THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: Soul-Baring

A portly Persian with a bushy black beard handled the gavel as the Assembly of the League of Nations met in Geneva, last week, to talk “Security,” “Disarmament” and then the “United States of Europe.” P. is for Persia and alphabetically it was P.’s turn to preside. Nervously Persia’s swart Prince Mirza Mohammed Ali Khan Foroughi assumed the chair. Perspiring, he constantly wiped his brow with a bright pink silk handkerchief. Then diffidently, as though conscious that the words of a Prince were as chaff to these commoners, he sped the Assembly’s, proceedings with a dash of Orient philosophy thus:

“It is the law of human affairs that nothing in this world is stable which does not rest on habit. You gentlemen of the League are creating the habit of Peace. Persia wishes you speedy success!”

Transcendental Scot. The great commoner at Geneva last week was tall, snowy-haired, ruddy-cheeked Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald of Great Britain. He spoke his mind to the Assembly and the World as though he stood in some vast, sky-vaulted International House of Commons. Logical at first, he rose to the passionate climax of a messiah, spoke of “the mystic common tie of nationhoods,” showed startlingly how transcendental is his Scotch Socialism.

Seated in the gallery, Widower MacDonald’s sturdy helpmate-daughter Ishbel fairly glowed. She had never seen her father in finer fettle. She understood that he was making an international declaration of what is to be the foreign policy of the British Empire now that he has returned to power. He was taking the world into his confidence, laying his Socialist heart bare. With five prime ministers and 53 national delegations present and listening, apple-cheeked Ishbel MacDonald proudly watched the unfolding of her father’s great speech:

International Security. “The problem of the League of Nations is the prob-lem of Security,” began Messiah MacDonald quietly. Recalling that during his short previous term as Prime Minister in 1924 he sought to secure the peace of Europe by championing the Geneva Protocol (intended to “put teeth into the Covenant of the League”), he declared that “since 1924 we have started upon another road. The [Kellogg-Briand] Pact of Peace has been signed at Paris, and that pact is now the starting point of further work. … To a certain extent the pact is still a castle in the air and the Assembly of the League is going to build up the foundations to support this castle. . . . The British Government is desirous that that pact shall be not only a declaration on paper but shall be translated into constitutions and institutions that will work for peace in Europe!”

Following up this line later in the week, British Foreign Secretary “Uncle Arthur” Henderson made a concrete proposal: that Articles XII and XV of the League Covenant—which envision recourse to arms among member states in certain circumstances—be amended into harmony with the Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war and strengthened to give the League Council greater war-scotching potency.

Five-Power Disarmament. Referring to progress made in his naval disarmament pourparlers with President Hoover via Ambassador Dawes the Prime Minister raised an international furore by implying that all but three of 20 points of difference between Britain and the U. S. on this question had been ironed out. What were the three points? Correspondents tried so hard to guess that they well nigh ignored a much more significant passage in which Mr. MacDonald said, “What we [Britain and the U.S.]want to get is an agreement which, having been made, can be a preliminary to the calling of a Five-Power Naval Conference, the other Powers being as free to put in their proposals and we being as free to negotiate with them as though no conversations had taken place between America and ourselves. The only value of these conversations when the Five-Power Conference is called is that we ourselves will not have to look to each other. . . .”

Repeatedly Mr. MacDonald told correspondents last week that he expected shortly to announce complete agreement with Ambassador Dawes, but in Washington the Administration distinctly cooled, and Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson snappishly observed: “It will still require a considerable period of hard work before an agreement … is reached.” An impression lingered that the Prime Minister had embarrassed the President by flaunting the fact that at the Five-Power Naval Conference (of which Mr. Hoover approves) it may happen that the whole Anglo-U. S. naval accord will be thrown into just the sort of European squabbling-pot so distasteful to most U. S. Senators.

Arbitration Advance. The most concrete passage in Scot MacDonald’s idealistic speech dealt with the so-called “Optional Clause” of the World Court protocol, signatories to which bind themselves to accept the arbitral jurisdiction of the Court in all legal disputes. Said Mr. MacDonald: “I am in a position to announce that my Government has decided to sign the optional clause. [Prolonged cheers from statesmen of the minor nations, most of which have signed.] The form of our declaration is now being prepared.” Later Prime Minister Aristide Briand said that France, which has adhered with reservations to the Optional Clause, would follow Britain’s lead and re-adhere without reservations of any kind.

“Not to Perish!” As he rose to his climax Socialist MacDonald launched on a theme seldom seriously dealt with by League statesmen: Peace in the East. “There is an Old World,” he cried, “old in civilization, old in philosophy, old in religion, old in culture, which hitherto has been weak in those material powers that have characterized the Western peoples. But that Old World, wrapped in slumber as we thought, has now become awake . . . and is asking us to grant it … the freedom we have been nurturing and nourishing for ourselves for so many gen-erations.”

Striking the tribune with clenched fist the Prime Minister went on: “The great danger of war, then, is this—that we may be too long in performing this act of recognition!” Warning that halfheartedness in granting the Old World her rightful place may loose “forces in those nations that will present us not with a request but with an ultimatum,” Mr. MacDonald ringingly recalled that his first act on resuming power was to grant a larger measure of freedom to Egypt (TIME, Aug. 19). “We are going to take our risks of peace!” he almost exulted. “The nation that takes the risk of pioneering in peace is likely to get peace! . . . ‘He who draws the sword shall perish by the sword!’ . . . I do not want my country to perish!” On the theme of the Arab-Jew disorders in Palestine, Peace Pioneer MacDonald waxed even more messianic, outlined a policy astounding in its Socialist implications (see p. 29).

Tariffs Flayed. That there is one subject on which Statesmen MacDonald and Hoover can never see eye to eye was evident when the Socialist flatly denied every U. S. Republican tariff dogma. “Tariff barriers between producer and consumer are certainly not justified by the experience of the World!” he proclaimed. Then, presumably referring to European states, he said: “Under tariffs we have poverty, under tariffs we have low wages, under tariffs we have unemployment, under tariffs we have class conflicts just as much as we have under a sort of disorganized free trade. And in addition to that, out of economic differences, political differences soon begin to appear.

“The British Government will heartily cooperate in every attempt to translate political agreements into economic agreements that make for economic freedom. . . . This Assembly must face the problem of tariffs!”

United States of Europe. Scarcely had Socialist MacDonald made his amazing declaration of policies than he was obliged to rush back to England to preside at the Schneider Cup Races (see p. 61). After his departure the Assembly—still groggy from the impact of so much candor—concentrated on the tariff problem, heard Prime Minister Aristide Briand of France expound his famed concept of a “United States of Europe” which would sweep away tariff barriers among the Continental States. Usually M. Briand is as sonorous as Mr. MacDonald had been. But he knows the value of contrast. Therefore he spoke in precise, level tones, yet moved his audience to bursts of applause.

“I do think,” said M. Briand earnestly, “that where you have a group of peoples grouped together geographically, as in Europe, there ought to exist some sort of federal link among them.

“It is that connecting link which I desire to establish, and obviously the most important component of that con-necting link would be an economic agreement, and I believe that in the economic sphere an agreement can be reached.

“But also there should be a political and a social link which, of course, would in no way affect the sovereignty of the parties involved. I shall, therefore, take this opportunity of asking the various representatives of the European States at this Assembly whether they will not unofficially consider and study this question in order that later, perhaps at the next Assembly, we may be in a position possibly to translate it into reality.”

Strongly supporting the Briand thesis Germany’s Peace Prize winning Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann said: “Where is our European coinage? Where is our European postage? Are not these things long overdue? There are many conditions in Europe today which seem to belong to the Middle Ages!”

World Reaction. Skepticism and indifference to the more idealistic propositions of Scot MacDonald and M. Briand was the predominant reaction of the world press. In the U. S. A., favorable comment on the chances of achieving a ”U. S. of Europe” was so meagre that famed French Poet-Ambassador Paul Claudel felt obliged to remind: “M. Briand was the man who let fly over the world that winged phrase ‘outlawry of war,’*and now he is throwing over the troubled waters of international relations this other phrase ‘the U. S. of Europe.'”

At London the press reaction to Mr. MacDonald’s speech was on strictly party lines—Labor enthusiastic, Liberal papers lukewarm, Conservative organs openly hostile. Thus was broken—inevitably, perhaps—the united support of virtually the whole British press which the Labor Cabinet enjoyed while Chancellor Snowden was battling at The Hague for more “sponge cake” (see col. 3).

There was highly premature talk in London that the popular crippled Chancellor may one day replace Scot MacDonald as leader of the Labor Party. Attacking the Prime Minister tooth and nail the Conservative Morning Post said:

“It does not please Englishmen that a British Prime Minister. should stand up in a foreign country and propose to put his own country under the authority of an international court. Nor does it please Englishmen that a British Prime Minister should make public proposals for weakening the British Navy. On the contrary, there is growing alarm.”

French papers of the Right sharply criticised both Messrs. MacDonald and Briand, but those of the Left were broadly enthusiastic. In Rome the Fascist attitude was scornful indifference to all such internationalist prattle. Tokyo was interested only in how soon the U. S. and Britain will strike hands in naval agreement, with predictions suggesting considerable delay.

Palace. There was laid the cornerstone of the new $5,000,000 “League Palace” which will eventually house both the Assembly and the Secretariat in an imposing building overlooking Lake Leman. At present the Assembly sits in the mouldy old Salle de la Reformation (once a church), blocks distant from the equally mouldy Secretariat (once a hotel).

Work Done. Though the League Assembly week passed chiefly in harkening to paeans of idealism the following work was done:

¶ The Pact of Paris was deposited with the League Secretariat by Prime Minister Aristide Briand of France. Since League member states are technically not bound by any treaty to which they have adhered until a copy is registered with the League, the Pact of Paris did not become legally effective among most of its signatories until last week, despite its impressive promulgation at Washington by President Hoover (TIME, June 10).

¶ A commission representing the World Court Powers and authorized by the Assembly of the League formally assented to the so-called “Root Formula” under which the U. S. is expected to adhere to the Court at long last (see p. 12). President Hoover sent famed Jurist Root unofficially to Geneva last spring, and he remained there three weeks (TIME, March 18, et seq.), dickering with League and Court statesmen over mutually satisfactory terms of U. S. adherence. As finally drafted and approved the “Root Formula” will permit the U. S. to become one of the Court Powers under an elaborate reservation the substantial meaning of which is: Whenever the World Court is asked to opine on any question, then let the U. S. State Department be previously informed; let every effort be made to frame the question in a form acceptable to the U. S. State Department; and if this prove im-possible then let there be no hard feelings when the U. S. “naturally” withdraws from adherence to the Court.

* The Briand-Kellogg Pact of Paris was evolved by Mr. Kellogg as a multilateral treaty among all nations from a suggestion by M. Briand that the U. S. and France sign a bilateral treaty outlawing war between themselves.