THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: Mutt & Jeff; Queen Bee

Small Cuba held up the whole League of Nations one day last week, but Cuba’s holdupman was not small. Like some mighty Mutt he roared defiance at a little Jeff from Greece who sought to uphold League prestige. Surveying the somewhat comic champions, spectators beheld: in this corner tall, 175-lb. Senor Don Orestes Ferrara whose regular job is Cuban Ambassador at Washington; in that corner foxy, 135-lb. Dr. Nicolas Politis, agile Athenian word-wangler.

The Greek started the fight, taxed Cuba with being the sole objector to unanimous adoption of the World Court’s so-called “Revision Protocol.”— Already 24 League states have ratified the change. Indignantly M. Politis rose to declare that “a great effort of international goodwill has been made by all save one state. . . . Though it may not be fitting to criticize that state, does not this most unusual situation require some explanation?”

“NO!” fair1y bellowed strapping Senor Ferara, while startled Dr. Politis stepped nervously back a pace. “NO— Cuba entered the League regarding it as a society of nations, not as a superstate able to override the sovereignty of any member. . . . My country will not submit to dictation by M. Politis, nor by Greece, nor by any member of the League! … It seems to me that what M. Politis is doing is making an election speech!”

“I am not!” fairly screamed the little Greek. “Everyone here knows that I am not a candidate for election to the bench of the World Court! Your base insinuation.: . . ” But at this point a bland Chinese voice broke in, speaking slowly in perfect English.

“This warm passage of arms has been carried far enough, gentlemen,” soothed Dr. C. C. Wu, a Washington neighbor of Dr. Ferrara, for Dr. Wu is China’s Minister to the U. S. “One notices that the temperature in this room is higher than the temperature outside. I move the situation closed.”

Closed it remained throughout the week, with Cuba blocking progress. Why was she so stubborn? Correspondents in close touch with her internal political situation produced a startling, characteristically Cuban reason.

Tucked away in the protocol of revision to which Cuba objects is a clause providing that hereafter World Court judges shall spend their whole time at The Hague. This displeases Cuba’s World Court bencher, famed Judge Antonio Sanchez de Bustamante, recent President of the Pan-American Congress (TIME, Jan. 16 & Feb. 27, 1928). Trading on his international prestige, on his close friendship with Cuban Dictator-President Gerardo Machado, the learned judge makes a good thing of his “vacations” in Havana. The fees of his law firm swell yearly. Bluntly, this potent Cuban feels that all Hague and no play would make Antonio a dull boy—wherefore alarums by Senor Ferrara at The Hague, the haughty Spanish phrases about the right of “sovereign states” to be as bumptious as they please, the comedy of Mutt & Jeff.

Whipcracker? What did President Herbert Hoover do about all this? If Washington holds a whip hand over Havana (as most Latin Americans believe) surely now the whip would crack!

Months ago Mr. Hoover indicated that the Senate, during its short session next December, would be asked to vote U. S. adherence to the World Court. Even with the “Revision Protocol” blocked, adherence could be voted by the Senate with acceptance of the famed “Root Protocol,” the two being parallel documents. But last week the President, far from whipcracking Cuba or preparing to wheedle the Senate, gave correspondents to understand that he plans postponement of the entire issue until next year.

News from Havana tended to explain why it would have been especially unwise to whipcrack last week. The Scripps-Howard press called a revolution “near,” marked as potential leader of the revolt Col. Carlos Mendietta, popular swashbuckler. Returning from a Cuban visit last week Senator David I. Walsh of Massachusetts said:

“Poverty and unemployment are feeding the flames of political unrest! What has happened recently in South American Republics would seem to be inevitable in Cuba unless the influence of our government is exerted immediately to avert trouble.”

Everyone knows that the regime of President Machado has long been growing shakier and shakier. An overt sign that he was indeed the puppet of Washington might be precisely enough to rouse a Cuban wave of popular fury. Therefore, not a few observers believed last week that the holdup at Geneva, quite apart from Judge de Bustamante’s potent influence, was a move by President Machado to persuade disgruntled Cubans that in international affairs Cuba’s soul is still her own.

Work Done by the League last week despite Cuba’s holdup:

¶ Elected former U. S. Secretary of State Frank Billings Kellogg a Judge of the World Court (see p. 21).

¶ Created a new and distinct committee of representatives from all European states belonging to the League “to carry further” and elaborate “in the form of a definite proposal” French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand’s scheme for a “United States of Europe” (now called officially a “Federated European Union”).

Thus astute Br’er Briand suavely outmaneuvered British Foreign Secretary “Uncle Arthur” Henderson, who fortnight ago tried to sidetrack the French scheme into one of the regular League committees where Asiatics and South Americans (fearful of a European bloc) would have a crack at it. Last week members of the French Delegation remarked with smiles: “This distinct League committee, purely European, is the Federated European Union in embryo.”

¶ The German and Italian chief delegates sought to press on with the British demand of last fortnight that the League call a Disarmament Conference next year (TIME, Sept. 22). At a League luncheon to correspondents Germany’s Dr. Julius Curtius, referring to M. Briand, who has stalled off disarmament action for years, spoke of him amid laughter & cheers as “The League’s Queen Bee,” which indeed the tousled, bumbling, foxy old Frenchman is.

*This, if adopted, would revise the charter of the World Court in numerous respects, partly to meet the needs of states signatory to the World Court’s charter, partly to facilitate U. S. adherence to the World Court under the “Protocol on Accession” drafted by famed Elihu Root, often called the “Root Protocol.”