The Routine of the League
THE comparatively humdrum work in which the Council of the League is engaged when we write is in strong contrast to the exciting days when Germany was a candidate for admission to the Council, and the whole existence of the League was threatened. It is the routine which tells ; it is the routine which justifies the League and shows that it is indispensable, even though its labours do not take up much space in the newspapers or provide a daily subject for polemics. On this occasion, Herr .Stresemann is acting as President of the Council. That fact in itself recalls all the dangers through which the League has passed, and implies all the promises which are held by the future.
.The agenda of the present meeting certainly contains serious matters, two or three of which might have summoned up the image of war if there had been no League ; but, as it is, they may almost be included in the humdrum class. For instance, a successor has to be appointed to Major G. W. Stephens, the Canadian President of the Saar Commission, who has resigned. The administration of the Saar is not a very creditable story, for, to put it bluntly, it has been conducted far too much in the French interest. On several occasions it seemed to us that the League ought to have intervened to remind the Commission from whom it drew its authority. There is, no doubt, some good reason for the resignation of Major Stephens, though no explanation has yet been officially offered. According to the most credible report, he is dissatisfied with the proposals of the Commission for guaranteeing freedom of transit on the Saar railway. However that may be, it is certain that the population does not like the proposed new international police force.
Another difficult question is raised by the appeal to the League to settle the differences between Germany and Poland. Germany and Poland recently failed to conclude the Commercial Treaty which they were negotiating because Germany took umbrage at the expulsion of Germans from the Polish part of Upper Silesia. Whenever the Poles have expelled Germans, the Germans in their part of Upper Silesia have retaliated by expelling Poles. The League may provide some immediate solution, but there is really not much hope of permanent quiet till the racial enmity in Upper Silesia becomes weary of itself and of the trouble it creates. The problem immediately before the League is to find a successor to M. Robert Guex as President of the German and Polish mixed Arbitial Tribunal. A similar problem has to be solved in connexion with the Rumanian and Hungarian Arbitral Tribunal, the Rumanian Arbitrator having refused to serve any longer in agrarian cases.
Another matter before the League is the Report of the Health Committee. The amount of important work done by this Committee is astonishing. It is in itself a very good illustration of the way in which the work of the League goes on while nobody hears very much about it. There could hardly be a more useful form of co-operation than that of exchanging medical knowledge and elaborating international methods of prevention, for no one disputes that prevention is much better than cure. The special correspondent of „the Times points out that the German and Indian Governments have arranged to exchange members of their public health personnel; that a Japanese professor is lecturing in Europe on problems of nutrition ; and that under the inspiration of the League•a Ccnference nn infant mortality is to be held • at Montevideo in June.' The question of China is not formally before the League, though, of course, Great Britain has invited the League to take cognizance of it ; but it is sure to he discussed privately, as will also the conditions on which the Allies will evacuate the Rhineland and the bearing upon the work of the Disarmament Commission of President Coolidge's proposal for the further limitation of naval armaments. Nor must one fail to mention the Report on the international traffic in women and children. Those who have seen the Report say that it contains extraordinary facts about the methods of this infamous traffic ;inch as have never before been collected. All routine, no doubt, but what invaluable routine !
Of course, if Herr Stresemann cared to use his new position for making European mischief, he would have unlimited opportunities. It is only one of many good signs that he shows no desire to do this. At the same time, it must not be forgotten that Germany resents the Treaty of Versailles, and that she will not be satisfied until she has shed the last remnants of inferiority to other Powers. We have never taken the view that the Treaty was as bad as it is often made out to be, though it must be acknowledged that it set up many grievant and was responsible for several anomalies. But there are two consoling thoughts, one retrospective and ti other prospective. The first is that, given the same large conglomeration of interested nations and the Sanl variety of topics, a second attempt to produce a Peace Treaty would be very unlikely to give us a better result, and might easily give us a worse. The second is tba the Peace Treaty, as it is, is not in a water-tight emu. partment ; when we are considering the future Europe, it is always a case of the Treaty plus tl Covenant of the League. The Covenant provides for th bringing of every kind of grievance before the League and for periodic review. This could not be said previous Peace Treaties. Good or bad, they remain until they were upset by a fresh war.
To say the least of it, there is now a reasonable ho that the League will save us another war of the fi class. Although Germany is resolved to express hersel nationally, she will apparently do so with due respe for the constitution and the machinery of the League This belief may seem to be illogically based—b then, the whole idea of the League is in a sense illogic The League provides the apparatus of inteiniationali but the foundation upon which it rests is the recognit of nationality, paradoxically pressed to such a poln that several new nations were created for the first till when the League was born. . If the illogicality does no more harm than it has d so far, we shall not be panic-stricken by alleged PrePa tions for war. The latest proposal in France to conser the whole nation—women as well as men—to pls its part in the defence of France in the next war been a shock to some people. But, considered 1 another point of view, may it not give us a kind 11 assurance ? It is certain that if there were snot European war, nobody would be left out of it; duties of soldiers would be only incidental. Ev children would be doing their jobs- from the moment t first bomb fell from the air. It might be better, nerdo .
that the people should be taught by statute exact what they have to expect. In that expectation tl would be the more anxious to avoid the madness another appeal to force. •
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