THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 November 1930, Page 6

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

(Otago Times).

Last week, at Newcastle, the Foreignl Secretary, Mr Arthur Henderson, made an important deliverance upon the relation ol' British foreign policy to the League of Nations. He stated that the Covenant of the League was now the corner stone of British policy,— the principles embodied in that instrument were the principles of British foreign policy since the war. This pronouncement should be sufficient to silence those few grumblers in the Empire who are more' ready to proclaim domestic foibles than to applaud beneficent achievements in the cause of universal peace. It should also give heart to the not inconsider-. able portion of the community who seem to fear that the principles of the Covenant are falling into desuetude because they are not being loudly trumpeted, or that they are becoming inoperative because visible results are not daily forthcoming through the medium of sensational cables. ■Mr Henderson’s summary of the achievements of the League is valuable and timely, but it is less valuable than the assurance that the spirit of the League is at work all the time, —this is the little leaven that will ultimately, we hope, leaven the whole lump. Mr Henderson’s resume mentioned among other things the fine work of the League in striving to improve labour conditions throughout the world the simplification of Customs formalities, tin* attack on slavery, pernicious-drugs and the white slave traffic, and.' earlier, the assistance to Austria, Hungary,. Greece, and Burgary. In addition to these very concrete benefits ninny benefits may be mentioned, the supervision by the League of many mandated areas in Asia, Africa and the Pacific, the responsibility for the Saar Valley the Danzig, the repanation of 430,000 prisoners of war through the help of Dr Nansen in . 1920-22, the settlement of many Russian and Armenian refugees in several European countries, and the organisation of intergovernmental co-operation for safeguarding public health. Under this last-named head the League has given assistance in public health to China, Persia, Greece and Turkey; it has set up. a bureau in Singapore to help in coping with Oriental epidemics, and has fostered the investigation into the nature of malaria and sleeping sickness. These humanitarian efforts should alone satisfy the thinking portion of the community who realise that lasting social benefits come quietly and are not to be assessed by the size of the headlines they evoke. In what may be more narrowly considered the special sphere of the League, that is, the- preservation of peace, it should be recalled that it lias already prevented three wars, one between Poland and Lithuania, in 1920, one between Jugo-slavia and Albania, in 1921, and one between Greece and Bulgaria, in 1925. The services rendered to civilisation in these three preventions of hostilities can never be assessed—any one of those wars might have had in it the devastating force some would ascribe to the liberated energy of the atom, —it might mean world destruction.

It would he easy to bring forward many other beneficent activities of the ■League. It will suffice mention, only one, the work of the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation. In the words of the celebrated classic' translator, Professor Gilbert Murray, chairman of the C.I.C. as it is called,-hS “the ■ CjC.C. will continue 1 its relations with the international student societies, greatly increase its undertakings in the way of exchanges both of pupils and teachers, and superintend the great enterprise, now on foot in every State member of the League, for giving League teaching to the new generation and training them to regard international co-operation as the normal method of human progress.” Tn addition to this there is in the reform scheme a proposal for international expert study of some one “major problem of general interest.”

Sucli a. record of achievement and of purpose should hearten the supnorters of the League and re-a rouse the waverers, despite the lack of progress in the direction of international disarmament. Social changes are not like elections or battles to he fought out and settled in a day or two. They come in silently, yet irresistibly, like the rising tide, — While here, the tired waves vainly breaking Seem scarce some pain ill inch to gain. Far hack through creeks and inlets, making, Comes silent, flooding in the main !

Universal goodwill has to be won by patience, high endeavour and persistent idealism. The idealism that dies aWav when the organ ceases to peal or when the trumpet is no longer blown, the evanescent enthusiasm which perishes unless stimulated bv melodramatic records of constant triumph is useless in. n cause like this. What is wanted is men who believe that peace is desirable, tliat it is attainable. and' that steady effort, coupled with optimism, will by degrees raise man to a rational plane of conduct where mutual slaughter as a means of settling disputes will be as repulsive to civilised human beings as the burning of witches now is.