I’ve been a bibliophile for seventy years from a family including master bookbinders, teachers, preachers with catholic (lower case) tastes. In that regard might I mention my late Uncle Dermot, who, when Catholic curate in Bantry, used read James Bond in the Confessional when awaiting other sinners.
For many years I was a Librarian in London. I cannot recall ever coming across a book on the League of Nations, the brainchild of US President Woodrow Wilson, dominated by the victors of the 1914-1919 War which ended with the Treaty of Versailles. The US Senate refused to ratify that Treaty and America never joined the League.
The permanent members of the League’s Executive Council were France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan. The Nations were bound by the League’s Charter, to mutually defend each other from aggression, using sanctions including economic ones and armed force drawing on the resources of all non-offenders. It was dedicated to international disarmament.
The League was founded in January 1920 and wound up in 1946 and it had grown to include 58 “Nations” by 1936. India, for example was subsumed by the United Kingdom “Nation”. The Irish Free State sneaked into membership in 1924 when the UK was distracted elsewhere.
I read the Obituaries in THE TIMES nearly every day and have done so for decades. I cannot recall any of persons who served the League of Nations in any capacity. But most days I read of soldiers, sailors and airmen who served in Britain’s myriad wars and bloody emergencies. Last week one obituary was of a gentleman who participated in a mass bombing raid on a German city which burnt to death an estimated seventeen thousand inhabitants. He had participated in many other raids.
Every bookshop has shelf after shelf of books on war, in most of which Britain’s forces had distinguished themselves without exception by heroism, gallantry and humour.
Why, oh why, have I never seen, or heard discussed, a book on the League of Nations, or how Britain discharged the obligations of her membership?
In the early 1930s. Japan, Britain’s ally and permanent member of the League’s Executive Council attacked Manchuria. After investigation Japan was found guilty of aggression and withdrew from the League. But the League’s Executive Council did nothing. In 1932 Eamon de Valera, President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State and its Minister for External Affairs, was elected President of the League’s General Assembly. In his first speech he demanded that the League honour its Charter. It was a splendid principled speech but in vain.
In 1936 de Valera was elected President of the Executive Council of the League of Nations. Italy another of the Big Four Permanent Members of the League’s Executive Council had launched a war of aggression on Abyssinia, transporting some of its equipment through the Suez Canal, (controlled by Britain). Emperor Haile Selassie, appeared before the League in Geneva, appealing for the support which it was obliged togive under it’s Charter. De Valera demanded that the League do so,
Again the League, led by Britain and France reneged on its obligations.
Is it unfair to infer that Britain waives the rules internationally agreed? The Boundary Commission weighted with Britain’s subjects, the refusal to accept international arbitration on the Annuities, the jurisdiction of international or European Courts, the immunity from prosecution of British servicemen guilty of crime all suggest that there’s no need to MAKE BRITAIN GRATE AGAIN.
When did she ever NOT GRATE?
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