Has the League Council as such any real competence to deal with what is called “the problem of minorities?” Has the Council the right to refer such a “problem” to a Commission of Inquiry, with instructions to report upon the subject at its next session in June? These questions put by a section of the French press, were replied to in the negative by these papers, who are conducting a campaign against the League’s effective exercise of its duty of protecting minorities in Poland, and the Little Entente States. The League has already far exceeded its right, and the existing procedure, even though denounced as inadequate by Senator Dandurand and Dr. Stresemann, has really no legal validity, but has simply been tolerated in good nature by Poland and her fellow-States, some of the papers assert.
According to an article in the “Debats” by M. Gauvain, the states subjected to minorities treaties will refuse to accept any increase of their obligations or any change of procedure unless the minorities regime is extended simultaneously to all states without distinction, and should the Council, nevertheless, accept a new procedure, these five states would decline to recognize it or to tolerate what they have so far tolerated, and would fall back upon “the pure and simple application of the treaties” as they interpret it.
In the “Figaro.” M. Barthelemy, former French delegate at Geneva and head of the Faculty of Law at the Sorbonne, denied the right of minorities to appeal to the League, the right of the Secretariat or of the Committee of Three to bring a minorities petition before the Council, or the right of the Council to take cognizance of the petition so presented. The treaties, he declared, are quite formal on this point. The former French delegate to Geneva said it is a false conception to suppose that the League can make any rules or regulations in the matter of minorities.
On the contrary, the League can act only under the Covenant, and, therefore by unanimous vote, and by making decisions applicable to all states alike, and not to a particular group of states. The League has no competence to make rules in regard to minorities.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
