WHAT FAILED AT GENEVA
By H. C. A. GAUNT (Headmaster of Malvern)
T T has become a fashion to speak of the League of 1 Nations with contempt and even amusement. In the midst of distress, danger, and uncertainty it has always been a human characteristic to find an outlet in poking fun at some person or institution which has ceased to matter.
Even in the gloomiest hours of September, 1938, the news bulletins from Geneva describing the work of the Assembly seemed like passages of comic relief in the stark grimness of the approaching war. It is undoubtedly true that the League has failed.
There are two factors always to be remembered in any organised attempt at human progress. We have first to decide the principles upon which reforms are to be made.
We must also carefully devise suitable methods of attaining our objectives. No matter how desirable our destination may be, . we shall fail to arrive if we do not provide the proper means of transport. Let us for a moment examine the conception and history of the League of Nations in the light of these two factors.
When the Covenant of the League of Nations was framed and became the first part of all the post-War Peace Treaties, there were three principles on which it was conceived. The first was that all sovereign States, if not immediately at any rate eventually, should become members ; it was realised that no form of international organisation for progress in this world would be successful unless practically all nations willingly took part in it. The second principle was that war must be abandoned as a method of settling international disputes. Disputes, as they arose, were to be settled by a Permanent Court of International Justice or by some form of arbitration. Law and justice were to take the place of threats and force. Finally, those who framed the Covenant saw that it was necessary for the nations to co-operate in a great many peaceful pursuits vital to prosperity and happi- ness. The League was to be a clearing-house for informa- tion and consultation on every kind of political, social, economic, and cultural problem. It was not enough to come together in order to outlaw war ; it was essential to build a stable peace.
Accordingly, machinery was devised to enable these prin- ciples to work. The Covenant itself provided much of it, while the Permanent Commissions, the Disarmament Con- ference, the Secretariat, the International Labour Office, and many other forms of activity came into being. We seemed to have started at last on the long journey towards world co-operation. For a time the machinery ran well, and much of it still runs well. But fairly soon accidents began to happen, and in time, one by one, the various pieces of machinery ran down or met with disaster. The League, in fact, failed to work.
Yet was it really the machinery which failed? Did the Disarmament Conference fail because there were too many delegates, or because a conference is the wrong way of obtaining disarmament? Did Japan become a successful aggressor against China or Italy against Abyssinia because the disputes in question were incapable of peaceful solution by League methods? Are we quite certain that the League could have done nothing to use the machinery available? No sincere supporter of the League would maintain that all its machinery is perfect, but surely the main cause of the League's failure has been the abandonment of its principles, not the failure of its machinery. Men have failed not because they were unable, but because they were unwilling.
Were we right or wrong to be unwilling? Were we justi- fied or mistaken in choosing as we did? The question is not as easy to answer as it seems, because it very rarely happens that an ideal can be immediately attained by human action. We have undoubtedly to compromise in our actions in order to reach as near the ideal as possible. But compromise in action is a very different thing from compromise in principle. It may not have been possible in existing circumstances to gain any great measure of disarmament, but that does not mean that we should abandon the principle of disarmament and cease trying to bring it about. It is certainly true that co-operation among the nations has been made very difficult, because certain great nations have stood outside the League ; but is that any reason why we should abandon the principle of co- operation, and not strive our hardest to bring them into the League? Our grave danger today is that by abandoning League principles we shall find ourselves without any principles at all. If the League principles are wrong, by all means let us devise others; if they are right, let us try our utmost, patiently and steadfastly, to win acceptance for them so that they may work.
If the League principles are sound and we adopt them, we must then look to the machinery: Here we shall find, I think, that much of the machinery is adequate and sound. Some of it will have to be overhauled; the Covenant may have to be revised; methods of voting in Assembly and Council may have to be changed. But it is difficult to sec what is to be gained by abandoning wholesale the existing machinery. If we do not wish it to work, it will not work, but if we do wish it to work, it will. We shall require all our courage, and, what is more, our intelligence. We must use our heads as well as our hearts; and we must profit by the experience of the last twenty years.
What can the ordinary citizen do? Must we sit back and wait for our rulers to do things for us? That is not the democratic way, at any rate for responsible and intelli- gent citizens. We must learn, we must think, and we musr be able to express our opinions so that they are effective. Especially we must take opportunities for discussion an .l exchange of opinions with the peoples of other lands. If are right we must use our powers to convince people of different ideas, and if they are right we must be prepared to learn from them. There are many organised conferences and schools held on the Continent each year, particularl, those of the League of Nations Union at Geneva, which supply information and provoke discussion about those very problems which we have to solve. Moreover contact with other minds provides thit understanding and enthusiasn• which we so often find lacking. No one who has taken par: in such an experience can fail to recognise that something new and important comes out of it.
We have a heritage of sanity and freedom handed dowp to us. We shall either hand on that heritage to our successors or we shall fail to do so. Can we possibly hand it on unless we make ourselves acquainted with the relevant problems ?
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