MORE PROTECTION

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 265, 6 October 1933, Page 7

MORE PROTECTION

THE NATIONS’ DESIRES

LEAGUE’S PRACTICALITY QUESTIONED.

MR DOWNIE STEWART’S OBSERVATION.

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received October 6, 10.35 a.m. VANCOUVER, Oct. 5.

“The isolation of some members of the British Commonwealth cannot but engender in them the desire for a more certain protection than the League of Nations,” Mr W. Downie Stewart (New Zealand) declared at the British Commonwealth Nations Conference. He stated that this opinion was concurred in by his own country. Australia, India and South African representatives declared that the League of Nations, objects were undeniably desirable for the world, but their practical operation was not very successfully demonstrated in the Orient. Such a feeling was demonstrated at Toronto when the Empire delegates made a pointed objection to the idealistic, blindly enthusiastic support offered the League by Lord Robert Cecil. Their attitude was “The League is all very well, but what will happen to us in the event of war?”

LEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS,

BRITAIN’S' HUGE SHARE.

ELIMINATION OF DEFAULTS,

Received October 6, 11 a.m. (British Official W T ireless.) RUGBY, Oct. 5. In the Budget Commission of the League Assembly to-day, Major L. Hore-Belisha called for a reform of the system whereby members of the League which failed to pay their contributions to it, yet enjoyed all tlie privileges of membership. Great Britain alone pays a tenth of the cost of the League and the British Empire as a whole provides one quarter of the League’s income. “The League does not frankly ask us to pay wliat others do not pay, but it asks us to pay more than would be required if all the States paid their subscriptions,” he said. He proposed measures to preclude the continuation of the defaults by the State members concerned. The arrears outstanding at last December amounted to £960,000.