On Tuesday the Prime Minister left London for Geneva, and
his speech to the Assembly of the League of Nations will be made after we have gone to press. The French Prime Minister, M. Herriot, is also at Geneva, and we heartily welcome these signs that the Allied rulers are trying to put more serious life into the League. As we pointed out months ago when it was announced that Mr. Ramsay MacDonald intended to go to Geneva, the French Prime Minister, whoever he might be, would not be able to refrain from going. No doubt M. Herriot goes willingly and with a good grace, but even M. Poincare would have been obliged to go. It must not be supposed that Mr. MacDonald has a complete scheme for disarmament, written on tablets of stone which he will suddenly produce from his pocket. In statements which he made before he left London he admitted, as a matter of fact, that he has no such thing. But we must point out that merely to utter pious opinions about peace in general would do almost as much harm as good. The act of taking the League more seriously requires that proposals should be put forward that will give all nations of good will some- thing solid to bite upon, and the first thing to do, as we have urged in a leading article, is to make the League really a League by including Germany and possibly Russia. • *
