Oct, 11, The increasing cost of running the League of Nations has at last begun to attract serious attention. The estimated expenditure for the year: 1927-28 was £1,000,000. Of this amount, it may be mentioned, Great Britain contributes £101,000: that is to say that one nation out of the fifty-five who compose the League pays more than one tenth of the' whole expenditure. 'She has, moreover, latterly expressed her readiness to' pay, we think, the whole of the £7,000 which the opium investigation committee is to cost, an me sstigation, by the way, which China is strenuously resisting. But this 27,000 is but a fraction of the increase forecast for 1928-29 of the normal million,- to which another £60,000 has to be added for purposes apparent ly deemed imperative, The re-Dresentative for India had already protested against the growing costliness of the League, from which his country got little benefit that he could see; when, on September 12, Mr. Locker-Lampson, British Under-'Secretary for Foreign Affairs, moved to reduce the League's budget by £40,000, while the Italian representative proposed that it should be permanently fixed at a million.
To both proposals Sir - Erie Drummond, secretary-general of the League, raised earnest ob-Jections. He showed that the increased costs on the bureau cratic side were small and that the extra expenditure was due "direct or implied instrue—tions from the Council or the. Assembly" for more conferences and commissions of inquiry,: things outside his control.' "He: particularly asked that. expendi=,
given sum as it was.a/ ture should not be. fixed: at
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.