Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Side 208

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LE NORD
when perhaps something might have been done, there was none
so favourable. So, too, in the Abyssinian affair, success was very
near in the early autumn of 1935. The British Foreign Minister,
spurred by the approach of a General Election and the evidence
given by the Peace Ballot of the great strength of League feeling
in England, made his celebrated speech at Geneva in September.
In it he proclaimed the determination of his Government to sup-
port the use of all the means indicated in the Covenant to stop
the invasion of Abyssinia. The response was immediate. With
something very like unanimity, the League Powers agreed to the
imposition of sanctions. The United States demonstrated its ap-
proval of the action proposed. No one of importance in or out-
side Europe was hostile except, of course, Italy. Germany made
no move, and Japan favoured Ethiopia. And then came the ter-
rible Hoare-Laval agreement providing for the dismemberment
of Abyssinia. The agreement was, indeed, rejected; but the harm
was done. The consequences were tragic. The smaller Powers felt
that they had been betrayed, America was disgusted, Italy, who
we know now, was feeling the pressure acutely, took fresh courage
and the League received a shattering blow from which it has not
recovered. It is useless to examine who was to blame for this dis-
aster. But if, as is commonly said, the motive which induced it
was a desire to placate Italy, it was exactly what Nansen would
never have approved. There is no sense in half-measures on such
an occasion. The League Powers had bitterly offended Italy. By
their retreat they incurred her contempt. It is a striking comment-
ary on what was then understood to be the French policy of mo-
deration that the Duce has shewn himself more ready to forgive
England than France.
We must admit, then, the great fall in the reputation of the
League since Nansen’s death eight years ago. Are we to regard
that fall as final and to say, as some advise, that the League must,
in effect, abandon its peace-keeping functions and confine itself
to activity in humanitarian and other non-contentious matters?
Would that have been the advice of Fridtjof Nansen? I cannot
think so. To begin with, it is surely most unlikely that the ma-
chinery of Geneva established to keep the peace would remain
for lesser purposes. Who would attend the Council and Assembly
under such conditions? Certainly not the Foreign Ministers or
functionaries of equal eminence. Perhaps a few Under-Secretaries
might be found there, but more probably the delegates would be