26 APRIL 1935, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK T HE situation created by the Stresa

and Geneva resolutions is in many respects unsatisfactory, but without Stresa it would have been more unsatis- factory still. Whether the same can be said of Geneva is more debatable. There is no ground for many of the attacks on the League Council, still less for the suggestion that while the Stresa deliberators were wise the Council was foolish. The Council simply did, with considerable reluctance, what the Stresa deliberators, themselves its principal members, urged it to do. It is dangerous doctrine, moreover, to contend that if a State openly violates a treaty the League must keep silence for fear of causing offence. It is quite true that Germany had a decisive moral ease for insisting on equality of armaments, but the form of her conscription declaration deserved none of the condonation that has been too lavishly accorded it in certain quarters in this country. France was entitled to bring the question before the League, but all things considered it was always doubtful wisdom,.and the event has not belied the first apprehen- sions. But there is no reason so far to believe that Herr Hitler, whose first response to Geneva has been moderate in tone, intends to bang any door.