The League of Nations

A Crowded Six Weeks at Geneva

THE -AGENDA.

'The League of Nations Council will begin its forty-ninth meeting on Monday, with the representative of Colombia, Senor Urrutia, in the chair—a rather interesting accident, coming as it does on the morrow of the Havana Conference. The. Council Agenda contains no very startling. items, though there are two . or three that raise important questions of Whiciple, notably the rather absurd affair of the Hungarian machine-gun parts, The weapons, or weapons in embryo, seized, on the Austrian frontier were not calculated to do any adjacent nation very serious injury, but the affair is important as giving rise to the first demand for exercise by the League Council of those powers of supervision now entrusted to it over the execution. by Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bul- garia of the disarmament clauses_ of their respective_ treaties. Natura.11y enough any incident like the machine-gun seizure sets France immediately on the alert and Germany immedi- ately on the defensive, but, fortunately, the personal relations between M. Briand and Dr. §treseinann are too good for any trouble between- them to be apprehended at Geneva. If any investigation in Hungary is decided on, it will fall to an Englishman to carry it out, for the chairman of the Com- mission of Investigation in the case of Hungary is General Sidney Clive, whose personal qualities, it may be added, fit him admirably for such a task should it fall to him.

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DIFFICULT QUESTIONS.

The Hungarians are likely to be on the stage in another role as well, for the whole wearisome affair of the Optants in Transylvania remains unsettled, and M. Titulesco and Count Apponyi will presumably face one another across the table again, with Sir Austen Chamberlain to manipulate them, if possible, into agreement. The Rumanians have on the face of it so good a case that they are showing singular unwisdom in declining to take it to the Permanent Court.

Still one more old dispute will be served up again as it seems, for the portents for a Polish-Lithuanian agreement, com- paratively bright in December, have taken on a more sombre hue to-day. Faults, no doubt, exist on both sides, but Europe as a whole is getting extremely tired of the spectacle of a nation of two millions under its Professor Dictator adopting an intransigent attitude and repelling alike the endeavours of the League Council and the relatively reasonable advances of Poland.

THE PORTUGUESE LOAN.

For the rest, the Council will have a couple more loans to consider—those applied for by Bulgaria and Portugal, the latter raising rather difficult questions in view of the habitual ,instability of Portuguese political life. It will have to appoint a new member of the Saar Valley Commission in place of the Belgian member, resigned. It will have before it the draft statutes of a Cinematograph Institute at Rome offered to the League by the benevolence of Signor Mussolini. And it will have the very real satisfaction of knowing that two tiresome Danzig questions are withdrawn from its agenda because the advent of a new Government at Danzig, elected on a basis of bo-operation with Poland instead of antagonism, has made a friendly settlement on the spot likely.

DisAirmarcerrr.

The Council meetingLitself is interjected, as it were, between two meetings of important Commissions, that on Security, which has been sitting' now for the-last fortnight, and that on ,bisarmament, which will open on March 15th, and discuss infer alia the Soviet Governthent'S disarmament proposals, put forward by M. Litviiioff last -December and now elaborated into a 14-page foolscap document. At the moment of writing ..he Security Commission had not got much beyond general discussion; and positive results seem-likely to be largely frusr 'rated by the still outstanding divergence of views between ;great Britain, which will have no signature bf the Optional ClauSe of the COurt Statutes and no all-in arbitration treaties, 'and various Continental nations who desire both, „ A LOOPHOLE FOR WAR, • Much the most effective document before the Committee was a memorandum by the German Government urging signature of the Optional Clause and laying it down that, while the hope of_ settlement of disputes by arbitration could not yet be realized, the essential aim was to find a procedure providing for equitable and peaceful solutions for all con- ceivable disputes without exception. The British Government clearly does not share this latter view, for M. Politis's proposals for closing that gap in the Covenant which leaves the door open for legalizing war between individual nations in certain cases were strongly opposed by Lord Cushendun, who is clearly as attached_ to this loophole, or safety-valve, for possible mar as Sir Austen Chamberlain showed himself to be at the Assembly last September.

But the free expression of divergent views in a general discussion (Italy, which has shown itself tactfully obstructive throughout the Disarmament discussions,. is at one: with Great Britain on Security, and so is Japan) are often only the prelude to relatively satisfactory agreements when the various proposals have been through the mill of sub- committees. It may be so this time, 'though at present the prospect of new general agreements making -for larger resort to arbitration or an increased sense of security is not strikingly bright.

ALL-IN ARBITRATION TREATIES.

What may be termed the advanced wing at Geneva, led by the French, is firmly convinced that stability in inter- national relations can only be attained when there exists a recognized procedure for the settlement of all disputes whatever arising between nations, or, to put it at the lowest, mechanism which, even if it does not ensure a settlement, will, at any rate, prevent resort to war. The . views, of this wing are to be met by the preparation of a draft treaty of " all-in " arbitration, a step which is no longer premature, since some thirty or more treaties of this type have been signed already between individual States. - There is, of course, no prospect wlfatevet that such an arbitration treaty would be universally signed. The most that could be hoped for would be that, like the Optional Clause of the Statutes of the Permanent Court, it should represent as it were a standard of international conduct which individual States would gradually accept one by one till the number of adhesions became ultimately very considerable.

OUR RECALCITRANT REPRESENTATIVES.

Lord Cushendun, however, has expressed Great Britain's disapproval of such a course, for the British Government adheres resolutely to the view that, since in the present stage of world development an arbitration treaty may in the last resort involve questions of enforcement, the conclusion of such treaties under the direct auspices of the League would create an increased prospect of Great Britain having to decide whether to take an active part in the enforcement of an award. This question, in fact, arises already under Article. XILL of the Covenant, but the British delegation is among those who hold that more.- is lost than gained by attempting to give precision to the .Covenants since there is sometimes a convenience in vagueness.. On the whole that view has been endorsed by the Dutch delegate appointed to present a report on the.provisions of the. Covenant in relation to arbitration and security. His memorandum ..eonsists. of an interesting statement of the 'various types- of action taken in the past under different articles.of the Covenant, with some suggestions as to possible alternative lines in the -futures But there is a -conspicuous attempt to avoid .anything like

cast-iron _interpretations. - • , .„

With all, these currents and: cross-currents_ofnpinion- it i$ reassuring to observe that the main. preoecupatiOn: of the Security Committee is with the question- of how -to prevent war,. not . how to stop- -it-.when ,onee it has broken. out., that point. the :German. delegate> be -particular- lays, constant