FOR AND AGAINST

This is really the article to write. While the delegates of the League of Nations deliberate in Geneva, human storms are raging elsewhere and shaking the world. In Geneva, it is gentlemen in jackets who speak. In China, Georgia, Mexico, Spanish Morocco, it is the cannon that speaks, and its loud voice already covers that of the speakers of the League of Nations. Yes, this is the article to write, all irony of course.

The article is all the easier to write because the situation in Georgia is truly poignant and tragic. The poor Georgians, who would like to be free, are able to appreciate the virtues of the Soviet regime. The Soviet soldiers bombard, cannonade and shoot in the name of the sacred principles of the Third International, which must emancipate the human race, their "brothers" in Georgia who claim to be socialists, not communists, and what is more, to be Georgians. This is fine work, if one may say so. What is the League of Nations waiting for to intervene usefully? To stop the bloodshed with a stroke, a word, an agenda, or simply an order?

Well! I do not want to write this article, which is too easy to do. I do not believe that it is useful or appropriate to mock the Geneva assembly. Its task, obviously, is heavy. Its means, certainly, are still precarious. Its decisions still risk remaining theoretical. We must nevertheless try to have confidence in it. It is better to hope than to sneer.

The fires that are breaking out on all sides do not condemn the League of Nations. On the contrary, they prove to us that it is essential for the future and for the salvation of men and peoples that there be a true League of Nations. As crazy as this hope may seem, we must still hope that one day we will know how to kill the war and muzzle the cannons.

In the meantime, the bloody events that are happening far from the lake must double the ardor and zeal of the delegates assembled in Geneva. All, in the face of the fire, must give themselves entirely to the cause of peace. All must be loyal, sincere, frank and active. All must be men of good will.

But, if some intrigue, quibble, maneuver?.. Then, it is very unfortunate, then one can write on the Geneva assembly the nasty and ironic article that I do not want to write.

Maurice PRAX.