YOUNG ITALY

The imperial pronunciamento of the Fascist Grand Council of Italy has thrown another bomb at the decrepit League of Nations. The League is to be bullied into reform or else the delegation of Italy as well as that of Germany and Japan will be missing from Geneva. Coming as an anti-climax to the recent flood of nationalistic out-bursts, Italy's cry seems too obviously a bid to be heard, a youngish boast of a rising power henceforth to be reckoned with by the other big powers. But reform of the League of Nations' covenant is and has been an urgent necessity for a decade. If Germany and Italy can manipulate France into a conciliatory mood, these reforms might be effected. France, however, has consistently weaned the League away from its international purpose and used it as a bulwark of protection against any attack upon her gains in the Versailles Treaty. Therefore she will most likely cling to the status quo, build up her armaments even more, and watch her cherished League pass away.

In attempting to build up impregnable walls of security since 1919 and refusing to compromise her position in the least degree, France has in the end succeeded only in brandishing the sword of nationalism. If she had been bold enough to take the initiative for reforming the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations' covenant, the present crisis might not have been precipitated so inevitably. A century ago France herself was in a similar position to that of Germany, but the yoke of guilt and indemnity was wisely taken from her shoulders three years after the Congress of Vienna and peace preserved for forty years. The analogy obviously does not hold true in relation to the changing factors of economic revolution and nationalism. But the dangers of the latter were supposedly known and understood by the powers in 1919.

The broad and general reforms suggested by Italy will only make the League a mild moral force with the membership of the United States still most dubious. It now seems obvious that the world has not yet reached the stage for international government. Until it does reach that stage, such reforms would only preserve a sentiment and a symbol that may later be made a concrete organ of international government.