Evening star., 1925-01-11
BY MANLEY O. HUDSON.

Yesterday, January 10, 1925, was
the fifth birthday of the League of
Nations. 1t marked complete period
in the life of that experiment. When
the covenant first came into effect
on January 10, 1920. few people dared
to entertain the hopes which expe-
rience now seems to justify, and the
passing Of this milestone tempts a
look back over the course that the
league has run.
They have been Ave stormy years.
The world has been absorbed in an
effort to pull itself together after the
most devastating struggle in human
history. When the period began the
dissolutions of governments, the dis
locations of commerce and tho dis
fractions of public opinion had Gre
ated political problems on scale of
unprecedented difficulty and magni-
tude The war had shifted all the
normal channels of intercourse. Ma
tional rivalries had been stimulated,
national ambitions had become in
flated, and a trail of fostering sores
cut across the continent or Europe.
From the indulgence OF wild fan
tastes about the wars making over
our human institutions, the world
suddenly shifted to a desire to get
hack to the old pre-war ways Of life.
Tho chief concern of the postwar
world became an effort to restore
normalcy. In diplomacy. as In other
Aelds the old methods were re-
trieved. and their previous failure
was discounted. Hence, the League
of Nations soon fell between two
stools-the new departure and the
old diplomacy.
Difficulties Were Inevitable.
IT was inevitable that the League
of Nations as. method of co-opera-
tion should meet with difficulties.
They constitute its raison detre. IL
would never have been undertaken
IL they had not been in prospect.
Yet few foresaw how Formidable
they would be. Each year during
the Ave there has been some out
standing challenge. In 1920 1t was
the Polish Russian war and the
fiasco of the excursion to Kiev. In
1921 it was Upper Silesia and the
tragic necessity for some decision.
In 1922 1t was the Greco-Turk1sh
conflict and the catastrophe of
Smyrna. In 1923 Is was the crisis
of Corfu and the defiance OF a great
power isolated by world opinion. In
1924 1t was Egypt and the shocking
reminder that states and peoples do
not divide along the same frontiers.
Each year the doubling and the fear
full have found materials with which
to feed their doubts and their fears.
Each year men who make a gospel
of the futility of effort have had
fresh reason for saying that the
world must go on in the paths which
converge at Armageddon. Each year
overindulged hopes have been shat
tered and overstated claims refuted.
wn Not Drop League.
Yet such power is welded in hu-
man affairs by the fait accompli. SO
strong is the tendency to go on with
a course begun, that there has been
little thought of abandoning the ex-
pertinent, and few are the people to-
day who contemplate that 1t Will ever
be q ba ndoned. The world Of cur time
could certainly not have been brought
to the League of Nations without n
cataclysm Of some kind. And when
1t came in the form OF a war that
took a toll Of 100000 lives the
pressure would probably have been
insufficient even then IL all the dif-
ficulties experienced in these Ave
years could have been foreseen. Yet
the world Of our time will pretty GER
tainly not be brought to give up the
league without some far greater cata-
clysm than anything which these five
years have brought.
In 1920 and 1921 activities in the
League of Nations were conditioned
by the thought in mems minds, "If
the league lives" In 1923 and 1924
the condition has given way to the
fact. 1t is now assumed that the
league will live. The talk of substi-
tutes has subsided Tbs existing