Those who are inclined to despair at the recent failures of the League of Nations may take courage from the vehemenc with which that institution being sentenced to death—by those who have found it temporarily inconvenient, It is entirely natural that the has: pitable Trans-Ocean Agency should hasten to tell the id of Mr. H. G. Wells's genial birthday bouquet to the League, Mr. Wells is an attractive novelist, a not-so-good historian and a poor politician. Assuming that he has been correctly reported, there is no. reason for any opponent of the League to be exultant over his findings. the risk of being monotonous, it must again be stated that, the League is not a ate is a super man, It is what its members make it. Experience, after four-eon years, shows, "as it was bound to show, thatthe Covenant has some painfully weak spots. Even weaker is the ability of the individual nations to work the Covenant in the light of the principles which it was framed to establish, Signor Mussolini, dissempbling his love, would like to kick the League' downstairs. He has been persuaded to take his stand on eventual reform, The United States of America and the USSR. are not_ like to weaken in their determination will continue. Mr, Wells is stating the obvious when he points to the wane of international The summary of his speech is reported belief in the merits of an Anglo-American rap. brochement for economic purposes sets the wind in the contrary direction. It is possible to hold the view that the present, orgy of—economi nationalism is now so generally recognised for what it is that a limit to its baneful influence may 4n due course be achieved, The to handle can hardly tly att able to the intrusion of factors which have driven ex-rts off the field. The Economic ference of 1926 ing of experts. regarded its findings. The lay conference of 1933 at London was still-born because the perts were subordinated to the politicians.
So while Mr. Wells—on_ the basis of the cabled summary of his jeremiad—seems to be right in his findings, he may possibly be wrong in his conclusions on the League's ultimate fate. As the critical examination of the League develops, certain aspects of its organisation come in for condemnation. For instance, there is the contention that the linking up of the Covenant to the Peace Treaties is a definite handicap to the League. Alteration of that condition is not impossible, although clearly it! cannot be attempted unless safety under the Treaties assured. Perhaps the Conves set out to achieve a moral reformation ahead of political conditions. Yet, looking back over the last fourteen years, it cannot be denied that the League has performed useful rvice in the Joint settlement of issues which might, in the old days, have had no other outcome than' war. To the pessimists it surely is a good answer to point out that the mere fact that the League ly reproached for failing to prevent certain lapses from the principles of the Covenant is in itself a proof of the world's advance. Before 1914 no-one would have ventured to condemn a set of nations or a single nation for failing to prevent aggression by Jother nations. Yet this is part land parcel of the indictment of the League to-day. From it the: League may take encouragement.
Mr, Wells is eminently sound in his criticism of the League's economic failure because it has thrown men back on a fierce, despairing nationalism. The "Lea-Jgue's efforts to maintain peace have been developed in a spirit lof self-seeking among the nations. This spirit has stood in severe contrast. to. the self-sacrifice which the ideals of war have cultivated. That is where Hitlerism Jand Fascism have scored, in Spite lof the crudities of their barbaric revivals, They have, in fact, stolen the thunder of the League. They have perceived that the motive force from which the League derive the sanction of world was the ideal of personal subordination to the welfare of the community. The preception was really not original—not even when, cat adopted by the Soviet organisers of the new Russian state, The question before the League is how to prepare the ground for {the adoption of this spirit of self-peace. armament sacrifice in the organisation for
enough, Atits best it simply delays the coming of the evil day. The world requires to be told that peace among its peoples is merely the preservation of the right to live and of a belief common good. Despite the fran tic revival of the glamour of war, nations are trying hard to evolve means for enstiring the economic livelihood of their respective selves, They can arrive at agree. ments to which they pin their faith, even though their recent: factions have repudiated—the sanctity of pledges. This may bbe the dark hour of the League but it need not be the last hour if lessons ure rightly learnt. Mr. Wells does a service in bluntly stating the conception of failure. His reasoning may halt there. (Others can carry on with courage the logical remedy: the reconstruction of machinery for cooperation, whether by the League lor by a new and revised instrument for international service. "The triumph of the nationalism Jas conceived to-day is, as Profes~ [sor Gilbert Murray has lately declared, the triumph of human humiliation, human anxiety and human misery. Indeed, the eestaisles of these who are exulting lover the alleged eclipse of the League receive a crushing commentary in the coincident emer-Jxence of the direst apprehension est a greater and more catastrophic world-war come upon it-ithe nations, before the fabric of peace can be securely created.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.