Mandates One of the subjects which have aroused considerable interest
and inevitably some controversy- during the present League of Nations Assembly is that of Mandates. The Report of the Fifteenth Session of the Permanent Mandates Commission first of all provided the Council with much administrative detail with which to beguile its " leisure " moments. (Do people yet understaxid what an 'enormous amount of work devolves upon the nations' representatiVes at Geneva, and above 'all on the Secretariat to which Lord Cecil paid such a handsome tribute 'in his address relayed from Geneva last week ?) Then came Mr. MacDonald's speech with its very happy references to the extra-European interests and obligations of the League—so easily forgotten at Geneva, especially when the leitmotif Of the oratory is the " United States of Europe." Our - Government's judicious references to the troubles in Palestine—and its prompt action— earned high praise from Dr. Nansen, who made a point of commending the British determination that " nothing shall divert Great Britain from her policy as a Mandatory Power in Palestine." Sentiment at Geneva has been quick to respond to the new and welcome British leadership, and the Italian and German reservations with regard. to the " temporary nature " of the B and C Mandates represent mischief still-born. The propa- gandist suggestion. that the Palestine Mandate should be transferred to Poland need not be taken seriously. * *
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