The League of Nations
The French and German Cases at Geneva
AFTER a lapse of five years the League of Nations has experienced the satisfactory sensation of admitting a new member. The last application was Germany's in 1926 ; and since then the number of League States has dropped from 56
to 54, owing to the defection of Brazil and Costa Rica. Now it is raised to 55 by the admission of Mexico. That country's relations, or lack of relations, with the League have been curious. When, during the Peace Conference in 1919, the League was formed in the first instance by the Allied Powers all the neutral States of the world were invited to join—all, that is to say, with one exception ; for when it came to Mexico President Wilson put his foot down. His administra- tion had been in a state of constant clash with the revolutionary governments in the agitated country south of Texas, and the President insisted that Mexico was no fit member of any reputable League. In the last two or three years, as the country has had an increasingly settled government, it has shown more and more disposition to turn towards Geneva, and recently appointed a permanent observer to preserve touch between Mexico City and the League. Now, as a result of various private pourparlers, and through recourse to the expedient of extending after twelve years the invitation with- held in 1919, instead of laying on the Mexican Government the onus of making formal application, Mexico has slipped quietly into League membership. With Brazil out of the League altogether, and the Argentine Republic a permanently non- attending member, the entry of what Lord Cecil, with slightly revolutionary ideas of geography, described as the most ancient and the most influential of South American States (as he subsequently observed, you can, after all, draw the line between north and south where you like) is an event of some importance.
The Assembly, having now worked off its set speeches, has settled down to solid committee work. As everyone familiar with Geneva knows, though the first week of oratory from the platform may give certain directives, it is in the six standing Commissions that plans are worked out and lines of concrete action shaped. That does not mean that the speeches of the first week are without importance. If they have no other effect they at any rate create an atmosphere. That atmosphere this year could hardly be particularly encouraging, and even though there has been a certain amount of deliberate dissemination of optimism, on the whole the standard at the twelfth Assembly has been below the average level. The speeches of the delegates of the four chief European States stood out, not so much for their intrinsic importance as because the secondary States had less to say than usual. No Scandinavian speaker, for example, ascended the platform at all—a strange contrast to the days of Wanting and Nansen. Great Britain, of course, is at a disadvantage through the fact that its delegation is representing a government which, while its general sympathies with the League are not in question, has obviously had no time to consider a League policy in detail. But in spite of the fact that Lord Cecil had to tem- porize a little on such questions as Signor Grandi's armaments truce proposal and the harmonization of the Covenant with the Kellogg Pact, his speech, with its equal balance of emphasis between the gravity of the economic crisis and the urgency of the armaments problem, and his final appeal to Germany and France to sink their differences and thus relieve Europe of 75 per cent. of its anxieties, carried substantial weight.
But the dominant impression left by this first week of speeches is that the attitude of France is still the most serious obstacle to an agreement at the Armaments Conference next year. That is said not in criticism of France's attitude, which indeed is quite intelligible, but as a plain statement of objective fact. France, if M. Briand's Assembly speech is to be taken as an authoritative expression of her policy, is at odds both with Italy and with Germany, and very far from being at one with Great Britain. That is no new discovery, but as the spokesmen of the four countries have declared themselves in public on consecutive days the divergencies have been thrown into fresh prominence. Signor Grandi, who is quite definitely working for a position of leadership for himself and for Italy, proposes rather vaguely an armaments truce, to take effect from now till the Disarmament Conference has reached its conclusion. Lord Cecil gives cordial support for Great Britain with the prudent reservation that further details of the proposal are required. M. Briand conspicuously omits from his speech any reference to the proposal at all, but the French Press supplies all that is needed in the way of comment by damning the plan up and down. Then Dr. Curtius winds up for Germany—naturally enough—by endorsing the Grandi proposal without qualification.
On the old security issue, too, there is equal divergence. M. Briand says in effect, after significantly referring to the Treaty of Mutual Assistance in 1923 and the Geneva Protocol in 1924, that unless more security is forthcoming before the Armaments Conference there will be little doing in the direction of reduction. Signor Grandi maintains that security has in fact been obtained so far as written pacts can achieve it, and the one business now is to disarm. Lord Cecil puts disarma- ment in the forefront. Dr. Curtius, in almost challenging language, insists that security is the result, not the condition, of disarmament, and demands that the statutory inequality imposed by the Peace Treaties shall be wiped out once for all by the Conference in February. Failure to achieve that will seal the fate of the Conference, and the fate of the Conference is the fate of the League.
These differences must not be taken too tragically. If they exist the best thing that could happen is for them to be stated frankly from the Assembly platform. There is nothing in the criticism that Dr. Curtius's speech will throw a shadow over the coming visit of French Ministers to Berlin. M. Laval and Dr. Bruning are too much of realists to let that happen. M. Laval and Dr. Bruning, unfortunately, are not at Geneva, and the interest directed backwards towards the Paris and London talks of Premiers in July, and forwards to the Berlin talks at the end of this month, is an unwelcome reminder to Geneva that the centre of events lies for the moment else- where. The dependence of any settlement of the Reparations problem on the concurrence of Washington is a further sharp reminder of the same rather depressing fact. Fundamentally, no doubt, the truth is, as several Assembly speakers insisted, that the work being done everywhere—in Geneva, in London, in Paris, in Berlin—all tends to one end : the end which Geneva exists to promote. But meanwhile, and momentarily, Geneva is a little overshadowed.
As these words are being written at the beginning of the Assembly's second week a good deal may still emerge from the discussions in the Commissions. In particular the armaments truce proposal may be given a shape which will secure its general adoption. If the main problems in the economic field cannot be solved here and now, various subsidiary measures of value, particularly to Europe, may be worked out. The situation regarding tariffs is still strangely paradoxicaL Every country insists on the need for reductions and every country keeps its tariffs up or builds them higher. Dr. Curtius, having dropped his Austro-German Customs Union scheme, urges now the need for some larger European scheme on analogous lines. That is a good omen as far as it goes, and it remains now to be seen whether definite decisions entailing some reduction in European tariffs can be evolved.
Meanwhile Geneva continues, at any rate, to be a sounding- board. Rumours from the world over echo here, most common among them hints grounded or groundless of projects shaping themselves in President Hoover's mind. For Geneva, quite frankly, like Paris and London and Rome and Berlin and Warsaw, is looking to Washington. Without the new world the old world cannot find salvation. -
YOUR GENEVA. CORRESPONDENT.
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