Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1938. THE LEAGUE STILL NEEDED.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 December 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1938. THE LEAGUE STILL NEEDED.

LV DEBATE on the League of Nations which opened in the House of Lords on Wednesday last appears to have been marked by a practical appreciation by some, at least, of those who took part in it of the present-day demands of the world situation. One of the most interesting contributions to the debate was an unqualified endorsation by the British Foreign Secretary (Lord Halifax) of suggestions by General' Smuts that the United States should be admitted to the League on a special basis of membership and that a standing committee of the Great Powers should be set up as part of the League machinery.

General Smuts had also said (Lord Halifax' observed) that no alternative to the League system for peace had been found and that to scrap it and leave a vacuum would be an immense waste of human effort and would leave the world without any reasonable means of procedure. That, Lord Halifax thought, was profoundly true, and he certainly would be very proud to make General Smuts’s words his own.

If Lord Halifax is prepared, not only to make General Smuts’s words his own, but to do what in him lies to carry the suggestions of the great South African statesman into practical effect, he may render a very important service to humanity.

The essential fact to be grasped where the League is concerned is that it represents an absolute alternative to power polities—exemplified of late in the policy and actions oi the totalitarian dictatorships—with all that they imply in the. way of reliance on brute force, unscrupulous propaganda and ehieane. The League is supremely important, not as so much machinery, but as the focal point for the time being of whatever efforts are being made to replace lawlessness in international affairs by a rule of law. As affairs stand in the world today, the question of supporting or not supporting the League becomes simply one of a choice between good and evil.

That many nations have failed to stand up to their obligations as members of the League does not mean that the League has failed, but only that these nations have failed to take effective combined action to uphold international justice and to defend their common and collective security. The only remedy the situation admits—the only alternative, indeed to a despairing acceptance of the inevitability of international anarchy—is in renewed efforts by peaceful nations to re-establish a basis of co-operation and combined action.

From that practical standpoint, the suggestions advanced by General Smuts undoubtedly, as Lord Halifax has said, are worthy of close study. The beginning of all co-operation is in taking counsel together and it would be well worth while to admit the United States to membership of the League even though, in accepting that membership, she refused to enter into commitments of any kind. The United States certainly would not accept military or other obligations as a member of the League, but if she can be induced to accept purely consultative membership, the way will be opened to a very considerable revival of the influence of the League upon the course of world affairs.

Germany and Italy are pursuing visibly a policy of aggression in which the ust) or threat of force is mingled with trickery and deception. The last-mentioned elements of totalitarian policy are illustrated at present in crudely conceived but interesting attempts by the Fascist Powers to sow dissension between Britain and France. In the vigorous rearmament of the democracies, on the other hand, there is a plain implication that there are limits to the toleration they are prepared to extend to totalitarian aggression.

There is little enough hope of improving upon this state of affairs, with its increasingly explosive potentialities, by the policy of direct approach and concession to the dictatorships—a policy which is about to find further expression in Mr Chamberlain’s visit to Rome. It is increasingly doubtful, for.example, whether the rather miserable farce of the policy of socalled non-intervention in Spain is worth maintaining any longer. On the other hand, the way might be opened to a very considerable improvement in the outlook by re-establishing broad-based international consultation centred on the League. The use of the League machinery against aggression plainly is out of the question for the time being, but even a united expression of opinion by the nations that stand for international justice and peace is capable of serving a salutary purpose. In co-operating to that end, the democracies need not in any way neglect the positive measures they are taking to make themselves secure against aggression, but in the extent to which an international public opinion is built up by consultation and discussion it may be made more difficult for the totalitarian Powers to presevere in their tactics of aggression and provocation. Something certainly may be done in this way to bring all peace-loving nations into closer touch and understanding and at worst to limit and restrict in some measure the development of the forces of active evil in the world.