Ten Years of the League
TEN YEARS OF THE LEAGUE ON SEPTEMBER 7 of last year, the corner-stone of the projected "palace" of the League of Nations was laid, with appropriate ceremonies in which the disgruntled as well as...
...Great Britain has sent two of its most adroit statesmen to the League, and even the prejudiced must admit that Lord Cecil and Sir Austen Chamberlain have faced issues with a breadth and contemporaneousness which pre-war diplomacy seldom permitted...
...On the other hand, six months had not passed before it was wholly evident that while the central powers had been defeated they remained invaluable components of the economic structure of Europe ; and in about the same length of time the horizon began to bristle with problems created by the redistribution of national boundaries...
...No doubt, however, the rehabilitation of Germany has been the greatest achievement of the League to date...
...It was the agency which made possible the financial reconstruction of Austria, through a loan of 27,000,000 in 1922...
...Even in the most vital matters-regulation of war debts, evacuation of German territory, naval disarmament-the League was an indispensable part of the background, even though the actual settlements were effected through conferences in which the United States, officially an absentee from Geneva, took a leading role...
...A fairly complete schedule of cooperation between the two has now been worked out...
...If there had been no organized international machinery at Geneva, war between Greece and Italy could hardly have been avoided by a conference of ambassadors during 1923...
...Similarly there are still not a few persons in all parts of the world who view this fraternizing among nations with deep suspicion...
...Possibly, however, we can isolate a few factors of general interest and importance and so speculate upon the effectiveness of the weapons which the movement for peace believes it has accumulated...
...Others hold that the League is dangerous-dangerous because its decisions may cause rather than prevent war, dangerous because patriotism alone is worthy of the human intelligence and heart...
...and though it is necessarily cumbersome and perhaps even defective in some particulars, it has the advantage of whole-hearted support by American opinion...
...But thereby he committed his countrymen to a program of constructive political action rather than to some dangerous dream of revenge...
...In both cases, the attitude of the Holy See was important and very typical...
...Second, the League was a timid and quite helpless association of diplomatic representatives few of whom had any faith in the venture, but it was nevertheless a hub round which the efforts of statesmanship could move...
...For all that, the League is ten years old, it is beginning to house itself appropriately, and it has assumed a system of functions which it performs with despatch...
...While the entry of the Reich caused not a few flurries and one important quarrel, it did more than any other thing could to guarantee the stability of the Geneva institution...
...In 1920 Europe had underwritten treaties which virtually guaranteed the stability of a new map of the world...
...Some believe that it is all a matter of oratorical smoke-screens, behind which the real powers which govern worldly affairs proceed to their ends with undiminished cynicism...
...Employing both the public and the private diplomatic contacts afforded by Geneva, Briand has voiced again and again the expectations of progressive public opinion, never forgetting the interests of his own country and yet always realizing that a stable Europe cannot be based upon French military hegemony...
...On the one hand, their moral case was immediately and seriously assailed by the publication of secret documents, the dissatisfaction of the United States, and the secession of Russia from the social order of western Europe...
...Meanwhile it had brought not a few tasks to a successful conclusion...
...One may say that only the military prestige of France and Britain kept the peace-a perilous and necessarily transitory situation...
...He left it no secret that Germany would seek to get through the League a modification of conditions she considered unjust and destructive of her welfare...
...It became clear that Berlin would do all it could to foster the stability of Geneva, and offer in exchange the promise of European security...
...The Allies were not merely victorious...
...There is every reason to believe that for the present the League must concern itself almost exclusively with European affairs...
...It has both a record of achievements and a conception of possibilities no observer of political realities, however antipathetic, can ignore...
...Here again League of Nations' decisions might hamper rather than aid the finding of the right answers...
...Never in its history, perhaps, has Europe been so badly infected with the germs of war as during the four or five years which followed the Treaty of Versailles...
...And a recent book by Rene Benjamin (Les Augures de Geneve) is a fair sample of the scorn which extreme nationalists in Europe heap upon an institution about which they carefully refrain from knowing too much...
...and it faces such complex and crucial problems as the treatment of minorities, the intra-continental tariff and the curtailment of land armies-problems toward the solution of which the United States could contribute very little in open debate...
...It likewise abetted the League, even though it itself had not been invited to join...
...In a recent article, Sir Philip Gibbs declared that "its present strength and prestige are almost miraculous...
...First, public opinion was profoundly opposed to hostilities and anxious to clear away the wreckage left by four years of storm...
...It is no secret that many residents of Calvin's old city accuse the international bureaucracy created by the League of having raised the cost of living and increased the number of tourist automobiles...
...The Vatican clamored incessantly for peace, urging the faithful to work and pray for international amity and enjoining upon its ministers a careful abstinence from bellicose politics...
...In not a single instance was the League itself the direct instrument of settlement, but almost always the League was the starting-point and (one may say) the incentive...
...and, in having respected the protest of the Holy See against the original agreement, it had to some extent made itself the mouthpiece of the European conscience...
...Many consider him the foremost political figure as yet identified with the League...
...Without the League, the great work of Locarno might have been postponed for years...
...To concur in this view and to obtain for France the benefits it seemed to involve has been the great service of Aristide Briand...
...They professed to be the sole guardians of political justice and democratic aspiration...
...One after another, the great crises were met...
...The Allied solidarity commenced to wane in accordance with the divergent news and purposes of Great Britain, France, Italy and the Balkans...
...These differences are real and obvious, but they will prevent no one who examines the situation carefully from feeling that Geneva is more than a symbol of progress and that it can, in all truth, foster international good-will without demanding from any country even a partial sacrifice of its legitimate aspirations...
...For its part, the question of relationships with and between the other peoples of the American continents is of critical significance...
...Nevertheless it was perfectly clear that this pose would be difficult to maintain...
...There were just two kinds of hopeful pacific ballast...
...This is not the place to attempt an analysis of the circumstances which have caused this seemingly marvelous development...
...We do not feel, however, that the absence of the United States from the League Assembly has worked to the disadvantage of either side...
...and spectators in close touch with the situation feel that several among the younger men now stationed at Geneva as representatives will find handsome and plentiful opportunity to exercise their gifts...
...One reason is certainly the advent of the policy through which Stresemann sought to effect the political reorientation of his country...
...The presence of such personalities has been of unquestionable value to the League...
...it had effected the rescue of Greek refugees, fleeing from the victorious Mustapha Kemal...
...TEN YEARS OF THE LEAGUE ON SEPTEMBER 7 of last year, the corner-stone of the projected "palace" of the League of Nations was laid, with appropriate ceremonies in which the disgruntled as well as the enthusiastic citizens of Geneva took part...
...Wilson...
...Our own Middle-West is still pretty firmly committed to this point of view, holding that it was sold out by the dreams of Mr...
Vol. 11 • January 1930 • No. 12
