The Larger League and the Smaller T HE importance of the
proceedings at Geneva has been unabated during the past week. We continue to record in other columns the mass of daily work in the Council, the Assembly and the Committees. Here we would write of the election by the Assembly of Cuba, Finland and Canada to fill the three " non-permanent " seats in the Council which became vacant' under the system of rotation. We welcome Cuba, and when we remember that her foreign policy is controlled by Washington there is an added and somewhat piquant interest in her election. Finland receives a recognition and encouragement which she has merited by the steady, self-respecting progress which she has made since she acquired independence and established her present form of government.
The third elected country is the first North American nation to sit in the Council, and this fact,- like the election of Cuba, can hardly fail to act as a magnet drawing a little closer to Geneva that other American nation which still stands without the pale. But what, of course, stirs us most of all is that this country is Canada, our own daughter State, recognized by the world in her full development as a nation. We congratulate her and the other Dominions in whom Canada's triumph is reflected. We also congratulate that smaller League of Nations, the British Empire, on what is a great compliment paid to it. The Assembly has had plenty of opportunity to observe the conduct of British and Indian representatives, their relations to one another and their joint or several attitude to the rest of the world as represented at Geneva. This compliment to the Empire, for which we thank the Assembly, is the result of that 'observation. Other nations will not think that we disparage their intelligence when we attribute the election to that observation rather than say that at last the world understands the Empire. It does not. Why indeed should it-? How many Britons who love and admire it have any rational under- standing of it ? Few indeed studied and understood the great declaration of the last Imperial Conference on Imperial relations. What foreigner, except an Halevy here and there, could make head or tail of it, or can even distinguish between our Dominions, Crown Colonies and Protectorates ? They have learned to accept the Empire as impayable as a friend, unaccount- able. Germans probably still think that General Botha and General Smuts were bewitched, verrackt. Yet they welcome Canada into the Council of the League.
We must not expect to escape all criticism, ill-informed or ill-willed. To the old cry that " England " has six votes in the Assembly will be added a new one that she now has two in the Council. But the first cry was not long-lived, and we do not foresee much life for the second. Perhaps the first time that British repre- sentatives take different lines someone will lay his finger to his nose and ingeniously excogitate a deep-laid plot for deceiving the Council. But this will not occur twice. Though we expect that opinion in the United States generally will be very favourable, there may be some criticisms in that quarter, too, which we should answer with two questions : Was it not originally intended that there should always be at least two English-speaking members on the Council ? and, Should the' North American continent be for ever unrepresented ?
There are two features of Canadian social life and political history which must have impressed themselves on all observers at Geneva. One concerns the ProVince of Quebec : another, the forty-ninth parallel. The Assembly' has' seen Canada, that " Engliih Colony," as many used to regard it, admirably represented at its meetings by -a man of the un-English name of Dan- durand, a wider advertisement to the World of the French.- Canadiari spirit and position thari was perceived when the 'emotions Of Frenchmen and men froin Quebec were exalted by their fighting side by side 'in France for -a cause common to both. If the British' Empire is a smaller League of Nations, is not Canada a' little League of Nations too ? Religion, blood and language haVe remained distinct in the Provinees or States of that little League. Quebec has had no need of aggressive or defensive force to keep the political peace since LOrd Durham and his advisers were inspired by " the League Spirit." Secondly, Canada (arid' no less credit is due to her powerful neighbour) has shbwri through generations that a few thousand miles of arbitrarily, lirtificialljt drawn frontier need no troops to protect a line if the parties on either side are agreed that 'this shall be their frontier. And where are the strategic railways running North and South to that frontier ? A European delegate who expects to see a frontier Marked by Military Posts, sentry "boxes and bayonets; should imagine those grim; inhospitable lines transformed into "forty-ninth parallels', by " the League Spirit " as practised by Canada and 'her neighbour.
While this election of the non-permanent members' - of the Council stands Out for :the pleasure it gives uS, we feel greater satisfaction than ever at the general tone of the meetings at Geneva. It is true that the dispute between Hungary and Rumania and 'the lack ' of good will shown by the disputants on either side have been disquieting. But even there we have to realize the infinite gain of the last few years. ' When we remeMber the last violent contact between those two countries after the Armistice, we can gauge the change of spirit in Europe by which such a dispute is in the natural course brought to Geneva. There still exists also,' unfortunately, a feeling among the smaller nations that the Great Powers make their arrangements privately, and Sir Austen Chamberlain was driven to retort that the small nations do the same. But whatever may happen at Council meetings, the Assembly has the freedom and publicity which should dissipate these suspicions. The delegates of more than fifty nations must talk in small groups if anything is to be carried through, and one set of nations is not more prone than another to what outsiders call intrigue and the parties themselves call getting on to direct and friendly terms, one of the chief advantages of the meetings. There should be no division into Great Powers and small • nations, however any such definitions may be found: - All representatives owe it to the League to give to each ' other no excuse whatever for jealousy, discontent or suspicion. However, all the reports we have had from Geneva confirm the feeling that the League " feels• its feet " more firmly than ever. There is more sense of the unity of the world that bears, if we may say so without conceit, a resemblance to the unity which is - felt throughout the British -Empire than we have been able to discover before. Plain speaking is evidently much easier.. There is less of the self-conscious -timidity which used to be a bar to candour: All this is evidence of the growth of that stability of the League which we • have so confidently longed to see.
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