The League of Nations

How the Council Fared at Madrid

THE Council decided to hold its June meeting in Madrid. There was, in fact, only one reason for going to Madrid, which was that the Spanish Government wanted it. Whether the prime motive was devotion to the League or a desire to enhance the prestige of the present administration is a point on which Spaniards themselves _express. violently conflicting opinions.

At any rate, to Madrid the League Council has come, and no one can complain that it has not been royally received— literally so, of course, for the outstanding event of the week was a dinner at the Palace to the chief delegates, followed by a brilliant reception to a wider circle, the King and his English Queen moving about and conversing freely with the

polyglot guests. .

This is not really good for business, and at the same time the Council's method of doing its business does not lend itself to spectacular display. The Spanish public, such as could gain admission, gazed with interest on such figures as M. Briand and Herr Stresemann, deplored the absence of the monocled Sir Austen, who had shown himself so warm—so undiscri- minatingly warm—a friend of Spain, studied the inscrutable Oriental features of M. Adatci in the chair, but were frankly bored at that semi-audible reading of long reports, of which the Council's business often very largely consists.

That, it may be said, matters little, since it is the papers, not the public, that make publicity, and the papers spread Council descriptions and reports over the whole of their front pages and half the back ones. But even the papers admitted some disappointment that the Council was so dull, and though it would be natural to assume that the League will mean something different to Spain after this, there are good judges—Spanish—who take the view that the impression will be relatively evanescent.

PRACTICAL BUSINESS.

HoWever, the Council exists not to entertain Spaniards, but to get through its own business, and it will be a bad day when it yields to the temptation to sacrifice the practical for the spectacular. As it happened, this Madrid meeting was destined to be more austerely practical than most. To begin with, the one topic of conversation was not anything on the agenda, but the effect which the change of Government in Great Britain would have on the fortunes of the League and the possibility of Mr. Henderson abandoning his habitual deliberation of movement and dashing out at the eleventh hour to occupy the British seat at the Council table. It did not happen so in the end, and consequently the tripartite Anglo-Franco-German conversations which are usually so prominent a feature of League Council meetings failed to

take place. •

Minorities, consequently, had to provide the main interest. With doubtful wisdom—for these semi-secret conclaves have usually more disadvantages than advantages—the Council met in committee, i.e., in private, for three days before the Council opened, for the sole purpose of -discussing the Minority question, which had been posed formally at the previous Council in March by Dr. Stresemann, of Germany, and Senator Dandurand,-of Canada. The whole session was a study in manoeuvre. On one side were the Germans, speaking for minorities generally, and more particularly for the German minority in Poland. On the other side were the Poles and the Rumanians, representing Governments bound by Minority Treaties. On the table was the lengthy Report on the whole question drawn up since the previous Council meeting by Sir Austen Chamberlain, M. Adatci and Seiior Quinones de Leon.

The Report came in the main to the conclusion that things were very well as they were, or at any rate as well as they reasonably could be, but it did propose some changes in procedure, tending to safeguard the rights of the minorities in certain directions. Dr. Stresemann's cue clearly was to accept thankfully what he could get for the moment and keep the door open for further advances later. The aim of Poland and Rumania, of course, was precisely the opposite. Their purpose was to avoid making any concessions at all, and, if they had to make them-, to regard the whole question thenceforward as a closed issue. To that end they insisted that the London Report (so called because the Chamberlain,. Adatci-Quinones de Leon committee had met in Whitehall) must be accepted as a whole—endorsement of existing procedure no less than proposals for specific reforms.

Ultimately common ground was reached on the reforms and the two sides both attached reservations which could hardly be reconciled with one another if the matter were pressed to the utmost length of strict logic. What Dr. Stresemann said in effect was that,. while he could not accept all the principles in which the. London Report was based, he could and did accept the changes it suggested. M. Zaleski, of Poland, and M. Titulesco, of Rumania, on the other hand, conceded the reforms with some reluctance, but only on the understanding that the Report was to be regarded as an indissoluble whole.

THE MINORITY REFORMS APPROVED.

As to the reforms themselves, they make no great show on paper. To begin with, any petitioner under a Minority Treaty (and a petitioner may be only a single individual) is to be told if his petition is set aside as non-receivable. If it is heard it may in certain cases come before a committee of five instead of a committee of three. Such committees may be convened more often than at present. The results of their decisions are in all cases to be communicated to the full -Council, and it is strongly urged that the result of every case shall also " with the consent of the Government concerned," be published in the League's Official Journal. An annual summary showing the number of petitions received and the manner in which they were dealt with is also to be issued by the Secretary-General:

These changes, having been approved by the Council,

become part of the League's normal Minority procedure forth- with. They mean that at any rate a Minority petition will never be simply buried and the petitioner left without know- ledge or means of redress. To that extent they constitute a genuine improvement in Minority procedure and Dr. Stresemann accepted them with genuine cordiality as such. He still stands by the idea of a Permanent Minorities Com- mission and quoted a resolution of the recent meeting of the Federation of League of Nations Societies in favour of it. More will no doubt be heard of that at the Assembly in September.

The session which saw this by no means unimportant

agreement reached was _marred by one " incident." A petition about the alleged wrongful liquidation of the property of certain persons in Poland was on the point of going, in the ordinary way, to a Minority committee of three. The Germans, however, rather gratuitously _exercized their technical right and asked that the question be inscribed on the agenda of the full Council. This annoyed the Poles who, also gratuitously, dragged in a reference to the treatment of a Polish theatrical company in the German town of Oppeln. In the end, after prolonged discussions, the two sides agreed to negotiate directly under a neutral chairman between now and September, but Dr. Stresemann could not resist a sharp, and• on the whole unwarranted, rebuke to M. Zaleski for abusing the hospitality of Madrid by giving interviews to the local Press about German-Polish differences. Fortunately, M. Adatci, as President of the Council, cut in just in time with a fervent expression of gratitude to Madrid for its unstinting hospitality, and the session closed forthwith.

One decision that will be expressed in bricks and mortar was the resolve to end the years of havering and get started at last with the League's new buildings at Geneva. That will mean a foandation-stonelaying in September. A con- ference called for the same month ought to bring the United States finally into the Permanent Court of International Justice. • • YOUR GENEVA CORRESPONDENT.

Madrid. June Ma: