LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO TAKE OVER

And now, what are the signs that the League of Nations is becoming increasingly important as an international organisation? To a very great part of what has been wrought about in Genoa the League is heir and executor. The Conference passed out of existence when it adjourned today. The League of Nations steps in and carries into effect or watches over the execution of its decrees. This is only right and proper, because the decisions of the financial and economic commissions of the Conference were based on the financial Conference at Brussels which was organised by the League, while the decisions of the Transport Commission were founded almost wholly on the Barcelona conference on communications and transit, which was purely a League affair. The chairman of the Transport Commission declared that the work of that body was only made possible by what had been done by the League of Nations at Barcelona and Porto Rosa. The Conference has also asked the League to undertake an inquiry into matters concerning dumping and preferential prices as an aid to the re-establishment of international commerce on sound lines.

Even more significant is it that in the field of international politics the Conference has invited the League of Nations to deal with vexed and difficult questions such as those relating to the dispute between Poland and Lithuania, the question of Eastern Galicia, the protection of the Hungarian and Bulgarian minorities in other States, and many kindred matters. Mr. Lloyd George declared that these were essentially subjects for the League of Nations and that the Powers had no desire to trench on what rightly belonged to its sphere of activity.