Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1939, Side 144
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LE NORD
of the League, given in the same year, it was added that, in
any case, an absolute condition for the acknowledgment of such
regional pacts should be that it was left to the League of Nations
as a whole to decide whether sanctions should be applicable.
It seems that the idea of such pacts as instruments of the
League has by now been completely given up. At least, the
alliances recently formed for the defence of the existing state of
affairs are in no way connected with the League of Nations. One
may sympathize with the purpose of these alliances or not, any-
how there ought to be no doubt as to the fact that they are made
to fight not for the principles of the League, but for the interests
of their members. The present Prime Minister of Great Britain,
Mr. Neville Chamberlain, whose frankness in these matters is
highly laudable, has emphasized in the discussions about the Cze-
choslovenian question that his government would not be willing
to go to war except for the vital interests of the British Empire.
Of course, people may disagree whether these interests were
affected or not by the dismemberment or the annihilation of
Czechoslovakia; as a matter of fact, such a question must be left
to the discretion of the British Government, it does not come
under the competence of the League. I noticed that at the latest
meeting of the Council of the League, in the month of May of
this year, the foreign minister of Great Britain, Lord Halifax,
suggested that the alliance planned between Great Britain, France
and the Soviet Union might be in accordance with the spirit of the
League. But so far nothing seems to have been done to bring it
within the system of the League, and the League only risks to
be compromised by the negotiation of such alliances being con-
ducted in connection with the League meetings.
Against the policy of neutrality it is often objected that in a
general war it would be impossible for any country to remain
outside, and, of course, the danger of being drawn into the war
would be imminent, especially so on the supposition of a so-called
totalitarian war. Anyhow there is one primary condition abso-
lutely indispensable to the possibility of remaining neutral, and
that is the firmly stated will of the nation, even before the war,
to maintain a perfect neutrality. The proof of such a will is that
she keeps steadily clear of all alliances with any block of powers
forming itself in the world.
As to the Northern countries, nobody has emphasized this more
strongly than the Swedish foreign minister, Mr. Sandler. In a