LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 4 August 1932, Page 3

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

SOME OF. ITS CONCERNS. “This' League of Nations is concerned with a number of. matters you liiay not/ have expected,” wrote Mr Glaremoe iSttreifc in a' recent despatch to “The iNew York Times,”—“with whooping cough and the Wailing Wall, with the wandering of girls and the anchoring -of buoys, ’with how to save the whales, cure the l'eptrs and Bell the poets with the liquor traffic and motor traffic arid the drug, traffic and the Danube traffic and the slave traffic, Black and white; with taming the Yellow River in China. >pnd the yellow fever in Liberty, with archaeology and aviation, 'with floating mihe-s, coal miritis, and vitamins.”

Such a varied -list of activities is neither exaggerated nor exhaustive; there are by now, very few matters with which the League of Nations is not, directly or indirectly, concerned. Disanriament and the gradual build-’ ing up of the machinery of arbitration as a substitute for war, are, of course, iri the forefront of . its programme. But, acting on the principle that “prevention is better than cure,” and b.lieying that the more the nations of the world can be brought to realise, and to work,,;together for, their comriion interests, the less likely they will be to endanger those interests by war., th'e. League seeks to develop all forms of international co-operation. All over the world health enquiries are being carried on; the Malaria Commission, after having visited the United States and practically every Mediterranean country, has lately been studying malaria in India; the Leprosy Commission has been doing . research in Japan arid South America, arid lateit September the Council accepted th'e offer of the Brazilian Government to create an international centre in. Rio de Jariiero fur the study of tli, t disease. In Africa efforts are lei“g madte to crip fiber yellow, fever and to get rid of the tse-tse fly, which spreads Sleeping- sickness, the terror of the native population; even as far afield as Melanesia experts havla been making a survey of health conditions among the natives.

In Europe- rural health officers, sanitary engineers, agrarian experts and administrators have Been discussing together,-for the first time this summer the great problem of how to make the countryside healthy; enquiries are taking place into the causes and prevention- of infant mortality, into th-e milk supply, the fumigation of ships, the standardisation and’purity,of vitamins, the efficacy of ■ X-rays in connection: with cancer, and . innumerable other subjects. In fact, there is hardly a country in the world which lias not profited directly from-the: Daigue’s health work. Another side of the Leagues’ work in which, international co-operation is all important is in the fight against suclv evils as slavery and forced labour, the abuse of dangerous drugs, the traffic, in women.' andy children;- and -the forging of vmrrienoy. Modern oriminals are riot bound by na-tiorial frontiers and certain, of their ‘activities can: only be checked by uUideqsing ■ vigil and’; and co-peration on the part of all nations.' Thus'we find on& of the “Big Five’.’ from Scotland- Yard going to Geneva to discrisfe- with- representatives from other centra.] police- offices how best to detect and punish ' men who' liaVe forged : currency in one colintry arid: ha.ve their fled for refuge to another country. ; Or, again, information collected at Geneva from all over the porld -condeirning the illicit drug traffics has , led to huge seizures of opium, cocaine arid Other drugs concealed in jam pots false cupboards, iron bedsteads, double boxes arid all sorts of odd devices, arid to the unmasking arid ruin of big international gangs of smugglers. ■ • Less, sensational, hut equally useful, is the work being don© to simplify arid improve coriimririicktrOriis and transit. Navigation, for instance, is helped by efforts to unify th© laws relating to the rivfer systems of Europe or to lighthouses and boriys. Private individuals gain, too, for when the League’s recent Convention on Road Traffic i* in force, you will no longer need to fear that, if you tak© your car abroad, you may not be able to understand the police signals arid road signs in a foreign country, frir all countries will use the same standard / signs.