EMPIRE & LEAGUE
DOMINIONS' REPRESENTATION,
HERTZOG’S ATTITUDE
(By Leslie R. Affldous.)
Looking. down upon the Assembly Hall of the League of Nations at Geneva, the observer noticed, among the tables reserved for the delegates of about fifty nations, seven separate places for spokesmen of the British Empire. In addition to Great Britain, Australia, Canada, India, the Insn Free State, New Zealand, and South Africa all had their own voices and votes to the annual League Assembly. This year eminent Dominion statesmen were at Geneva in full force, previous to attending the Imperial Conference in London, They made good use of their opportunities to express their opinions before the League.
Sir Robert Borden, the Canadian ex-Premier, actually had the honour of opening the general debate on the work of the League, in which he was followed by M. Briand (France) and Mr A. Henderson, the British Foreign Secretary. Nearly twelve years’ practical experiences of post-war international affairs—he was present at the Peace Conference in 1919—have convinced Sir Robert of the necessity for the League of Nations, and in his speech he paid a warm tribute to its work.
It will he interesting to discover what impression the League Assembly will leave upon General Herffzog. The South African Prime Minister’s contribution to the general debate was far more critical in tone. The League of Nations interests him; he thinks there may be a great deal of good in it, but all its activities are on trial until they fully justify themselves. Which attitude of mind is probably a useful antidote to the too facile praise of certain other smooth-tongued orators at the Assembly. General Hcrtzog appeared to be a little annoyed with the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League. This is easily understandable, for South Africa is responsible to the League for the administration of ex-Ger-man South-West Africa. Now South Africa’s methods with backward races are not those of Great Britain, nor are they always calculated to appeal to the colonial expets on the Mandates Commission. In the past, she had to be called to account for inhumane treatment of native tribes,\and the League’s censure led to urgently needed reforms. The Mandates Commission criticised
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HOG19301101.2.9
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Hokitika Guardian, 1 November 1930, Page 2
Word count
Tapeke kupu
361EMPIRE & LEAGUE Hokitika Guardian, 1 November 1930, Page 2
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
The Greymouth Evening Star Co Ltd is the copyright owner for the Hokitika Guardian. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of the Greymouth Evening Star Co Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in