The League Assembly The speeches which followed Mr. Eden's in
the general Assenibly debate at Geneva have been unexciting and colourless. No attempt has been made to come to grips with the question of the reform of the League ; and the present Assembly can scarcely be expected to do more than pass a pious resolution or perhaps appoint a committee for the further study of the probleM. If any concrete achievement is to emerge from these discussions, it will have to be sought in some other field. The French Delegation apparently intend to propose the reassembling of the Bureau of the Disarmament Conference, though it is hard to believe that, in the absence of Germany, this step can be particularly fruitful. More hopeful is the report that the British and French Delegations are elaborating a common proposal, to be submitted to the Assembly, for dealing with trade restrictions. If this initiative merely leads to another platonic recommenda- tion for the universal lowering- of trade barriers, it will not serve to distinguish the Seventeenth Assembly from Several of its predecessors.. But the 'devaluation agree- inent is a new factor which gives ground for supposing that this time something more serious may be in the air. In these days of small results and modest ambitions we have almost ceased to look for world-wide solutions. Politically, financially and economically, progress is now being sought on the path of local agreements with limited objectives between directly interested Powers.
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