LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 49, 26 January 1938, Page 9

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

QUESTION OF REFORM. “NEEDS WISE TREATMENT.” BRITISH PRESS COMMENT. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Received January 26, 10 a.m.

RUGBY, Jan. 25. The Foreign Secretary (Mr R. A. Eden) left London this morning for the 100th session of the League of Nations Council.

Commenting on the League meeting, the Daily Telegraph says that there is a growing movement among the minor Powers of Europe to seek some method of recognition of the Italian conquest of Abyssinia. Such proposals appear dt-iSfiSly premature in British eyes. “There is something ironic in the spectacle of some of the smaller States, which not long ago were urgent in pressing forward their condemnation of Italy and the application of sanctions against her, now competing in the cordiality of their overtures to Italy, who was self-expelled from the League,” says the paper. The Telegraph adds that further irony may be seen in the choice of the Council’s 100th session as the occasion for discussions on the reform of the depleted League itself. British and Dominion opinion recognises that the League is neither dead nor moribund, though its convalescence requires thoughtful treatment. There is no difficulty in seeing that a universal League with theoretically weaker, but binding, pjedges would be superior to a less inclusive League, whose pledges were not carried out. What is not established is whether a universal League could be established in the near future upon any base whatever, and whether a League diluted in a degree so frequently recommended would have any values for its potential associates.