14 SEPTEMBER 1944, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK

HE declaration of faith in the League of Nations contained in

the birthday letter addressed by the Prime Minister to Lord Cecil is of manifest importance, and the right estimate will be set on it far outside the confines of these islands. _ To say unequivocally that "this war could easily have been prevented if the League of Nations had been used with courage and loyalty by the associated nations," and that " even in 1935 and 1936 there was a chance, by making an armed Grand Alliance under the aegis of the League, to hold in subjection the rising furies in Germany," is to lay responsi- bility deliberately and accurately where responsibility lies ; and Lord Cecil's reference, in his letter of acknowledgement, to the passage in one of Mr. Churchill's earlier books in which he visualised a League acting with force against an aggressor is both pertinent and just. The Prime Minister's assurance that he means to act in accordance with the spirit and principles of the League, but clothing those principles with the necessary authority, will be peculiarly welcome to all those students of the League's inception and history who have remained convinced that any new Inter- national Authority must closely resemble the existing League in all essentials ; to cynical critics of Geneva as the embodiment of un- practical idealism it will perhaps give reason to reconsider their conclusions. The fact that the Prime Minister should so write on the eve of his departure for Quebec, and while the Dumbarton Oaks Conference was in the midst of its work is of unmistakable significance.