The League. of Nations, when it has become hoary-headed, may aspire to a place beside the House of Lords as one of. those institutions which are perpetual ly about to be abolished but which, like Charles LI are unconscionably Being in the bl early youth or middle childhood, the League cannot be so philosophical when its critics or—even worse—its fanatical admirers cast doubts upon its robustness. So here in China, there in Japan and even. in Europe and America, candid enemies declare that the League is on the point of cracking and candid friends demand that it should do something or other for the sake of its prestige. This inspires the "Daily Mail," in its fervour of delight at repudiating all decent conceptions of fairplay, to imagine that Chinese politicians expect the League to roll like a Himalayan bear, down {the hillside in physical rebuke of a recalcitrant member. responsible supporter of the League of Nations, in calmer moments at all events, would encourage such a view. judging from the spec Chinese leaders, the criticism to be made of them is that they. are too little ready to recognise what influence the League has been able to assert, without resorting to measures which, beside being incompatible with its principles, would be clearly impolitic and, indeed, fatal-to its existence." As the assault on the League is, in England, mainly directed by right-wing journals with fitful conservative it Is pleasant to quote ce a recently made by Mr. Winston Churchill, whose realism is held to be beyond dispute. In the House of Commons, on November 23, Mr, Churchill, after expressing the hope that the League was not going to be asked to do the impossible, said:
"Those who believe as I do sincerely" in the League of. Nations as a priceless instrument of international comity should be specially careful not to put, upon the League strains which in its resent stage, it is "utterly Incapable of bearing. I deprecate the kind of talk that unless the League can effect general dis armament and compel powerful nations in far regions to comply with its decisions it is dead and away with it!" All that is just as foolish as to grudge the small sums which are necessary to keep this precious international machinery in being. He is a bad friend of the League who woul sot it a task beyond its compass.
Mr. Churchill here was retukjing the extreme section of the League of Nations Union; he was also effectively answering those who are petulantly and absurdly pretending that membership of the League involves the benefits derived from it. In point of fact, the whole cost lof the League to more than four-fifths of the world has, up ito date, been about £12,000,000. Great Brita' contribution to that total is somewhere the neighbourhood of—£1,300,000.
has been estimated as lent to an annual penditure of 2s 6d by a man with am income of £3,000 a year. Opponents of the League have every right to their point of, jew. The League may be a dangerous busybody as they try ito pretend; it may suffer—as most of its supporters will lagree—from the defection of the Uniteg States of America and the absence of the USSR. To suggest that objections can be made to the League on the score of expense is ludicrously to expose a shortage of arguments. It seen is unfortunate that, by pressing for a curtailment of the League's expenditure, the Bri delegates at Geneva have, unwittingly perhaps, prov' specious excuses for development of this charge of extravagance, Mr. Churchill's authority now comes to support the League
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.