LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 November 1928, Page 7

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

MOST USEFUL INSTITUTION IN THE WORLD.

LONDON, October 2

Sir .Tames Parr has returned from the Assembly of the League of Nations at Geneva, where he spent a month. Sir George S. Richardson and Mr Charles Knowles (private secretary) were with him, and acted as his substitutes on various committees. On the day after his return the High Commissioner gave some genera! impressions of the conference and the League. He maintained that his impressions on this occasion was quite a favourable one.

“Tlhe League” lie said, “did nothing spectacular. People who expected spectacular things from the League of Nations will always be disappointed. True, the League was established to end war and to work for peace, but this is a gigantic job, and necessarily >a very slow one. Yon cannot eradicate in eight years the racial passions and hatreds of Bn rope which live been going strong for 800 years. To expect that of the League is to expect an obvious impossibility. “The League, however, has year by year been more firmly established as Hie most useful institution in the world, and especially during the last three years 1 have noticed its growth —how it is getting hold of the various peoples. No other body can establish such useful Icon tacts ihetween the greatest men in Europe under one roof at one table, representing 50 nations. 'The friendly gathering of the world’s greatest statesmen at dinner, in the sitting rooms, and in the corridors—all this helps to inculnte the will to peace. Such meetings kill .misunderstandings—the fruitful cause of wars. “Then again what other body could do such magnificient social work asked the High Commissioner. “Take the awful opium trade, the ■ white slave traffic, infant welfare, the meetings of medical men from all over the world, the intellectual co-operation of the world’s greatest scholars—all these most useful activities are possible only under the League’s roof. “A big job ahead of the League, of course is disarmament of the nations. People grumble because disarmament comes slowly. But it can come in no other way. The difficulties, such as fear and jealousy and suspicion are temendous. But I am positive they are slowly yielding before the League’s steady and' unhurried work, and the growing opinion of the world towards peace is expressed in the Briand-Kel-logg Peace Pact—a most useful reinforcement of the League’s great objects.

“As regards Samoa.” added Sir •Tames Parr, “the League ('representing 50 nations) unanimously adopted the report of the Mandates Commission that the New Zealand Government and its administration has on the whole been perfectly in accordance with the spirit of the mandates. Indeed on its humanitarian side—health, education, social welfare—it has done unsurpassed work.”