Is THE SECRETARY-GENERAL Too SHY?
I am told that when Sir Eric Drtanmond was asked to speak at the recent League of Nations Union meeting at the Albert Hall he refused. Twelve thousand of his countrymen had assembled to do honour to the principles for which the League stands, and to which Sir Eric has devoted ten years of tense and unremitting labour, but he would not address them. He is a poor speaker, although he has improved of late ; but his refusal was not because he feared the effect he would make: He refused because he never desires to make any effect at all (except where his duties require it). His business is not to captivate the imagination with the grandeur of the League's objectives, but to see that those objectives are attained as far as is_ immediately practicable. Put him in a room with Marshal' Pilsiidslii and Professor Voideinarai and he can eloquent and emphatic enough. Face him with a war and he will act quickly. He is generally the intermediark, the negotiator, rarely the central figure in the dramas of Geneva. As I search my mind for defects with which to give thi.4 article savour (for nothing is more insipid than unrelieved praise) I can fmd nothing but his shyness to censure. He is so used to keeping in the background that some of his own staff do not know him by sight.
Previous page
