If it would not be anticipating a more formal debate, I think the Minister might tell us what are the hopes from the latest conference of the League of Nations with regard to the principal work which the League was intended to do. It seems from a rather hasty reading of the Minister's speech that he was rather sceptical about the progress that was being made towards that end. For instance, in the first paragraph of his speech there is this statement:
Progress in the Preparatory Commission's work has, unfortunately, not so far been favourable to the calling of the Conference. Although some important decisions have been reached, practically the only result that is claimed for the activities of the Commission since last year is an improved atmosphere in the discussions. This result is, of course, to the good; but I think that in the eleventh year after the world war, and a year after the signing of the Kellogg Pact, some more definite result might have been expected.
Later on we find the following in the Minister's speech:
But we feel that if these words and professions, however sincere, are not followed up by appropriate action, first they will lose their effectiveness, and, eventually, will become harmful, as conveying to the public interested in these matters that words and actions have here no bond, that statements are not seriously meant, or that the League is so ineffective that even in one of the principal tasks laid upon it by the Covenant, it can and ought to be ignored.
It is evident the Minister felt that previous Conferences did not lead substantially to the goal towards which the League was directed from the first and that progress has not been made towards the fulfilment of the principal object of the foundation of the League. At the same time the Minister was making that statement the special correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian" was writing in that paper to this effect:
"What does matter is that Lord Cecil has exposed the insincerity of the majority of Governments in this matter of disarmament and the worse than futile methods of the Preparatory Disarmament Commission, who, as Lord Cecil said, are offering not bread but a stone to a world hungry for pence. This has not been a pleasant morning. Far from it. This revelation of the attitude of so many members of the League towards what Count Bernstorff rightly said this morning was the chief question with which the League had to deal does not encourage the facile optimism of those who put their confidence in Mr. Briand's pacific rhetoric. But it is far better that the public opinion of the world should realise that the League has as yet done nothing at all to achieve the chief purpose for which it was founded and that the majority of its members are determined that it shall do nothing if they can help it."
In face of statements like that, if the occasion seems appropriate to the Minister, we should have some statement from him as to whether the result of the last Conference indicated that any further progress had been made. I think everybody interested in public questions is interested in the League from that point of view, as to whether it will fulfil the purpose for which it was founded, whether it will bring about disarmament, and create a condition where world peace must be maintained. If the League is not going forward in that direction, if it is merely passing resolutions which are afterwards not confirmed by the Parliaments from which the delegates are sent, or are only confirmed, as the Minister himself remarked, with reservations that more or less destroy their value, it will be an unfortunate thing. In such case very many people would inevitably come to look upon the League just as an international association where perhaps pleasant and interesting conferences take place but where nothing of any great importance to the world occurs. None of us wants to hear a message of that kind, but, at the same time, if it is true that there are certain powers, certain big influences in the League, who are not only content that nothing has been done to achieve the purpose for which the League was founded but are determined that nothing shall be done if they can help it, if that is the state of things, we are entitled to know— for I suppose we are able to bear such news—what we are voting the money for when we are passing a Vote like this which has to be paid by the people.
