a proposal for placing a new question on the agenda of the Assembly, or to a resolution, amendment, or motion, was, according to one speaker in the debate, against parliamentary procedure, which tended to fix a minimum and not a maximum of signatures in such a case ; whilst other speakers who endorsed the principle preferred a larger number, and ultimately the Norwegian representative agreed to fifteen signatures. The committee decided to recommend the Assembly to accept the amendment, and this was done at the Assembly's meeting on the 11th October (Document A. 47). Deletion of Article 12 of the Rules of Procedure. The proposal to suppress Article 12 of the Rules of Procedure, which provides for the keeping of a list of attendance at each meeting of the Assembly, emanated from the Bureau and was referred to the First Committee. As originally drafted the rule reads as follows : — " A list of attendance at each meeting of the Assembly shall be kept by the Secretariat, and only those representatives who are listed as in attendance shall be permitted to take part in the voting."

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