GROWING PAINS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 26 November 1927, Page 9

GROWING PAINS

Youth and To-Morrow

Evolution Of World Federation

“It is to be presumed that the day will come—and that fairly soon—when no young person’s education is deemed complete without a visit to the Assem'.y of the League of Nations in September, preceded by a couple of months at Professor Zimmern’s Summer School and followed by another month in the autumn devoted to study of the working of the Secretariat. “For it seems likely that in the world of the future some knowledge of the international point of view will bo almost indispensable to the educated citizens of all nations."

“Time and Tide.”

A RECENT ISSUE of “ Public '£'*■ Opinion” quotes the following wellwritten article on that subject of perenivtl interest, the League of Nations:— “The international point of view as it exists in individuals is an entirely different thing from the international point of view as it exists in the League of Nations. It is the difference between a man and a Government Department, for in fact the Secretariat of the League of Nations is a Government, a highly efficient Government Department, atached, not to one, but to all nations. “And here, and here alone, can the young men and women of the world study that international angle of vision which in the decades and centui ?s to come is more and more going, not to supersede, but to be supei-imposed upon the national point of view, just as the British point of view is super-im-posed upon the Bradford point of view m a good citizen of Yorkshire. “It is small wonder that Geneva is so crowded in September that scarcely a bed is to be found; crowded not merely with delegates, experts, officials and Press—though there are certainly crowds of these—but crowded also with hundreds of ordinary visitors; men and women of imagination come to try to catch a glimpse of the working of this new phenomenon in world affairs. “It is small wonder that the ugly, drab and not very large ‘Salle de la Reformation’ has its visitors’ galleries packed to the very brim with people sitting and people standing in every place where it is possible to see and hear one word of what is going on, on the.floor below; and even, on the important occasions, spilling over into the seats from which it is practically impossible either to see or hear—-and that even so, tickets are by no means too easy to come by,, and' tickets admitting to the whole course of the Assembly are procurable only by-the very lucky. (It is small wonder, too, that Professor Zimmern’s lectures on the League at work, held at the Geneva University at nine o’clock every morning, should be crowded out bv an eager audience, since the novice at Geneva not unnaturally feels that there is much to be said for taking part of his international politics predigested.) “Where lies the fascination of that black-coated, same-looking Assembly that it drags those hundreds of spectators into the steaming, suffocating little hall? Partly it lies, perhaps, in that very sameness. Here are the representatives of close on fifty States sitting cheek by jowl on the floor of the hall. Germany and Albania . . .

Great Britain, Bulgaria and China . . . Finland, France and Greece . . . New Zealand, Norway, Japan and India . . . Holland, Poland and Persia . . . and the rest. “And looking at them from above, these black-coated folk, save for the small sprinkling of women amongst them, took all exactly alike. This sameness gives curiously the impression of one world civi sation,'of a certain identity of outlook, of a sameness of mentality, of a capacity for common understanding running through the world. “There are other reasons also for the fascination of the ’Salle’ . . . which account for this Assembly being so much more fascinating than any ordinary Parliament. There are the two practical facts, firstly that, on the whole, the subjects under discussion are more interesting than the subjects normally discussed in any national Parliament (world politics, however carefully and tactfully handled—and not every decgate is tactful—are after all more interesting than parish politics), z and the fact that the intellectual level of the Assembly is very much higher than that of any national Parliament, so that not only is the average intellectual capacity of the speakers better, but, since they are speaking to an audience which they know to be of first-class calibre, instinctively most of them pitch the tone of their speeches at a higher level. “But beyond all this, at the back of all this, lies the real reason. Here we are listening to, and as the years go on, more and more will come from all quarters of the globe to listen to, the growing pains of the Parliament of the World.” Th eschool alluded to is Professor Zimmer’s “Geneva School of International Studies.” Men approaching the forties nowadays, belong to the generation which had not only to fight the the Great War, but which is likely to go cn in a vain endeavour to pay for it for the term of its natural tire. Anything, therefore, that can fester the aims of a movement which, with all its admitted faults, has as its purpose the ultimate abolition of barbaric means of settling international disputes, ought to receive the hearty and unanimous support of these who know what war, in ail its ugliness, means.