Crisis & The League

After 18 years of bustling importantly in Geneva, typical League of Nations officials look on almost anything from the point of view of how it might be turned to the advantage of the League. In Geneva, members of the British delegation and others rumored that at Godesberg last week (see p. 16), Mr. Chamberlain was urging that any European settlement reached with Herr Hitler be "crowned" by having Germany resume membership in a League of Nations now somewhat "revised." Such revision the Scandinavian states launched by announcing that they no longer regarded League members as bound "automatically" to join in applying sanctions to an aggressor. Last week the British delegate, Mr. Richard Austen Butler, served formal notice that His Majesty's Government back this new interpretation, while maintaining that "The Covenant's text and structure shall remain unaltered."

With other powers showing a strong disposition to climb aboard this bandwagon before the League Assembly adjourned, typical Geneva statesmen foresaw two important developments: 1) the League will not by "automatic" or other means impose the sanctions against Japan which China demanded fortnight ago; 2) Germany may possibly return, in case war is averted now, to ultimate League membership.

Geneva newshawks spent the week pecking their hardest at Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff in efforts to get him to say that, even if France did NOT aid Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union would do so anyhow. In a very long speech Commissar Litvinoff went no further than to divulge that the Red Army Staff had recently been anxious to join the French & British Army Staffs in conversations about how joint action could be taken against Germany. Although repeatedly complaining that the Red Army had not been invited to sit in, the Soviet Commissar answered at no time during the week the crucial question of whether Czechoslovakia, if attacked by Germany, could count in any case on Russian aid. Up to now Maxim Litvinoff has for many years made all important declarations of Soviet foreign policy, but as he lingered in Geneva last week Dictator Joseph Stalin jumped into the game. Abruptly, Moscow flashed a warning to Warsaw, lest the Poles dare to take a bite out of Czechoslovakia (see p. 16).

The eclipse of Commissar Litvinoff last week left the Geneva limelight to Premier Dr. Juan Negrin of Leftist Spain. In a noble speech, upholding with Spanish fervor the ideals of the League, Dr. Negrin cried: "Once foreign intervention in Spain has been eliminated, I can assure you a policy of national conciliation, conducted under the firm, energetic direction of an authoritative government, will make it possible for all Spaniards to forget these years of conflict and cruelty and will rapidly re-establish domestic peace. Then the harsh trials of the present times may be regarded in our country as a baptism of blood, a kind of ransom that had to be paid for the renewing of Spain!"

Dr. Negrin did not ask the League to do anything about removing the Germans and Italians who are fighting for Rightist Spain, but he did go on to announce dramatically that Leftist Spain, which has been sending home its foreign volunteers for several weeks past, will now send the last of them home (see below), and only asks the League of Nations to send a commission to Spain to verify this fact. The cautious Assembly did not at once appoint the commission requested by Dr. Negrin, but he was cheered for having struck a purely idealistic note "proving that the League is not dead."

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