Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Blaðsíða 204

194
LE NORD
nouncement that Spain also intended to withdraw though, in the
end, she did not persist in this intention.
As in the Corfu case, Nansen strove for a solution which was
in the interest of Peace and the well-being of the League. He had
no axe to grind either personal or national. As always, he cared
only for the cause, and in consequence his opinions carried gr-eat
and often decisive weight. But though they were weighty, they
were not always popular. In political questions where national
feelings are moved, a disinterested advocate of justice is often
regarded with some suspicion by both sides. That sometimes hap-
pened to Nansen. But in the end his personality triumphed. Magna
est veritas et prœvalebit. It is much to be wished that all inter-
national statesmen would accept that maxim as heartily as did
Nansen!
In less contentious matters, national prejudices and amour
propre played a less important part and it was in these questions
that most of Nansen’s League work was performed. Very early
he was charged by the Assembly to restore desolate prisoners of
war to their own country. This was a task after his own heart
and he laboured at it con amore. Into the details I will not go.
It must suffice to say that he was instrumental in rescuing
hundreds of thousands of poor wretches from positions of great
hardship and sometimes of great peril. He did it as he did every-
thing with matchless simplicity, avoiding theories and concen-
trating on whatever seemed best for the suffering and oppressed.
Next came the Russian refugees, — the first of several enterprises
of the same kind. Here, the difficulties, as we have so often
found since, were very great. Refugees, by their very nature, have
no country to return to. They have no Government to take care
of them, they have not even a passport entitling them to enter
and reside in other countries subject to the conditions applicable
to other foreigners. To minimise these difficulties, a document
was agreed on known as the Nansen passport. It gave to the bearer
some kind of international status. While he was still working at
this almost insoluble problem, news came that a terrible famine
had broken out in the regions of the Volga, and Nansen, in re-
sponse to a general demand, went off to see what could be done.
He was instrumental in saving the lives of many of these starving
miseries, collaborating with the Quakers and other devoted phi-
lanthropists. In the midst of this work, an epidemic of typhus
broke out and carried off some of the noblest workers. It is al-