THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2278, 19 May 1921, Page 4

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

In an appreciation of the work of Mr Woodrow Wilson at the Pence Conference, General Smuts, Premier of the Union of South Africa, says:—The Covenant of the League of Nations is one of the great creative documents of human history. The Pence Treaty will fade into merciful oblivion, and its provisions will be gradually obliterated by the great human tides sweeping over the world. But the Covenant will stand as sure as fate. Forty-two nations gathered round it at the first meeting of the League at Geneva. And the day is not far off when all the free peoples of the world will gather round it. It must succeed, because there is no other way for the future of civilisation. It does not realise the great hopes born of the war, but it provides the only method and instrument by which in the course of time those hopes can be realised. Speaking as one who has some right to speak on the*funda-

mental conceptions, objects, and methods of the Covenant, I feel sure that most- of tho present priticism is based on misunderstandings. These misunderstandings will clear away; one by one the peoples still outside the Covenant will fall in behind this banner, under which the human .race is going to march forward to triumphs of peaceful organisation and achievement undreamt of by us children of an unhappier era. And the leader who, in spite of apparent failure, succeeded in inscribing his name on that Runner has achieved the most enviable and enduring immortality. Americans of the future will yet proudly and gratefully rank him with Washington and Lincoln, and his fame will have a more universal significance than theirs.