Welsh Journals

COMPARATIVELY few of the many visitors to Geneva know that the League has upon its permanent staff an architect ­Mr. F. 1. Lloyd. It was Mr,. Lloyd who cleverly contrived to transform the spacious Batiment Electoral into a comfortable debating chamber. He designed a "hall within a hall," with its platform for the speakers and its desks for the delegates fitted with "telephone receivers" (the gift of the Boston magnate, Mr. E. A. Filene) its galleries for the press and the public, and some amenites of which the austere Salle de la Reformation was completely innocent. In- side this wooden framework at the Batiment Electoral, the Eleventh Assembly, with its 52 national delegations, opened at 10-30 a.m. on Wednesday the 10th of September-a week later than usual. The choice for the presidential chair fell on the youthful Rumanian minister in Lon- don. It fell almost unanimously upon him be- cause the Assembly realised that it was just as well occasionally to elect a President who could preside. M. Nicholas Titulescu, moreover, is a favourite at Geneva for the good humour he dis- played and the brilliance in a score of encounters with another Geneva favourite, the grand old patriarch Count Apponyi, in what, for a period, seemed the never-ending quarrel over the Hun- garian Optants. This problem happily is liquid- ated, so M. Titulescu is President, with Countess Apponyi elected by the Assembly to the chairman- ship of the Fifth Committee-the committee which deals with the social service of the world. The election of Countess Apponyi has been hailed as another milestone on the march of woman. May it not really be due to the good sense of the Assembly in its desire to keep the balance even between two such lively neighbours as Hungary and Rumania? The opening of the Assembly brought a fresh realisation of the loss to international life of two men whose seats were filled but whose places were empty. To Dr. Nansen and to Dr. Stresemann tribute after tribute was paid by speakers who took part in what is known as the "General Debate," lasting from Thursday morn- ing, September 11th, to Tuesday evening, Sep- tember 16th. For the first time in the history of the League the President decided upon a night session of the Assembly, beginning at 9-45, so that the "general debate" could be wound up within seven days. On the following morning the delegates were free to proceed to the election of a new judge for the World Court at the Hague in Mr. Frank B. Kellogg, and of three new non- permanent members of the Council-Guatemala, WALES AND THE WORLD by Rev. Gwilym Davies, M.A. Norway, and the Irish Free State. Norway and the Irish Free State, with their pronounced indi- viduality, will be a strength to the Council, while the election of Guatemala is an index of the poll- ing power of the Latin American States. This diminutive republic got easily the largest number of votes, although a geographical test of where it exactly comes in on the map of South America might be a trifle severe for the majority of delegates! The first speech in the "general debate on the work of the year was made by the Canadian veteran and Conservative, Sir Robert Borden, with a plea for the renunciation not only of war but of armaments. Contributions followed day by day from all the five continents. For Asia there were five speeches, two of them in the best English spoken at the Assembly that of the Indian Prince the Maharaja of Bikaner, and of Dr. Wu, the chief delegate of China. Dr. Wu quoted a passage (which will be given later in these notes) from Confucius; the Persian delegate, not to be outdone by a fellow-Asiatic, referred to Zoroaster, and the chief delegate of the Siamese delegation was lyrical in praise of Siam as an "islet of peace and calm," which he attributed to the national religion, Buddhism. South Africa spoke through General Hertzog, and Australia through its Attorney-General, who almost in one breath announced the cessation of compulsory military training in Australia and made it plain that Aus- tralian commercial policy was based on the pos- sibility of war. Europe was adequately repre- sented by speakers ranging from Ireland to Greece and from Sweden to Albania. Most of the European delegates were exceedingly frank in their disappointment with the international per- formance of the 1929-1930, alleged to be the leanest year in the last decade. In this respect the Eleventh Assembly was a striking contrast to its immediate predecessor, the Tenth. In 1929 the Labour Government in England and its dele- gation in Geneva had the "elan" of freshness, the London Naval Conference was still on the horizon, the Optional Clause was being signed by the States in battalions, and the "Tariff Truce," like the "European Federation," an inspiring possibility. All this gave to the Tenth Assembly a mountain-top buoyancy, while this Eleventh Assembly is suffering from a dose of disillusionment. Looking back on the week of the General Debate with its 13 public sessions, one sees that four questions have emerged: (1) Is the European Federation of M. Briand to be formed inside the League or along- side?