To the British delegate it was left to remind his colleagues that adhesion to the League has more responsibilities than lip-service; the Practical operating of the Leagu' decisions was one of them; and yet, to take a recent instance, out of the 34 States which signed the International Opium Convention, only six had ratified it, and these six were all members ' of the British Empire, which alone makes any subs stantial sacrifice in accepting the new opitim restrictions.
The Assembly io in fact suffering common experience of all democratic or quasi-democratic bodies to-day. Power is slipping away from the talking organ, and passing into the hands of the executive organ this ease the Couneil—and of the Hermanent staff, in this case {secretariat of steadily increasing knowledge and efficiency. Tt is not only by its weakness for endless and often irrelevant oratory that the Assembly is handicapped, hi scrupulous regard for the suscepti-Dilities of its most sensitive men:- bers. Never, for example, did it raise its voice, as it might well have done with effect, against the intrigues which hold up the entry of Germany in March. With equal /complaceney has it tolerated the bargainings which went on before the elections of September 16. It has done little to bring to an issue the burning question of disarmament. Nor hes it once, during the present session, mentioned the most serious menace to world pence at the mo. ment—the anarchy in China, It is sovereign Power within its own sphere, but it does not attempt rule,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.