League of Nations

Its Purpose -- Its Achievements -- Its Scope

Lord Robert Cecil, in the United States to explain the League of Nations, has made it clear from the start that he has not come to offer advice, but to ask for it.

Extracts from his speeches:

P: " If you will allow me to say so, I am not here as a suppliant to America. I came here to tell you what I know of the action and the objects of the League and to hear from yon, as I hope I shall hear, criticisms and suggestions, not made in a merely carping spirit, but constructed with a desire to advance the great cause which I firmly believe American people have as much at heart as any people in the world."

P: " The central idea of the League ot Nations, as I understand it, is a system of international conferences and cooperation, not depending on coercion, without coercion, without force, without any interference with the sovereignity or full independence and freedom of action of any of its members; working not for any selfish interests, but for the establishment of better and more brotherly relations between the nations, and for the establishment of peace upon the earth. That is the idea of the League."

P: "I assert that more has been done in the three years since the League of Nations came into existence for putting an end to that terrible evil, the trade in noxious drugs, than had been done for 50 years before the League of Nations came into being. And I assert that with almost equal speed conventions have been agreed upon through the instrumentality of the League which will really, I hope, put a spoke in the wheel of those devilish beings who carry on the white slave traffic."

P: "I assert that the League has been the means of settling several grave international disputes. I assert that in settling those disputes the League has shown a high impartiality, not hesitating to decide if justice was required in favor of the weaker rather than the stronger of the disputants. I assert that the League's recommendations--and remember that the League only proceeds by recommendations, never by force--have been accepted in almost every ease."

P: After outlining the important part played by the League in settling the boundary dispute between Yugo-Slavia, Greece and Albania in 1921, when they sent an international commission to the latter country which was successful in arriving at a settlement of the dispute by mutual consent: "I myself heard the Foreign Mimster of the invading State (Yugo-Slavia), speaking at the tribunal of the Assembly of the League, declare that the relations of the two countries were now excellent and friendly, and attribute that happy result to the mediation and influence of the League."

P: "You have heard quite recently of the League's great work in establishing a Permanent Court of International Justice, fenced round with every precaution for independence and impartiality. You have heard how it has done much to rescue Austria from a condition of economic despair. Of course there is the work that it has done in the direction of the reduction of armaments, work necessarily incomplete at present, but far more promising than anything that has ever been done before."

P: " Surely you will forgive me if I say that ' the world will little know or remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they--the war dead--did. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought have so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, fought for by those honored dead, with increased devotion to that cause to which they gave their last full measure of devotion, and that we highly resolve that these dead have not died in vain.'" (Yes, Lord Robert misquoted.)

P: Answering a question as to why the League did not interfere in the civil war in Ireland: "The League of Nations exists necessarily not to deal with internal affairs, however deplorable, however dangerous they may be. ... At the same time-- for I want to give as full an answer as I can--if there were any assurances given to the League of Nations that its decisions would be acceptable to the parties--I mean this very seriously--I am quite sure that the League would be ready to do whatever it could to put an end to the struggles that all lovers of Ireland and humanity most profoundly deplore."