Evening star., 1926-03-27
TRAGEDY AND COMEDY
At the League of Nations Session.
BY FRANK Fl. SIMONDS

GENEVA.-Viewed in calmer retro
spect. how shall one interpret in terms
Of contemporary European conditions
the recent assembly of the League or
Nations which in its tragic moments
recalled the Paris peace conference
and, in it's more humorous phases,
the last Democratic national conVen'
ton?
Certainly one must see at the out
set that a staggering blow has been
dealt to the prestige of the league
itself. Under the strain of the real
test. in the presence of the first real
opportunity, its machinery has not
merely proved inadequate TO resolve
the crisis between the Locarno powers
growing out of the Franco-German
clash over Poland, but later, when
this crisis was resolved without
league assistance, the league ma
chinery became one impossible ob-
stacle to all final adjustment desired
bv all parties to the controversy. Lo-
carno was the first great step in the
political readjustment of Europe. To
complete it there is "A necessary refer
ence to Geneva and the entrance OF
Germany into the league. But what
was to have been no more thdn d
formality tending to emphasize again
the great contribution to peace or
Locarno has at Geneva resulted IN
conflicts without limit and disclosed
the fundamental fact that when great
nations disagree the league can do
nothing, and the not less important
circumstance that even when they
agree the machinery of the league
may be employed TO block understand
ing.
At Geneva we had, to be sure, not
one crisis but many. There was the
crisis resulting from general European
conditions and between France and
Germany. There was the crisis with
in the league resulting from exter-
nal crisis in Europe. Finally, there.
was the interior crisis within the
league resulting from the aspirations
of several small states to sit i'll per-
manent seats on the council.
To understand the whole situation
one must look back briefly at various
stages of the affair. At Locarno II
was agreed to make the German en-
trance into the league the final step
in the realization of the pactS there.
signed in the interests of European
peace. Germany herself agreed to
this while imposing the reasonable
condition that she should be admitted
as a great power and thus have a
seat on the council. At this end a
special session of the Assembly or the
League was Convoked for the express
purpose of admitting Germany at
once. This was the business, the sole
business, of the league.
Meantime, however, there had been
a deplorable relapse from the far
,,;f Of r
man press and public men had begun
to affirm for Germany benefits under
the pacts which were not included
specifically, and the mere mention of
which alarmed the French. France
on her side, reacting to this German
movement, proposed that the Council
Of the League should be expanded
from II, with Germany included, to
IA, with Poland, Spain and perhaps
Brazil.
But what the French really aimed
at was getting Poland in before Ger
many, once admitted, should be able
through it's veto for all time to eX-
clude Poland. For this extension and
for Poland, Sir Austen Chamberlain
rather rashly gave his approval. But
instantly the Germans, for whom Po-
land IS an enemy, DTOke lnlO lOuu pro-
test and Dr. Luther, the German
chancellor, declared that Germany
would come into the league alone or
not at all, since this was her right
under Locarno, and any packing of
the council was at once an insult and
an injury.
Battle was then joined, but it was
instantly complicated by uprising of
the British press and public opinion
against Chamberlain and in favor of
the German thesis, Germany was
thus encouraged to go on, but Frenche
as we'll as German, prestige was en-
gagged, and neither could retire with
out defeat. And in the existing situa-
ton both in Germany and in France
the respective cabinets seemed GER
tain to fall If they surrendered their
positions.
X X X X .
1t was in this atmosphere that the
League of Nations assembled, with
the universal realization that battle
between France and Germany i'm
pended, and that Britain was divided,
while Italy stood with France for