Iconoclasm

At Geneva, was held the 33rd meeting of the Council of the League of Nations, possibly the most significant deliberation of that body in the six years of the League's history.

Protocol. The mightiest matter which was discussed was the Protocol* to the Covenant of the League. There were three principal speakers:

Chamberlain. Foreign Secretary Austen Chamberlain, sprucely attired, monocle firmly fixed in his right eye, rose to read a document wherein was written the voice of Great Britain and the British Dominions beyond the seas (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Union of South Africa). The voice passed sentence of death on the Protocol for the following reasons :

1) Because it was likely to interfere with the inter se relations between the various component nations of the British Commonwealth.

2) Because, without U. S. cooperation, the Protocol was seriously crippled. (What Mr. Chamberlain doubtless meant was that-- although a definite entente between the U. S. and Britain cannot be proved to exist-- no Government in Britain or in the British Dominions would today care to align itself against the U. S. The same might be said in a converse case, for it remains a fact that the foreign policies of the two countries, discounting inevitable differences of opinion, are to a large extent identical. Concrete expression of this premise is difficult, but it is notable that at no point is there a conflict of interest; rather the reverse, for there has been a marked inclination to compose any differences which have arisen in the near past.

3) Because economic sanctions against an aggressor nation would be useless while so many nations, U. S., Germany, Russia, Turkey, etc.) were nonLeague members, for the reason that the effect would be to divert the trade of an outlawed aggressor from the signatory to the non-signatory states of the Protocol.

4) Because the use of force against an aggressor in cases where economic sanctions had failed is strangely out of place in the Protocol, which was designed primarily to promote peace. Mr. Chamberlain said that war was in the pathology of international life; and, just as it was a bad thing for men to think too much about the possibility of disease, so it was wrong for the Protocol to stress war.

Briand. After hearing Mr. Chamberlain's speech, the Council adjourned for luncheon; and M. Briand had three hours in which to prepare his reply and to obtain a confirmatory statement from his Government in Paris. When the Council reassembled, it was obvious that the impression made by Mr. Chamberlain's well-reasoned reading of his Government's document was gloomy; as M. Briand subsequently put it: "I had the impression of being in blackness, in a tunnel where there was no light." Rising, however, in a later session, M. Priand, seven times Premier of France, vigorously assailed the British Government's contentions. He started:

''The document read to us is marked by a high serenity and gentle philosophy which I hesitate to affront. I have tasted this philosophy and appreciated its nobility and I wonder if my philosophy is fit to face it."

Then, warming to the subject, he went on to say that 47 nations, including Great Britain (then under the government of Laborite Premier MacDonald), had negotiated the Protocol; and it was left to Great Britain (under Conservative Premier Baldwin) to make a volte face and declare the Protocol bad, which did not necessarily follow. He, too, regretted the absence of the U. S., but he declined to regard it as permanent and looked forward to the day when the great American republic should be a member of the League.

As to Mr. Chamberlain's attack on the war spirit of the Protocol, M. Briand answered:

"I do not believe that putting lightning rods on a house creates lightning, but always thought it was a wise precaution."

To him, it was perfectly consistent with the spirit of peace to discourage war, for peace was an absence of war. He added that the opinion of his Government was that:

"The Protocol provides a series of precautions to prevent aggression. The nation which tried it would be faced with a group of dangers which would show it the peril of such an undertaking."

In concluding, he did not think his British friend's declaration against the Protocol was final; and his Government would always welcome any change in that document which would improve it.

Benes. Dr. Eduard Benes,* Foreign Minister of Czecho-Slovakia, famed as one of Europe's foremost statesmen and himself the chairman of the 47 nations that created the Protocol, had come to Geneva full of great expectations. There was no doubt in his mind that that momentous document was as sound, sane and solid as the majestic snow-peaked Alps that stood like grim sentinels of Europe's peace. But disappointment was to be his lot. His mastermind was to receive a rude jolt. He found the British frigid to the Protocol of which he, in large part, was the creative genius.

In concluding the debate on the Protocol next day, Dr. Benes represented the attitude of the small nations toward Mr. Chamberlain's death warrant. He said that Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Rumania and Yugo-Slavia were vitally interested in maintaining their present frontiers against the latent designs of their ex-enemies (Germany, Hungary, Austria). In this respect, Dr. Benes acted as the "hobby horse" of France, who is foremost in the European concert to preserve the status quo; he also represented the opinion of the countries like Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Esthonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Greece. Concluding, he predicted that the League would eventually adopt the general arbitration system of the Protocol.

Mr. Chamberlain read a short statement in reply which wound up the debate. In effect, he said: "We are so sorry that we are not attracted by the Protocol when we are so attached to peace and security." He thought the Covenant sans Protocol was just as good.

Coolidge. In semi-official circles, both in Europe and at Washington, U. S. President Calvin Coolidge was expected to issue, at an early date, invitations to a new disarmament conference. There is no question, as was ignorantly supposed by a section of the daily press, of dealing with land armaments, but of extending the naval agreements entered into at the first Washington Conference (1920-21), with the bare possibility that aerial armaments may also be discussed.

Paris. After the Council meeting was over, Dr. Benes, M. Briand, Mr. Chamberlain and several others left Geneva for Paris to confer with Premier Herriot.

There was indicated a tendency to return to "regular diplomatic channels" for the purpose of making separate treaties to guarantee the existing national boundaries. As Minister Chamberlain put it, after talking with Ministers Herriot and Benes: "We are now seeking another road to peace. It may lead through Paris, through London, through Geneva, or through Washington."

Future. As matters were left by the Council, the "dead" Protocol is to be thrown as a bone of contention to the next League Assembly in September. But many there were last week who by no means considered the Protocol dead or even moribund. The peace, security, arbitration and disarmament idea and Dr. Benes, its prophet, still live.

*The Protocol was drafted to provide security, by which was meant final ratification of existent national frontiers; to oblige by force, if need be, nations to settle their disputes by arbitration; to pave the way for a League conference on world disarmament.

*Dr. Eduard Benes, besides being one of the ablest diplomats in Europe, is also one of the youngest. He was born in Bohemia in 1884 of peasant stock. His life up to 1914 was mainly one of academic successes. At school, he was brilliant, played football and was, in the eyes of his teachers, a "little roughneck." Eventually, he went to the famed Prague University, studied languages (he speaks fluently Czech, Russian, Hungarian, German, French, English and several Slav dialects) and, after several university courses in France, became a professor at Prague under Dr. Thomas G. Masaryk, now President of Czecho-Slovakia.

In 1914, with the outbreak of the War, he became pro-Entente and, in 1915, escaped from Austria into Bavaria and eventually joined Dr. Masaryk in Switzerland, where the Czecho-Slovak revolutionary movement had already been founded.

The energy and brains of Dr. Benes were just what the movement needed; and it was largely through his efforts that the Allies, in 1918, recognized the Czecho-Slovak National Council as the defacto Government of the then non-existent Czecho-Slovak Republic. Dr. Masaryk may be called the spiritual creator of this new country, Dr. Benes its motive power.

Dr. Benes is a slight, stooping man of average proportions. His hair is black and his upper lip is adorned by a short, trim moustache. His attire is simple and not smart and in no sense of the word is he an arresting figure. But sit opposite him, listen to his talk, gaze into his face and one is forced to recognize that his personality is strong, compelling, brilliant, earnest. He commands not only respect, but attention, and that is the secret of his greatness.