The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, MAY 7, 1920. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

Southland Times, Issue 18815, 7 May 1920, Page 4

The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, MAY 7, 1920. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

No proposal for the control of international affairs has contained more possibilities for mischief than the one which Lord .Robert Cecil has condemned. If the League of Nations is to continue and be a real force for the settlement of international disputes and for the removal of misunderstandings, any division of its powers with another body will be fat;J. The project put forward that the Supreme Council should become a permanent diplomatic committee probably owes its rise to the French distrust of the League, but while she may have reason for doubting the power of the League of Nations to protect her from an attack by Germany, there can be no justification for the setting up of an inter-Aliied Junta within the League. If such a step were taken it would mean the splitting of the powers into two camps, and we would probably see the opponents of the Allies bunded together with a similar organisation ready to support each other in, diplomacy and, if necessary, in war. It would mean the perpetuation of great alliances under the aegis of an international organisation which in its constitution displays an antipathy to alliances, except of a purely defensive character. There must always be some difficulty about determining where a defensive understanding terminates and a pact for offensive action begins, and we may take it that in principle the League of Nations is opposed to alliances of any sort. The Supreme Council has had many difficult tasks to accomplish, and it will be some time before its work is done; but the bare idea of making it a permanent body will appear to our recent enemies as the enthronement of Allied aggression. Germany could hardly be expected to look with any confidence to the future in the League if she knew that ranged against her there would always be an organisation with more actual power than the League itself, for though the League Assembly and the League Council encompass nearly all the nations of the world, action under the Covenant is so hedged about by conditions that it must be slow, while the inter-Allied organisa : tion that brought the League into existence would be under no restrictions and could ignore the other nations. A purely defensive alliance, guaranteeing assistance to France in the event of unprovoked invasion would not be objectionable, although, as we said before, the spirit, though not the wording of the League Constitution, is against such a treaty. The Supreme CounciPs operations as far as Germany is concerned are now reaching a crucial point—the question of indemnity, or reparations as the diplomats choose to call the payments. It is true that Germany at one stage offered £5,000,000,000, but her position has altered considerably since that time, and it is questionable whether the

payment of such a huge sum would be possible except under exceptionally favourable conditions. France, of course, is looking to the indemnities to provide her with a fairly large sum of money during the next few years. The payment of the German indemnity will assist her heavily burdened finances and to some extent repair the damage done by the war; but if the Germans are to pay over to the Allies a large amount of money they must be enabled to trade and the expansion of her trade will bring her into direct competition with the Allied nations to the hurt of P ranee and Belgium who have still to repair much of the damage deliberately worked by the Germans, Germany, according to the reports of American business men, is recovering her industrial vigour in a remarkable manner and if this view is correct, it is extremely probable that the fixing of a comparatively low rate of payment to start with might lead to a more rapid extinction of the whole sum. The experience that the Allies have had of German methods, however, so far, should warn them against putting much trust in the Teuton’s undertaking. At the first sign of weakness in the Allied co-operation the German will seek to repudiate his liabilities and for that reason the Supreme Council, or some inter-allied commission, will have to remain in operation to see that the treaty provisions are fulfilled. This does not mean, however, that this body will be permanent or that it will have any powers outside of the actual treaty. That is the distinction between this suggestion and the one which Lord Robert Cecil so firmly condemns.