International Realities It was hardly to be expected that the
Liberal Summc- School should accept without some demur Lord Samuel., objective survey of the world situation, and in particular 0: the position and the prospects of the League of Nations. Yet all Lord Samuel did at Oxford on Saturday was t( appeal to his hearers to face undisputed facts. Europe t- divided very largely today, Though by no means entirely, into dictatorships and democracies. They can range them- selves against one another in a rivalry that must eventually mean war, or they can find some way of co-operating within limited fields sufficiently to maintain peace. It is obvious common sense to strain every effort to achieve the latter before plunging into the irreparable disaster which the adoption of the former policy would mean. That in no way involves perpetual concessions to the dictators, nor did Lord Samuel suggest that—unless it is a concession to admit that Germany's internal regime must be her own concern. As for the League of Nations, the unhappy but decisive fact is that only three out of the seven Great Powers of the world are members of it, and that none of the four absentees will co-operate with the League in any political activity whatsoever. That being so, it is idle to talk of Geneva in terms of the Covenant of 1919 ; the League must perforce limit its activities to the restricted sphere left to it till happier days return, and Lord Samuel does a considerable service in urging that truth on a party whose own principles are identical with those which shaped the Covenant, and which, to its credit, finds it pecu- liarly hard to abandon any of its hopeS.
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