'1 1 11. session of the League of Nations Council which opens
at Geneva on Monday is likely to be of unusual importance and unusual duration. As a rule the Council ambles through its agenda at a leisurely pace, devoting the mornings to formal sittings, and the afternoons to personal contacts, and even so manages to cover the ground between a Monday and a Saturday. This time, what with the Polish-Lithuanian question and a Polish-German question and the Hungarian- Roumanian question and rumours of problems from the Balkans, it is pretty certain that the Foreign Ministers who are now converging on the League centre will be kept there well into the middle of the second week.
The most interesting personal feature of the Council meeting is that-the chair will be filled by the -Chinese delegate, Mr. Cheng-Loh, Minister of the Peking Government at Paris. Members of the Council take it in turn to preside, following the alphabetical order of their countries' names, and, since Chile came last time, China comes this. The last Chinese delegate to preside was Dr. Wellington Koo. As Mr. Cheng-Loh has never attended a Council meeting before, it was suggested that he might prefer to waive his privilege and ask the next member on the rota to take his place. Such an action might, however, well be misunderstood in China, and Mr. Cheng-Loh has therefore decided, no doubt wisely, that the proper course for him is to take his turn and do his best.. It is a little unfortunate that this happens to be a meeting at which serious European problems will have to be discussed and strong chairmanship may be needed. But to emphasize that side of the situation alone would be grossly short-sighted. China is a country of 400,000,000 people, and, though a civil war may be in progress, there is no substantial difference between the different factions in the matter of foreign policy. It is of the utmost importance, not merely to the League or- to China, but to the world, that China should :remain in the League, and the prospect is that the presence of a 'Chinese in the Council's presidential chair will prove on balance all to the good.
With Serious problems to be faced, an impressive array of ' foreign -Ministers is assembling to face them, notably, of course, the principal trio, Sir Austen Chamberlain, M. Briand, and Dr. Stresemanin oil whose harmonious co-operation the welfare of Europe very largely hangs. But the Foreign - Minister' of- Poland, M. Zaleski, expects to be at Geneva, and so does the Foreign Minister of Holland, Jonkheer Ikelaerts van Blokland. Whether the state of his personal health and the condition of his country will permit M. Titulesco, the Foreign Minister of Rumania, to be in his place is still uncertain at the time of writing. It will be unfor- tunate if he is absent, for he could, no doubt, reassure many ' of his colleagues regarding prospects in Rumania, and, at • the -same time, no -one acting as substitute for him would have the necessary authority to commit the Rumanian Government to any decision regarding the Hungarian affair that may emerge from next week's conversations. The Bulgarian and Greek Foreign Ministers will be in Geneva about loans, and Dr. Benes, of Czechoslovakia, is there for disarmament.
Never perhaps has a Geneva meeting been more full of uncertainties and possibilities. There is open talk of war between Poland an Lithuania, and the Dictators of both countries are proposing to come in person to Geneva. The alarm is probably a little excessive, for Poland, occupying a " semi-permanent " seat on the League Council, and concerned unceasingly to gain recognition as a Great Power, or the next thing to it, is not likely to barter the good opinion of the world .by the repetition of any coup like the seizure of Yihni, which led to the whole of the present trouble, and a good deal more before it. Things admittedly look unpleasant enoukh, but it is just as well that the original _Lithuanian coinplaint to the Council, based ostensibly on Polish treatment Of Lithuanian schools, Should- have been broadened out by
Poland's decision to raise the whole question of the " state of war " which Lithuania has considered to be existing between the two countries ever since 1920. That issue would have been an overshadowing problem in the background in any case, and now that it has been brought forward in all its nakedness into the limelight, the League will have at least an opportunity of putting Polish and Lithuanian relations on a satisfactory basis for the first time since the two States came into indepen- dent being. The position is singularly delicate and difficult, and it will be little discredit to the Council if its efforts fail. But this, at any rate, is in its favour, that both Marshal Pilsudski and M. Valdemaras might find themselves able, under pressure from the League, to accept solutions which neither of them could look at if put forward simply by the rival country.
Then there is the Hungarian-Roumanian dispute, for the settlement of which Sir Austen Chamberlain has a special responsibility, since he has been discharging for nine months past the thankless task of Rapporteur on this particular question. No visible progress has been made since the affair was left in a state of deadlock last September, and if, in fact, the Foreign Minister of Rumania is not at Geneva, it will be practically impossible to make more headway now. Into the complexities of this dispute it is impossible to enter here. For those who desire to follow the details up to date, we may refer to the debate in the House of Lords on November 17th, when Lord Newton introduced the subject and a series of eminent lawyers like Lord Buckmaster and Lord Phillimore, Lord Haldane and Lord Carson, said what they thought on the legal aspect of the question: Beyond all this the Council has, of course, its ordinary routine work, represented by an agenda running to twenty- nine items, with another six added as supplementaries and one or two others super-added since. Health, Traffic in Opium, Traffic in Women and Children, Armenian Refugees, Mandates, Stabilization Loans for Greece and Bulgaria, Appointment of an Economic Consultative Committee, more consideration of the Codification of International Law, awkward little Danzig problems—such are among the more interesting entries on an order paper strikingly eloquent in itself of the diversity of the League's activities.
And, most important possibly of all, while the Foreign Ministers are meeting at the Council, other delegates of the same and additional States will still be discussing Disarmament. That means that M. Litvinoff and his colleagues will be at Geneva still. How far they will talk informally about other matters than Disarmament is, of course, uncertain, but if they do there will be subjects enough to talk about. M. Litvinoff can discuss debt settlements with M. Briand, diplomatic rela- tions with Sir Austen Chamberlain, the Bessarabian question with M. Titulesco, and the Polish-Lithuanian question with a good many statesmen other than the delegates of those two countries. To repeat what is perhaps too obvious to be repeated, the coming Council meeting promises to be of quite unusual importance and quite unusual, interest.
YOUR GENEVA CORRESPONDENT.
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