An Uninspiring Assembly Most delegates to the League of Nations
Assembly, which ended on Monday, were only anxious to get home and forget it. With disarmament, the Far Eastern crisis and the main economic issues off the agenda there was little of importance to spend time on, and unedifying bickerings over salary reductions, and manoeuvres far more squalid about places for nationals of the Great Powers in the Secretariat, assumed a quite dispropor- tionate prominence. The Council has nominated Sir Eric Drummond's deputy, M. Joseph Avenol, to succeed Sir Eric as Secretary-General, and the Special Assembly convened for next month to discuss the Lytton Report will no doubt confirm the proposal by the necessary majority. M. Avenol is in no sense a man of the same calibre as Sir Eric Drummond and the reasons for his appointment do not command respect. The Assistant Secretaries-General, so far from being abolished, as was suggested last year, are to be increased in number to make room for a national of a small Power—in itself a very sound innovation. Germany, who has so far declined to send her League subscription for this year to Geneva, displayed abnormal pertinacity in pressing her own claims and resisting those of France.
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