LEAGUE REFORM

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 153, 2 December 1938, Page 11

LEAGUE REFORM

DEBATE IN LORDS

RELIEF FROM MILITARY

OBLIGATIONS

ECONOMIC BASIS

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, November 30

A debate in the House of Lords on the. League of Nations was opened today by Lord Ponsonby, who asked if ihe Government would make immediate preparations for close international consultation on the underlying causes of complaint and friction between the nations of the world. He also asked whether the Government would consider proposals for the amendment of the Covenant so that weight might be removed frbm any of its present political and military obligations, and that it might be established as an all-inclusive, permanent body for examining and, if possible, resolving economic, commercial, currency, and colonial problems, which, if neglected, might continue to cause international conflict. Lord Ponsonby expressed the view that the present League was a danger to European peace so long as its basis was military, but if it became economic it would be an obvious solution to world problems. Lord Londonderry said that it was not so much the League which had failed as that its members had not earned out their obligations. Lord Strabolgi presented the view that the League provisions for collective security were more necessary than ever, and Lord Cecil also argued the need for the organisation of peace on the basis of collective responsibilities. DANGER IN ALLOWING MACHINERY TO RUST. Replying for the Government, Lord Halifax, Foreign Secretary, said that the League, as it stood, was readily available for the effective use of Governments and people if they de"sired to use it. If there were dangers in laying too. great burdens on the League, there was also a great danger in allowing it to rust. Referring to a statement by General Smuts that the United States of America should be admitted to the League on a special basis of membership, and to his proposal for a standing committee of Great Powers to be set up as part of the League machinery, Lord Halifax said that both suggestions seemed to him worthy of close study.

General Smuts had also said that no alternative to the League system for peace had been found and that to scrap it and leave a vacuum would be an immense waste of human effort and leave the world -without any reasonable means of procedure. " That, Lord Halifax thought, was profoundly true, and he certainly would be very proud to make General Smuts's words his own.

Concerning Anglo-American rela-

tions. he drew attention to the forthcoming visit to, the United States of Mi*. Eden, who, he said, was going with the fullest agreement and approbation of the British Government. He expressed the opinion that the visit would be extremely valuable in its effects.