(Due to arrive Melbourne-7.11.25)

My dear P.M.,

This letter will contain nothing that you need read prior to the
Election. [1] It will be simply a collection of impressions of the
League Assembly.

I was very pleased to have had the opportunity to attend an
Assembly. My impressions of the League are quite materially
different from what I had previously thought about it.

1. One is continually asking one self the question-What is the
value of the League? It has been called a first-class
international Debating Society; a mirror held up in which the
world will be able to see the aggressor and the aggressed in any
dispute; an altruistic ideal, impossible of any real achievement
while human nature is what it is; a league of two powerful nations
with a big rag-tag and bobtail crew also present-and many more
comments of the same kidney.

You cannot say that the L. of N. is the result of a worldwide
popular movement; it is rather the result of an attractive ideal
conceived by a few statesmen, seized on by their Governments as
being at least something worth trying, and which is gradually (one
hopes) soaking into the minds of the mass of the peoples making up
the nations.

One speaks often of increasing the prestige of the League: does
not this mean in practice, firstly, preventing it making mistakes;

secondly, giving it continual opportunity to do things within the
limits of its strength; and, thirdly, bringing its functions and
potential importance home to the peoples, so that they will in
time, when faced with certain problems vis-a-vis their neighbours,
automatically look beyond their own domestic Governments to the
League, just as, in Australia, unions look to the Commonwealth
Arbitration Court rather than to the State Court in industrial
disputes which spread beyond the limits of one State.

2. There are at least two sides to every argument, and frequently
both have distinct point. Without some international fairy
godmother like the League, the plus and minus of each side's
argument never see the light in time to enable the moral force of
public opinion to prevent a word and a blow. Very few people and,
presumably, very few nations are case-hardened against a hostile
public opinion. The League gives the opportunity to let air and
light into disputes. It is surely true that there are very few
non-criminal disputes the edge of which is not taken off by public
debate before an interested and intelligent audience.

One asks oneself three questions: firstly, are the delegates on
the whole individually earnest and capable, or have they, as
someone or other once said, got their forensic tongues in their
forensic cheeks; secondly, are their common deliberations and
conclusions wholeheartedly welcomed and accepted by their
Governments-and, thirdly, by their peoples? I think the answer
might well be said to be progressively in the affirmative as time
goes on.

The Representatives of Nations are bound to take a reasonable
attitude in the Assembly and in the Committees. There is
considerable moral pressure on them to be reasonably consistent in
their action between Assemblies, which must have an influence on
their general policy. This is a good tendency.

3. The role of Great Britain would appear to be that of a brake on
the bounding enthusiasm of the other and smaller and more
irresponsible nations. She is really the saviour of the League,
because if she were to allow their repeated attempts at achieving
an immediate millenium to come to a head, the League would be
branded with a series of glorious essays in theory and miserable
failures in practice, which would stamp it before very long as a
League of visionaries and fabricators of schemes found impractical
under present day conditions.

Generally the presence of Chamberlain [2] and Briand [3] has had
the good effect of ensuring the attendance of no less than
eighteen other foreign ministers, all of which goes to help the
League along. The increasing attendance of such people of
importance is, I suppose, one of the few yard sticks one can put
up to gauge the supposed increase of prestige of the League as
years go by.

Sir Eric Drummond [4] has a good reputation here and is spoken of
fairly generally as being a remarkably good official head. His
appearance is not impressive however. I have heard since I have
been here that the position was offered to Hankey [5] in the first
place but that he turned it down as he thought the League would
not persist and that he would be left stranded and branded with
some responsibility at least for a failure. It is curious that
Hankey himself has never mentioned this to me-it may not be true
of course -but he may be rather sore at having missed such a plum.

[6] I met Drummond several times and was, for what it is worth,
singularly unimpressed.

I asked one of the heads of sections of the Secretariat recently
why the South American States took the League so seriously, as
they could never really suppose that any one of their number would
get any serious support from Europe against the aggression of
their neighbours. He said that there were several reasons:

firstly, that their subscriptions were comparatively small;

secondly, that their representatives becoming presidents of
commissions under the League reflected a supposed prestige on the
Government that sent them to League Assemblies, and so assisted
their Governments in subsequent elections; thirdly, that it
pleased their pride to belong to a world organisation to which the
United States did not belong, and so gave them a reply to the
implied and rather patronising protective interest that the United
States is supposed to have over them and which is exemplified in
the Monroe Doctrine [7] and in the Pan-American League; and,
lastly, that the League was undoubtedly able to open up to them
the advantages of modern thought in sociological, health and other
non-political directions.

One wonders if Canada's successful effort to get Dandurand [8]
(Leader of Liberal Party in Canadian Senate) made President of the
Assembly, may not have been done by Mackenzie King [9] with an eye
to the prestige his Government might get on the eve of their
elections.

Dandurand in his capacity as President of the Assembly made a
practice of always addressing the Assembly in French and having
his remarks subsequently interpreted. He speaks good English and
even if he is more at home in his native Quebec French, I think it
should be realised that English is the predominant tongue in
Canada and that Canada is a part of the British Empire. In his
first address as President he made nothing but a passing reference
to the Empire.

There are two men in the Assembly whose reputation as expert
lobbyists is well known and established-Aguero y Berthancourt
[10], the Cuban, and Sokal [11], the Pole. They are what the
Americans call 'good mixers' and make a point of cultivating and
knowing all the small States representatives. When a list of names
has to be put forward to the Assembly for Presidents of
Commissions or for Vice-Chairmen of the Assembly, it is always
these two who come forward with a cut and dried list of names and
a list of States whose representatives will support this list.

They are expert at vote swapping and at knowing all the cross
currents that are going on amongst the small fry.

There is, to my mind, not nearly enough collaboration between the
British and the Dominion Delegations. They are first of all spread
over four hotels, which puts a gratuitous and unnecessary
difficulty in the way of active liaison. There is quite an
atmosphere of formality between the British delegations, which
should not exist. We should take two or three floors in one hotel
and have our offices next door to each other, and make use of the
month during which the Assembly meets to mix very considerably
more than we do-in fact, live in each other's pockets for a bit
and get inside our reciprocal skins. I blame the British
Delegation most for the existing state of 'playing gentlemen'
between the English-speaking delegations. The Dominion delegations
recognise that the British Delegation knows a great deal more
about all the subjects under discussion, and there is, I think, a
feeling that they do not wish to make the first move towards any
more cordial reciprocity, owing to not wanting to display their
comparative ignorance.

I personally knew all the British Delegation fairly well and spent
a good deal of time with them, but it was only with difficulty
that I managed to get our people together with them.

It was interesting to see the attitude of the Irish delegates,
which was generally correct and polite. They attended all meetings
of the combined British delegations in a friendly, if perhaps non-
committal, way. In private conversation they stated that they
admitted that their prosperity and security depended almost
entirely on that of Great Britain, and that the mental attitude of
the I.F.S. towards Great Britain was, with careful nursing by the
present Irish Government, being normalised. They reminded one of
the oppression that their people had been under for hundreds of
years and that they had been-at war with the forces of the Crown
in recent years. The memory of these things, they said, was not to
be wiped out in a moment, but that they hoped that, with the
gradual passing of the present generation, the memories of the
Black and Tans would pass.

They protested publicly on one occasion (in Committee when
accession to the optional clause of the International Court was
being discussed) against Sir Cecil Hurst's [12] form of words in
which they thought that it might be implied that he was speaking
for the Empire and all its component parts. This happened on the
occasion of an important prepared speech of Hurst's, which should,
of course, have been previously discussed with the other Empire
delegates. The Irish had some reason for complaint, as they have
to think of their public opinion at home. Hurst, to my mind, said
too much. However, he was tremendously busy all through the
Assembly as his advice was constantly sought on all manner of
questions and this particular speech was probably made without
sufficient careful consideration.

The Irish address all their communications to the League in French
and have written to the Secretariat asking that they may be
addressed in French in all written communications.

However, in spite of one's petty criticisms, there is no doubt
that the League is a good thing. If for no other reason, it
promotes the meeting and free mixing of parliamentarians of all
countries who would otherwise meet but seldom and then very
formally. After all, more or less the same people are in and out
of office for twenty years in every country, and after men have
met time and again at Geneva and elsewhere at Conferences inspired
by the League for year after year, it will become in time more
difficult for them to have differences and misunderstandings.

I say this with the full knowledge that there is considerable
'lobbying' and that delegates do not give voice in public session
to all their real opinions. This is made clear by Mr.

Chamberlain's short but exceedingly interesting memorandum on his
impressions of the Assembly, which I have already sent you.

Lobbying, petty intrigue and not a little dissimulation, is
apparently a European habit of mind, and it is useless to
criticise it however underhand one may think it. We cannot do
likewise as, firstly, we are no good at it and would be
outmanoeuvred, and, secondly, it would be misunderstood and
suspected.

Many times during Assembly and Committee meetings I was reminded
of the small boy's query to his mother during an interminable
sermon: 'Estce-qu'il parle autant qu'il veut?'
An amusing incident happened in a conference of the British Empire
delegations. After outlining the position with regard to the
possible resuscitation of the Protocol and on Security and
Disarmament generally, Lord Cecil [13] turned to Smit (South
African High Commissioner) and asked him if he had any suggestions
to make as to the individual or combined British attitude towards
Security; Smit roused his burgher mind sufficiently to reply: 'No,
I'm afraid I haven't thought about Security!'

I am, Yours sincerely,
R. G. CASEY