Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1939, Page 143
PROBLEMS OF NEUTRALITY
05
one hand the increasing firmness of resolution within the nations
concerned to maintain their neutrality in all international con-
flicts, on the other hand the difficulty they felt in combining
this policy with the obligations originating from their member-
ship in the League of Nations. The difficulty became evident
during the discussions of the problem in the Assembly of the
League in the month of September 1938, where the three Great
Powers, who are still members, took different positions. While
Great Britain recognized the right of all members to decide for
themselves on the question of sanctions, the Soviet Union con-
tested their right to denounce their obligations, and France, though
principally agreeing with the Soviet Union, resigned before the
impossibility of maintaining such a thesis. In fact, the represen-
tatives of the small states did not repose their contention upon
juridical arguing, they simply stated the fact that sanctions had
ulways been arbitrarily applied and that, the conditions being
as they were, it would be meaningless to keep up an obligatory
system of sanctions. In spite of all formal arguments everybody
must acknowledge the fact that it is out of the question to force
any governement to participating in sanctions against their own
will, and nobody thinks of trying to. Facts are stronger than
formalities, and in this case important political facts have de-
termined the result of the discussion.
III.
If to-day the small states desire to remain neutral in case of
war, it is an absolute necessity for them to keep outside all kinds
political alliances and to prevent the League of Nations from
becoming a political alliance at the service of certain interests of
power. When it appeared that the universal system of sanctions
had become obsolete, some of the powers in the League suggested,
ln x936, a system of regional pacts within the League, founded
uPon the idea that certain groups of States might combine in
aPplying sanctions in a certain region. The foreign minister of
j-he Netherlands warned against such a proposal, and I seconded
nuiL pointing to the danger that such regional pacts might easily
change into military alliances; if, I said, we do not want to see
tne League of Nations take the shape of a big military alliance,
We will still less like to see such alliances rising within the League.
Iu the report of the Norwegian Government upon the reform