50th Impotency

Spats and squabble-across the large U-shaped table of the Council of the League of Nations kept a gavel rattling sharply, last week, as order was repeatedly commanded by Chairman Senor Aristines Aguero y Betancourt of Cuba. He, popular in Berlin, as the suave, easy-going Cuban Minister, conducted the soth League Council session at Geneva, Switzerland, with vigor, tact, address. Small Cuba sat metaphorically enthroned over the Powers due to a system of alphabetical rotation which lifts up each nation in turn to the League's High Chai:.

Fourteen "Yesses." With kinetic directness the Council moved to attack the Vilna question--unsolved for the past eight years.

Question: Shall the Baltic city of Vilna belong to Poland (now holding it by authority of the Allied Council of Ambassadors) ; or to Lithuania (which received Vilna from Soviet Russia under a treaty signed between those states in 1920)?

Stocky, stiff-pompadoured Prime Minister Augustine Valdemaras of Lithuania, who has so long obstructed any settlement not in accordance with his views, was sternly warned, last week, by British Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain. "Sympathy is naturally accorded to small nations," rapped Sir Austen, "but if a weaker nation [Lithuania] goes out of its way to irritate and provoke a more powerful one [Poland] or shows itself unreasonable, it will deprive itself of the sympathy of its neighbors. . . . Ah, M. Valdemaras, do not cast that sympathy away!"

The Polish Delegate, Foreign Minister August Zaleski, smugly remarked at this point: "My country's case seems to rest safe in stronger hands than mine."

In vain M. Valdemaras bristled, protested, even hurled vituperations at M. Zaleski. The Council's dander was now up, and its 14 regular members hastened to vote "yes" unanimously to a resolution so drafted as eventually to confirm Poland in her possession of Vilna.

Then, because Lithuania was automatically an extraordinary member of the Council, last week, since her affairs were being discussed, the turn of M. Valdemaras came to vote "yes" or "no."

Roared he, his dander also up, "No!"

Therefore, since the Council cannot act in matters of state if there be even one dissenting vote, the proceedings came to an abrupt, ridiculous halt. Quick to relieve the tension, however, was Sir Austen Chamberlain. "I will introduce," said he sonorously, "a motion which is clearly a matter of procedure, and hence needs only a majority, namely, that the Council put the question of Polish-Lithuanian relations on the agenda of the September session."

As this face-saver was rushed through, M. Valdemaras grinned and bellowed jovially: "I'll vote for that. Let's make it unanimous!"

Explanation. Sir Austen Chamberlain, when asked by an impertinent U. S. correspondent, last week, to state why the

League postpones settlement of so many major issues, was geniality itself. "The explanation," said he, "is similar to the point of an anecdote told me recently by an American friend. It seems that one of your schoolmasters had asked a lad to form a sentence using the word 'diadem.' The pupil replied, 'People who drink bootleg diadem sight quicker than those who don't. . . .' You catch my meaning, I am sure."

Paraphrasers suggested that Sir Austen meant, "A League which used raw, un-mellowed, strong-arm methods and thus antagonized its Member States would diadem sight quicker than will the present milk-and-water League."

Watery Decision. The Council adopted a resolution, last week, apropos of the gross violation of the Treaty of Trianon which occurred when several carloads of machine guns were shipped from Italy into disarmed Hungary (TIME, March 5). So milk-and-watery was the Council's decision that it omits mention of the source of the arms, records uncertainty as to their destination, exonerates the Hungarian Customs Service of all "conscious blame," and yet declares that there has been "if not a practical at least a technical violation of the Treaty of Trianon."

During the Council debate French Delegate Joseph Paul-Boncour scathingly declared that the shipment was sufficiently "practical" to equip 90 companies of machine gunners. In fine, the Council was too water-hearted to denounce Italy for treaty breaking, lest Signor Mussolini should huffily withdraw his Great Power from membership in the League. General Tanczos, representing unrepentant Hungary, last week, said: "We are so well content that there is really nothing I can say."

Side Step. When the hoary question of compensating Hungarians in Transylvania for lands expropriated by Rumania (TIME, Sept. 26) came up again, last week, the Council passed a resolution informing the disputants that, while the good offices of the League are still at their disposal, it is the opinion of the Council, after five years of investigation, that the matter should now be settled by direct negotiations between Rumania and Hungary. When informed of this decision by telephone, Prime Minister Count Bethlen of Hungary barked back over the long distance wire, "The League once more has proved its utter impotency!"

Achievement. The sole international achievement of the Council, before it adjourned, last week, was to secure slightly higher rank for Judges of the World Court.