Eric Drummond and his Legacies: The League of Nations and the Beginnings of Global Governance 9783030047313

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xxix
Front Matter ....Pages 1-1
The Life and Character of Eric Drummond 1876–1951 (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 3-22
Leadership (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 23-48
After Geneva (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 49-68
Front Matter ....Pages 69-69
An International Secretariat Appears on the World Stage (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 71-90
The International Secretariat and Its Ethos (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 91-112
La Haute Direction, Impartial and Partial Officials (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 113-127
The Directors and the Work of Their Sections (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 129-155
Drummond’s Commitment to Universality (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 157-183
Front Matter ....Pages 185-185
Transition to the New International Order (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 187-201
The Structural and Practical Legacy of an International Civil Service (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 203-231
Humanitarian and Political Legacies (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 233-252
Social, Economic and Technical Legacies (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 253-290
Internationalism Restored, Starting Anew (David Macfadyen, Michael D. V. Davies, Marilyn Norah Carr, John Burley)....Pages 291-306
Back Matter ....Pages 307-361

Citation preview

Eric Drummond and his Legacies The League of Nations and the Beginnings of Global Governance DAVID MACFADYEN, MICHAEL D. V. DAVIES, MARILYN NORAH CARR AND JOHN BURLEY

UNDERSTANDING GOVERNANCE

Understanding Governance Series Editor R. A. W. Rhodes Professor of Government University of Southampton Southampton, UK

Understanding Governance encompasses all theoretical approaches to the study of government and governance in advanced industrial democracies and the Commonwealth. It has three long-standing objectives: 1. To develop new theoretical approaches to explain changes in the role of the state; 2. To explain how and why that role has changed; and 3. To set the changes and their causes in comparative perspective. The origins of the series lie in the renowned Whitehall Research Programme funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Since 1997, it has published some 26 books by the best known names in the field including Colin Hay, David Marsh, Edward Page, Guy Peters, R. A. W. Rhodes, David Richards, Martin Smith and Patrick Weller. Over the past twenty years the ‘Understanding Governance’ book series has constantly defined the state-of-the-art when it comes to the analysis of the modern state. From accountability to agencies, party politics to parliamentary power and from crisis-management to the core executive this book series continues to set the agenda in terms of world-class scholarship. —Matthew Flinders, Professor of Politics and Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre at the University of Sheffield More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14394

David Macfadyen · Michael D. V. Davies Marilyn Norah Carr · John Burley

Eric Drummond and his Legacies The League of Nations and the Beginnings of Global Governance

David Macfadyen North Berwick, UK

Michael D. V. Davies Kingham, UK

Marilyn Norah Carr Richmond, UK

John Burley Divonne-les-Bains, France

Understanding Governance ISBN 978-3-030-04731-3 ISBN 978-3-030-04732-0  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962255 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: AA Images/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

There is also that immense body of doctrine and procedure, which was brought into being amid high hopes after the First World War, as the League of Nations. The League of Nations did not fail because of its principles or conceptions. It failed because these principles were deserted by those States who had brought it into being. It failed because the Governments of those days feared to face the facts and act while time remained. This disaster must not be repeated. There is, therefore, much knowledge and material with which to build … * * * Winston S. Churchill Zurich, 19 September 1946

Acknowledgements

A commitment to assess Drummond’s legacy was made in 2014 in Edinburgh at a meeting of former International Civil Servants. Two of those present (David Macfadyen and Michael Davies) began, with colleagues Roger Eggleston and Marilyn Carr in England and Jane Brooks in Switzerland, to research the subject. In May 2015, Roger and Jane were obliged to withdraw. We gratefully appreciate their contributions. John Burley then joined us from Geneva. Foremost among those we thank is the Drummond family, particularly Viscount Strathallan, great-grandson of Sir Eric, who kindly granted access to the family papers. Three academics provided advice, particularly at early stages, and the authors are grateful to Prof. Susan Pedersen of Columbia University for her help with comments and sources; to Prof. Christian Tams of the University of Glasgow; and to Prof. Davide Rodogno of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. We appreciate the support of the British Association of Former UN Civil Servants, its Chair Robert England, its former President Edward Mortimer and, especially, the practical help of Dorothy Halvorsen in translating from Norwegian. We received invaluable help from Joan Davies, who meticulously read each chapter in draft. The Caledonian Club and the International Maritime Organization kindly provided meeting spaces in London. We are particularly grateful for the help received from the following archivists and librarians: vii

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Acknowledgements

Blandine Blukacz-Louisfert, Sigrun Habermann-Box and Jacques Oberson, League of Nations Archives, United Nations, Geneva, Martine Basset, Library of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, David Brown and Kirsteen Mulhearn, National Records of Scotland, Alison Metcalfe and Fiona Laing, National Library of Scotland, Lara Haggerty and Jill Dye, Innerpeffray Library, Crieff, Scotland, Richard McKenzie, Black Watch Museum, Perth, Scotland, Hannah Lowry and Jamie Carstairs, University of Bristol Library, Special Collections, Elizabeth Martin and colleagues, Nuffield College Library, Oxford, Daniel Payne, London School of Economics Library, Julia Schmidt, Churchill College Archives, Cambridge, Scott S. Taylor, Manuscripts Archivist, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., Genevieve Coyle, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University. Former UN system staff enthusiastically supported our work, notably Jamshid Anvar, Gérard Biraud, Patricio Civili, Ed Dommen, Antonio Donini, Erica Feller, Philippe Hein, Bill Jackson, Erik Jensen, Richard Jolly, Robert Johnston, Matthew Kahane, Ian Kinniburgh, Unër Kirdar, John Mathiason, Bertrand Ramcharan, Paul Rayment, Margaret Snyder, Manuela Tortora, Ralph Zacklin and Michael Zammit Cutajar. Many other individuals have helped and encouraged us along the way, especially Dr. Stefan Slater, Dr. John Forrester and Iain Milne of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Prof. Patricia Clavin, Bridget Dommen, Prof. Marguerite Dupree, Robert Enholm, Lady Maria Hambleden, Prof. Robert Kolb, Joelle Kuntz, Marc Limon, Dr. Andrew Mackenzie, Prof. Craig Murphy, Amparo Musteli-Pla, Dr. Jessica Reinisch, Torild Skard and Rosalba Varallo Recchia. Not least in these appreciations is our gratitude to our spouses Patrica, Joan and Françoise for their backing over the past five years.

Contents

Prologue—Towards a Better World xxv Part I  A Great International Civil Servant 1

The Life and Character of Eric Drummond 1876–1951

3

2 Leadership 23 2.1 Leadership of the Secretariat 23 2.2 Drummond’s Influence Beyond the Secretariat 33 2.3 Drummond’s Leadership in the Modern Context 42 3

After 3.1 3.2 3.3

Geneva 49 Leaving the League 49 Ambassador to Italy 51 Return to the United Kingdom 62

Part II  Creating an Enduring International Civil Service 4

An International Secretariat Appears on the World Stage

71

ix

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Contents

5

The International Secretariat and Its Ethos 91 5.1 The ‘Spirit of Geneva’ 101 5.2 Ahead of Their Time 104 5.3 Loss of Innocence 106

6

La Haute Direction, Impartial and Partial Officials 113 6.1 Under-Secretaries-General 117

7

The Directors and the Work of Their Sections 129 7.1 The Sections 130 7.2 Conclusion 151

8

Drummond’s Commitment to Universality 157 8.1 The Drive Towards Universality 158 8.2 Opening Up the League to World Public Opinion 169 8.3 The Greater League of Nations 175

Part III  Legacies of the League 9

Transition to the New International Order 187 9.1 The League During the War 188 9.2 Lessons Learnt: Drummond’s Views on the New International Order 192 9.3 Launching the United Nations 198

10 The Structural and Practical Legacy of an International Civil Service 203 10.1 Structures, Governance and Functions 203 10.2 Evolution of the International Civil Service (ICS) 207 10.3 Staff Rules and Regulations 215 10.4 Finance and Budgets 222 11 Humanitarian and Political Legacies 233 11.1 Refugees 233 11.2 Mandates Under the League System and Trusteeships Under the United Nations 237

Contents   

11.3 From the Protection of Minorities to the Protection of Human Rights 11.4 Continuity in the Search for Permanent Peace and Security

xi

241 243

12 Social, Economic and Technical Legacies 253 12.1 Economic, Financial and Related Issues 257 12.2 Women, Children and Social Issues 270 12.3 Labour Standards, Workers’ Rights and Social Justice 272 12.4 Health 274 12.5 Nutrition, Agriculture and Food 277 12.6 Intellectual Cooperation and Education 279 12.7 Control of Production and Trade of Narcotic Drugs 281 12.8 The Movement of People and Goods Across National Frontiers 283 13 Internationalism Restored, Starting Anew 291 13.1 Staffing the Organizations 291 13.2 Plus ça Change: The International Civil Service at Work 300 13.3 Geneva: ‘A Point on the Globe’ 302 Epilogue: A Centennial Assessment of the ‘Great Experiment’ 307 Annexes 313 Bibliography 327 Index 347

Acronyms and Abbreviations

ACTWC Advisory Commission on Trafficking in Women and Children, League of Nations AMTE Allied Maritime Transport Executive ASG Assistant Secretary-General BIS Bank for International Settlements BL British Library CAME Conference of Allied Ministers of Education CTO Communications and Transit Organisation, League of Nations CWC Child Welfare Committee, League of Nations DSB Drugs Supervisory Body, League of Nations DSG Deputy Secretary-General ECE Economic Commission for Europe (United Nations) ECITO European Central Inland Transport Organization ECOSOC United Nations Economic and Social Council ECSC European Coal and Steel Community EEC European Economic Community EFO Economic and Financial Organisation, League of Nations EFS Economic and Financial Section, League of Nations EU European Union FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FO Foreign Office (UK) FR-AIP Institut Pasteur Archives, Paris G77 The group of non-aligned countries (now no longer 77 in number) GA United Nations General Assembly GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (United Nations) HC House of Commons xiii

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Acronyms and Abbreviations

HL House of Lords IAW International Alliance of Women IBE International Bureau of Education IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) ICC International Chamber of Commerce ICIC International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, League of Nations ICJ International Court of Justice (UN) ICS International Civil Service ICW International Council of Women IGCR Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees IIA International Institute of Agriculture IIIC International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation ILO International Labour Organization ILO/AT International Labour Organization Administrative Tribunal IMF International Monetary Fund IRO International Refugee Organization ITO International Trade Organization ITU International Telecommunications Union IWA International Wheat Agreement IWO International Women’s Organizations LIA London International Assembly LON League of Nations (The League) LONA League of Nations Archives LONAT League of Nations Administrative Tribunal LONHO League of Nations Health Organisation LONU League of Nations Union LRCS League of Red Cross Societies NCA Nuffield College (Oxford) Archives NGOs Non-Governmental Organizations NLS National Library of Scotland NRS National Records of Scotland OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OIHP  Office International d’Hygiène Publique PCIJ Permanent Court of International Justice (The Court) PCOB Permanent Central Opium Board, League of Nations PIU Public International Union PMC Permanent Mandates Commission, League of Nations RIIA Royal Institute for International Affairs SC United Nations Security Council SDN Société des Nations

Acronyms and Abbreviations   

Stb Stobhall Papers of the Drummond Family TNA The National Archives (UK) TPC Technical Preparatory Committee (WHO) UK United Kingdom UN United Nations UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNCTE United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNICEF United Nations Children’s (Emergency) Fund UNRRA United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration US/USA United States of America USG Under Secretary-General USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics WFP World Food Programme WHO World Health Organization WILPF Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization WMO World Meteorological Organization WTO World Trade Organization YUA Yale University Archives

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List of Figures

Illustration 1.1 Eric Drummond 1928, sketch by Emil Stumpp, courtesy of Lord Strathallan Illustration 3.1 Ciano and Drummond signing the 1938 Anglo-Italian Agreement, Achille Beltrame, Domenica del Corriere Illustration 5.1 A poised League of Nations Secretary, caricature by Branimir Petrovic, United Nations Archives at Geneva Illustration 5.2 Rachel Crowdy, circa 1932, University of Bristol Library, special collections, DM1584/1 Illustration 5.3 Staff of the Secretary-General’s Office, circa 1922, L to R: Hilda Kershaw, Belle Williams, Joan Howard, Tony Buxton, Frank Walters, Eric Drummond, Charles Manning and Emily Johnston, United Nations Archives at Geneva Illustration 6.1 Jean Monnet, 1922, © all rights reserved, Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe, Lausanne Illustration 6.2 Joseph Avenol, 1933, detail from caricature by Aloïs Derso and Emery Kelen, United Nations Archives at Geneva Illustration 8.1 Gustav Stresemann’s lunch for the League of Nations, 1927. Stresemann (standing) between Briand (l) and Drummond (r), caricature by Aloïs Derso and Emery Kelen, courtesy of Lord Strathallan Illustration 9.1 Erik Colban (undated), United Nations Archives at Geneva

13 59 94 97

100 116 118

164 197

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List of Figures

Illustration 10.1 Drummond, seated on chest, defending the budget, 1932, detail from caricature by Aloïs Derso and Emery Kelen, United Nations Archives at Geneva 225 Illustration 12.1 A tree grows in Lake Success, circa 1948, cartoon by Aloïs Derso and Emery Kelen, United Nations Archives at Geneva 263 Illustration 12.2 The League Commission of Enquiry for European Union, Geneva, May 1931, detail from a sketch by Emil Stumpp. L to R, Julius Curtius (Germany), André Francois-Poncet and Aristide Briand (France), Eric Drummond and Yotaro Sugimura, Peter, K. (1996), Emil Stumpp, Pressezeichnungen, Klartext 268 Chart 5.1 Structure of the League and its Secretariat (circa 1930)

99

List of Text Boxes

Text Box 2.1 The Gatekeepers, Frank Walters (1888–1981) and Joan Howard (1879–1963) 28 Text Box 2.2 Farewells 32 Text Box 4.1 The International Labour Organisation and the Permanent Court of International Justice 78 Text Box 4.2 Raymond Fosdick (1883–1972) 82 Text Box 5.1 Arrangements at the Hotel National and the Hotel Victoria 92 Text Box 5.2 Rachel Crowdy (1884–1964) 96 Text Box 5.3 An eccentric colleague 104 Text Box 6.1 Jean Monnet (1888–1979) by David Drummond 115 Text Box 6.2 Inazo Nitobe (1862–1933) and Yotaro Sugimura (1884–1939) 120 Text Box 6.3 The Manchurian crisis 1931–1933 122 Text Box 7.1 Paul Mantoux (1877–1956) 132 Text Box 7.2 Salvador de Madariaga, ‘Don Quijote de la Manchuria’ (1886–1978) 134 Text Box 7.3 Arthur Salter (1881–1975) 144 Text Box 7.4 Ludwik Rajchman (1881–1965) 146 Text Box 8.1 League Membership, 1920–1946 161 Text Box 8.2 A Dynamic Duo—Koni Zilliacus (1894–1967) and Mary McGeachy (1901–1991) 173 Text Box 9.1 Séan Lester (1888–1959) 189 Text Box 9.2 Erik Colban (1876–1956) 196 Text Box 10.1 The Administrative Tribunal 221 Text Box 10.2 Herbert Ames (1863–1954) 223 xix

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List of Text Boxes

Text Box 11.1 Text Box 11.2 Text Box 11.3 Text Box 12.1 Text Box 13.1

William Rappard (1883–1958) Leo Pasvolsky (1893–1953) Joost van Hamel (1880–1964) Alexander Loveday (1888–1962) The Buildings of International Geneva

238 245 248 257 304

List of Tables

Table 6.1 Table 7.1 Table 10.1 Table 10.2 Table 13.1

Deputy and Under-Secretaries-General appointed in the period 1919–1933 114 Directors and Heads of Section appointed in the period 1919–1933 131 Comparison of the Covenant and the Charter (selected articles) 212 Budgets and Staffing 1921–1939 226 Moving from the League to new organizations 293

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Key Political Figures in Drummond’s Career

Asquith, Herbert, British Liberal politician, Prime Minister 1908–1916. Balfour, Arthur, British Conservative politician, Prime Minister 1902– 1905, Foreign Secretary 1916–1919 responsible for the Balfour Declaration. Briand, Aristide, French Socialist politician, eleven times Premier (including 1921–1922 and 1925–1926), Foreign Minister 1925– 1932 awarded Nobel Peace Prize 1926, jointly with Stresemann (q.v.). Bruce, Stanley, Australian businessman and politician, Prime Minister 1923–1929, one of the founders of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Cecil, Robert, British conservative politician, awarded Nobel Peace Prize 1937, see Chapter 2. Ciano, Galeazzo, Italian Fascist politician, son-in-law of Mussolini, Minister of Foreign Affairs 1936–1943. Tried, imprisoned and finally executed in 1944 for abandoning Mussolini. Clemenceau, Georges, French politician and journalist, Premier 1906–1909 and 1917–1920, President of the Peace Conference. Curzon, George, British politician, Foreign Secretary 1919–1924. Eden, Anthony, British Conservative politician, Foreign Secretary 1935–1938, 1940–1945 and 1951–1955, Prime Minister 1955–1957. Grey, Edward, British Liberal politician, longest-serving Foreign Secretary 1905–1916 notable for his comment that ‘the lights are going out all over Europe’ on the eve of the First World War. xxiii

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Key Political Figures in Drummond’s Career

Hambro, Carl, Norwegian journalist and Conservative politician, President of the Parliament 1926–1934 and 1935–1945, President of the League Assembly 1939 and at its final session in 1946. Kerr, Philip, Private Secretary to Lloyd George (q.v.) journalist, British Ambassador to Washington 1939–1940 where he negotiated the wartime Lend-Lease agreement. Koo, Wellington, Chinese statesman, representative at the Peace Conference, variously Ambassador to the UK, France and the USA, judge on the International Court of Justice 1957–1967. Laval, Pierre, French politician, Prime Minister 1931–1932 and 1934– 1936. Member and later Premier of the Vichy Government, tried and executed in 1945. Lloyd-George, David, British Liberal politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1908–1915, Prime Minister 1916–1922. MacDonald, Ramsay, British Labour politician, first Labour Prime Minister, leading minority governments in 1924 and 1929–1931. Mussolini, Benito (Il Duce), Italian Fascist Prime Minister 1922–1943, Dictator by 1925, Overthrown and arrested 1943, rescued by the Germans, captured and shot by the Italian Resistance 1945. Simon, John, British Liberal politician, Foreign Secretary 1931–1935, Lord Chancellor in Churchill’s wartime coalition government 1940–1945. Stresemann, Gustav, German Liberal politician, Chancellor of the Weimar Republic 1923, Minister for Foreign Affairs 1923–1929, awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1926 jointly with Briand (q.v.). Wilson, Woodrow, American lawyer and Democratic politician, 28th US President 1913–1921, awarded Nobel Peace Prize 1919.

Prologue—Towards a Better World

The artist Paul Nash gave the ironic title ‘We Are Making a New World’ to his depiction of the gigantic destruction of life that he witnessed during the First World War.1 It is difficult to imagine that there would be any regeneration from the devastation that his work illustrates. Seeds were sown, however, by US President Woodrow Wilson in 1918 in his famous Fourteen Points’ speech, the final point of which called for a general association of nations to be formed ‘under specific covenants’. The speech had a remarkable reception. It was translated and distributed to soldiers and citizens and contributed significantly to the decision by Germany to agree to an Armistice.2 Eric Drummond, at that time Private Secretary to British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, accompanied the Foreign Secretary on a threemonth visit to Washington to meet Wilson after the United States had entered the War. Before the Armistice, Drummond put before Balfour a powerfully argued memorandum concerning the anticipated InterAllied Peace Conference. The proposals were characteristic of his later diplomacy, namely that honest experts should bring forward plans and statistics and, after the Government had decided its policy, it should discuss the differences with Washington.3 There was practical transnational experience to draw on. Inter-allied supply committees existed in 20 areas of coordination.4 These initiatives stemmed largely from the Allied Maritime Transport Council’s Executive arm (AMTE) on which the USA, UK, France and Italy were represented. This was led by British civil servant Arthur Salter and included his French counterpart, Jean Monnet. xxv

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When the Peace Conference met in Paris in January 1919, French Premier Georges Clemenceau was elected to preside. On 28 April 1919, in the crowded Banqueting Hall of the Quai d’Orsay, he brought a League of Nations into existence with strange swiftness: ‘Does anyone else want to speak?’ he demanded. ‘The resolution is moved. Is there any opposition? The resolution is carried’. The delegates turned to one another in bewilderment. There was a minute’s blank silence … and it dawned on the perplexed assembly that the League of Nations Covenant [its Constitution] had been approved, that its Secretary-General had been appointed, that a Council … had been created, that Geneva had been chosen for the League’s permanent home, and that a committee had been charged with preparing an agenda for the first meeting of [the governing bodies] the League Council and Assembly…5

The Conference had appointed Eric Drummond, the youngest and the longest-serving, of those who have been Secretary-General of either the League or the United Nations. Part I of this book gives an account of Drummond’s life and character, and concludes that he stands in the front rank of those who have held the post. The initiative of establishing the League’s functions lay with Drummond as Secretary-General. He was to show himself to be a principled, trustworthy and conscientious leader. This book, authored by four former international civil servants, provides a fresh perspective on the League by putting the Secretary-General and the Secretariat centre-stage. The influence of Drummond in shaping the League’s Secretariat (the first International Civil Service—ICS) is the subject of Part II. He began his work in May 1919 in a back room of his London home, 23 Manchester Square, where he sought to form an embryonic Secretariat with men and women who were ‘League-minded’.6 The actions he took were decisive in shaping the impartial character of the ICS. The life course of any organization is shaped by its early origins and, for eight months, the League existed only as the Secretariat. For a further ten months, from January to November 1920, the period between the Council’s first meeting and the First Assembly in Geneva, the League’s permanent activity was maintained by the Secretariat in London. It was during these early months that Drummond created the ethos of the ICS, and established, with his senior colleagues, the League’s functions and structures.

Prologue—Towards a Better World   

xxvii

The first recruits to the League were in the main young, and several, like Salter and Monnet, had worked together in the war. It was the imagination of the emergent Secretariat that allowed the League to respond to the political, economic and social problems of the post-war era through enduring structures of international cooperation. Drummond’s tenure was associated with the ‘Spirit of Geneva’ and with the establishment of that Swiss city as a centre point of global diplomacy. There, the League helped to stabilize nations and to protect vulnerable populations in the post-war years. It demonstrated that the way towards building a better world was through nations acting together. The enlightened British politician, Lord Robert Cecil, described it as a ‘great experiment’. The concept of the League as an experiment allowed the ICS to show creativity and to lay the foundations of a century of multilateral cooperation. Drummond’s first deputy, Monnet, and the American Under SecretaryGeneral (USG) Raymond Fosdick, left in 1923 and 1920, respectively. After their exit, and especially following the departure in 1927 of Italian USG Bernardo Attolico, the ethos of internationalism at the topmost level of the Secretariat began to weaken. It was Drummond and his Leagueminded Japanese USGs who maintained the ideal of the impartial official. French, Italian and German nationals who served at this level largely failed in this respect, showing partiality towards their own countries. Drummond’s disappointment in the USGs was evident when he queried later whether the posts should continue. It was among the Directors Drummond appointed that the League’s brightest stars appeared. ‘League-mindedness’ is a term that appeared in the literature of the 1920s.7 Drummond found this in those who directed the Secretariat’s various Sections. Salter, along with fellow Briton Alexander Loveday, built a strong and powerful Economic and Finance Section that responded promptly to the economic problems that followed the war. The Polish physician Ludwik Rajchman directed the far-reaching Health Section, which undertook pioneering work in protecting the health of populations. Robert Haas, the French head of the Communications and Transit Section, helped establish practices to secure freedom of transit for international trade. The Norwegian Erik Colban instituted a system whereby grievances of minority populations in newly created European states could be considered by the League. The Frenchman Paul Mantoux who headed the Political Section was a walking compendium on every aspect of the Covenant. His friend, Swiss lawyer William Rappard, directed the Mandates Section and devised processes that helped the

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League to hold accountable the imperial powers that were mandated to govern former German and Ottoman territories in the interests of indigenous people in Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific. Rachel Crowdy, the only woman appointed at senior level, achieved wonders with her tiny Social Questions Section which dealt predominantly with international action relating to women and children, policies that were later adopted by many Member States. The victorious powers—France, Britain, Italy and Japan—were reluctant to act collectively through the League on the political functions for which the international body was created, particularly the pursuit of disarmament. An additional problem for the League was its lack of universality—the United States refused to join, Germany’s admission was delayed until 1926, and the membership of Russia/USSR was achieved only in 1934. It was the Secretariat’s determination that induced the League to address, through multilateral action, the post-war problems of economic recession, displaced populations, epidemic disease and welfare of women and children. In this centennial of the founding of the League and the ICS, it is important to understand how the first institution of global governance was conceived and operated, and to appreciate the talents of its architect. The final Part of the book shows the large-scale absorption of League programmes, practices and staff into the United Nations (UN) and its Specialized Agencies. ‘Although it could never be publically admitted during or after the war—the League had become politically toxic by the late 1930s—the truth is that the UN was in many ways a continuation of the earlier body’.8 There is little in what the League did that did not transfer in one form or another to the UN and its agencies—not just the ICS but virtually all the League’s economic and technical work, its humanitarian programmes, and much else. This was however the time of a ‘fresh start’, and there was an ungracious silence over what had gone before.9 In 1946, one of Drummond’s appointees who transited to the UN wrote to him saying, ‘I am proud to say that your spirit was present the whole time during these last three months when first the Preparatory Commission and then the General Assembly of the UN worked to put a new international organisation in the position to perform its task’.10 The League maintained a potent influence in the international economic and social fields until its dissolution, but was weak politically almost from the beginning. It was the ICS that took the first steps on the road to building a better world. Its members were creative in devising

Prologue—Towards a Better World   

xxix

mechanisms for multinational cooperation and innovative in enlisting the cooperation of outside experts and voluntary organizations. Most of all, they were impartial. The book focusses on the men and women who were at the heart of this historic experiment in global governance. On the day in 1946 that the League ceased to exist, the British Government minister and former League official Philip Noel-Baker delivered a eulogy, saying: I am as proud of our British Civil Service as any man could be, but I can say with truth that in none of our departments did I find a higher standard of technical efficiency, a higher level of personal and official probity, a greater industry and devotion to their cause, than I found in the Secretariat as I knew it then.11

Drummond died in 1951. A former League colleague predicted that he would come into his full recognition as having conceived and then constructed one of the new, permanent elements of world life.12 The creation of an International Civil Service was an enduring achievement of the internationalism that emerged in 1919. The grave of this modest man makes no mention of the office that he held, but describes him as ‘A Great International Civil Servant’. The book provides a new assessment of his legacy.

Endnotes

1. Slater, S. D. (2017), ‘Masters of Mayhem’, p. 28. 2.  ‘This Day in History, 8 January 1918, Wilson outlines the Fourteen Points’, HISTORY.com [accessed 25 August 2017]. 3.  TNA, FO800_385, Drummond Memorandum, 11 October 1918; Drummond to Balfour, 27 November 1918. 4. Salter, J. A. (1919), Allied Maritime Transport Council, p. 11. 5. Harris, W. H. (1920), The Peace in the Making, p. 154. 6. Fosdick, R. The League and the United Nations After Fifty Years, p. 23. 7. Macaulay, R. (1922), Mystery in Geneva, p. 129. 8. Mazower, M. (2009), No Enchanted Palace—The End of Empire, p. 14. 9. Stb7/3/3/2, Sweetser, A. Personal Note, 16 December 1951. 10. Stb7/1/5/7, Colban to Perth, 17 February 1946. 11. Stb7/1/4/7, The League Hands Over, League of Nations 1946/1, pp. 39 and pp. 58. 12. Stb7/3/3/2, Sweetser, A. Personal Note, 16 December 1951.

PART I

A Great International Civil Servant

CHAPTER 1

The Life and Character of Eric Drummond 1876–1951

Drummond revealed little of himself to the politicians, diplomats and colleagues who were at the centre of his life and he baffled the press corps. His public image was that of a simple man, doing his duty, smoking his pipe and relaxing over fishing or a game of golf.1 He could not be enticed to write about his ‘great experiment’ in promoting cooperation, peace and justice between nations, and failed to get past the first page of an autobiography or beyond a tantalising list of eleven proposed episodes of a book that would have spanned the years between the First World War and the Munich crisis of 1938. However, a fresh insight on his life and character is presented in this chapter, derived from new biographical sources. His career was powerfully influenced by his origins and early life. He was raised in an era in which there was an ever-present consciousness of family honour and personal reputation, and in a household with a centuries-­old clanship tradition, characterized by fierce loyalty to kin and causes. The qualities he showed in office may have had their roots, to some extent, in these values. A French reporter suggested so in a finely observed description of Drummond, concluding that he was a gallant man who put into practice the Scottish motto of his clan, Gang Warily— ‘advance with caution’.2 Family mottos were important to Drummond: while courting his future wife, he quoted another, Prius mori quam fidem fallere, which he interpreted as ‘I would rather die than break my word’.3 © The Author(s) 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0_1

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He was a Scottish aristocrat, second son of Viscount Strathallan, but was not born into great wealth, rather he grew up within a relatively modest military family. His page of autobiography does not extend beyond childhood and begins by recording his birth at the White House, Fulford, near York, on 17 August 1876. His father James David Drummond was serving there as a British Army officer with the rank of Captain in a prestigious regiment, the 6th Dragoons. His character and values were largely shaped in the imposing fifteenth century Methven Castle, and at Machany, the neighbouring Drummond family estate. His happiness as a child is evident from his recollection that two months were regularly spent in Perthshire at Methven Castle, my mother’s old home … Our annual migration took place about the middle of July and we looked forward to it immensely … Every part of the journey had a special excitement … Methven Castle was a most fascinating home for children. My grandfather and grandmother entertained large parties during the time we were there … My birthday was always passed there and was celebrated as a giant excursion, if the weather was fine. A picnic at the loch, the catching of numerous fish out of a boat … I do not think that a child’s birthday could have been more happy.4

He was educated entirely in England, first at home where the Drummond children had a German governess, Emilie Winkopp.5 He went on to a small boarding school kept by two maiden ladies. The reserve that he displayed as Secretary-General has been attributed to his early instruction at home and to his being raised within a small social circle.6 He then attended St. John’s Royal Latin School in Buckingham, during which he avidly read books of every kind, secured several prizes and became well-grounded in French.7 In 1891, he entered Eton College where in 1895, his final year, he won the Prince Consort’s French prize. Proficiency in French was clearly a factor in his selection as Secretary-General and there was early evidence of Drummond’s leadership; at Eton he was head of ‘Oppidans’, one of the two most senior students. He was also selected for Eton’s prestigious debating society, but, alas, never demonstrated oral presentation skills in his subsequent career.8 His family on both sides were strong Tories: the Smythe dog was taught to bay and bark for Disraeli and to growl for Gladstone. In an early display of independence of mind, young Master Drummond declared himself an ardent Liberal, which was received with horror and amusement by all the family.9 In his later years, he sat in the House of

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Lords as a representative peer of Scotland (having succeeded to the Earldom of Perth in 1937) and served there as Deputy Leader of the Liberal party from 1946.10 Sadly, his father did not survive to witness Eric’s achievements— during the great storm of 1893 he went out to see the damage to his woods, fell ill, ‘went to bed and never rose again’.11 A powerful influence on his life, especially after the early tragic death of his father, was that of his mother Margaret Smythe, Lady Strathallan (see Annex 1, Drummond’s family tree). In the hectic summer of 1919 when he was busy establishing the Secretariat, he sent Lady Strathallan a note saying ‘I am proud of my mother’; she died shortly after his move to Geneva, at the very moment he was holding the inaugural meeting of the League of Nations.12 His father’s influence was felt, however. When Eric left school in 1895, the scholarly 19-year old followed his father’s career; on 30 October, he was gazetted as Second Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion of the Black Watch, a Highland regiment that was based near the family home in Perthshire and in which his elder step-brother Viscount Strathallan and younger brother Maurice also served.13 He resigned his commission in December 1896.14 Drummond seems to have sustained an injury or illness affecting his leg; on New Year’s Eve 1895, he records that he ‘went to see doctor because of [his] heel’ and, in 1914, wrote saying ‘just think I might have been there [East of the Meuse] except for my leg’. A newspaper report remarks that he played tennis, ‘notwithstanding slight lameness’.15 During the years in which he held the post of Secretary-General, a position that the first UN Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, described ‘as the most impossible job in the world’, his main relaxation was fishing; the recreation of the contemplative man and an art that provides the angler with ‘a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thought, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness; … [and] habits of peace and patience’.16 Drummond wondered if his love of fly-fishing was an inherited quality or whether it was aroused by a wonderful day on a Highland river. For more than half-a-century he maintained a ‘Sportsman’s Record’ detailing where he fished, what he caught and who accompanied him.17 League of Nations’ staff regularly presented him with a matchbox containing the first of the season’s Mayflies, hatched in Lake Geneva, as a matter worthy of immediate attention.18

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There is a sketchy record of Drummond’s life in the period prior to his entry to the Foreign Service in 1900. Most of his contemporaries in these formative years were at Oxford or Cambridge, but he never went to university. The Machany estate took a good deal of his time during these years. Family papers, local records and Scottish newspapers all describe him pursuing sporting interests there. He was an enthusiast of the Scottish winter sport of curling and was a member of a team of curlers from the North of Scotland that took on a team from the South in a famous curling match in which two thousand took part.19 When he became Secretary-General and moved to Switzerland, Drummond continued the sport and played for Gstaad. In April 1896, he set off on a fisherman’s pilgrimage and to develop proficiency in German. Taking a boat from Harwich, he journeyed to Weimar, where he fished a stretch of the river Ilm that had been stocked and attentively managed by the Edinburgh-born founder of modern fly-fishing John Horrocks.20 He remained there until July 1896, recording that the fishing was ‘far the best I have ever had and the best I can hope for is to someday to do it again’. Drummond’s Sportsman’s Record places him in different locations in Germany (and travelling through France) with British and German fishing companions between 1896 and 1900. He recalled in 1946 ‘that 45 years ago I spent a great deal of time in Germany … in the various States’.21 According to his records, he seems to have spent three long periods there; four months in 1896, eight months in 1897–98 and nine months in 1899–1900, although it is not clear that the longer visits were continuous. After joining the Foreign Service, he made two shorter visits, to Nassau in RhinelandPalatinate and to the city of Weimar in 1900 and 1902, respectively.22 The claim that he had only slight experience of foreign countries before his appointment as Secretary-General is therefore not entirely true.23 He was well-equipped in German and discoursed fluently in French, although a colleague from the Dominions remarked that there was no nonsense about his speaking it like a Frenchman.24 On 8 October 1898, he left Scotland to attend Scoones, a London crammer for those seeking to enter the Foreign Office (FO)—a route taken by most successful candidates at the time.25 Scoones’ pupils were tutored hard in recommended texts for the entrance examination, as well as in German and French. The demands of the examination for fluency in these languages drove the majority of FO candidates to Germany and to France.26 They were often (as in Drummond’s case) second sons with

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an annual income. In May 1900, Drummond succeeded, entering ‘after limited competition’ as a Clerk on the Establishment or Attaché in the Diplomatic Service, a ‘recruitment that relied on knowledge of a candidate’s antecedents and character’.27 His work as a civil servant aide to Britain’s topmost political leaders began during a period of transition when political power was moving away from grandees to leaders who were more representative of the people. Drummond owed his advancement however to the grandees, Foreign Secretary Edward Grey (also a fly-fishing enthusiast); Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and Foreign Secretary (and fellow Scot) Balfour. The name ‘Ela’, Drummond’s future wife, appears as a fishing companion in the records of 1903. He had met Angela (Ela) ConstableMaxwell the year before at Mount Stuart, the Marquess of Bute’s sumptuous home. Ela followed up their first meeting with an invitation to Eric to attend a Yeomanry Ball and to join a house party at Everingham, her parents’ Yorkshire home. Her father, Lord Herries, was head of an ancient Scottish Roman Catholic family while the Drummonds, however, were Episcopalian. Shortly after Drummond departed from Everingham, Ela spoke of the seriousness of the relationship to her mother who responded that ‘there were first the difficulties, religion and worldly goods’. The next day she shared her daughter’s news with her husband, who wrote immediately to Drummond saying that he would never consent to a ‘mixed marriage’.28 Throughout 1903, Ela’s deeply held Catholicism dominated the exchanges between the couple. In the end, Drummond overcame his long-standing difficulty with some aspects of Catholicism and converted to Ela’s religion at Downside Abbey. His mother was greatly distressed at her son’s conversion but was comforted that he had been so absolutely honest and straightforward.29 The two difficulties clearly had a stressful effect on the bridegroom-to-be. Intending to write ‘not to be forwarded’ on an envelope to Ela, he wrote instead ‘not to be married’.30 The marriage did take place, on 20 April 1904, in the chapel at Everingham. Drummond’s family was well represented—Maurice was best man and his mother also attended. One of Ela’s bridesmaids was Joan ‘Tiger’ Howard, who served as Drummond’s personal assistant throughout his tenure as SecretaryGeneral.31 The newly weds spent their honeymoon at Machany. Drummond was devoted to Ela. Before their marriage, he had spelt out to Ela how he envisaged their relationship, saying ‘it is always bad for a person always to have his own way but you shall have yours as much

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as I can manage’.32 Ela was confident that her husband one day would head the FO. His fourteen years as Secretary-General gave him every possible qualification for this, but it was not to be, for reasons set out in the next chapter. Ela appears to have been somewhat in the shadow of her elder sister Gwen, Duchess of Norfolk, wife of the premier Duke in the English peerage and a leading Catholic.33 There were four children of the marriage, Margaret—named after Margaret Smythe—was born in 1905, David born in Norfolk House in 1907, Angela in 1912; and Gillian, born in 1920, was a babe-in-arms when her parents moved to Geneva. Drummond was recognized in the FO for his diligence, precision and effective communication and he progressed to serve under Britain’s top Liberal and Conservative leaders, a nurturing that was good preparation for the role that was thrust upon him in 1919 (see Annex 2).34 Prime Minister Asquith had sought the best Private Secretary in the Civil Service in 1912 and the choice fell on Drummond.35 Margot Asquith described him as ‘a most intelligent, observant, delightful man; unique in temper, humour, kindness and courage, as well as [being] remarkably clever’.36 When Asquith was having to let Drummond go back to serve Foreign Minister Grey as his Private Secretary in 1915, he said that ‘it will be a terrible mutilation of my staff. He is in some ways the best PS I have ever had: careful, capable, admirable in dealing with bores …’.37 Margot echoed this, telling Drummond I cd not believe my ears when Henry, with almost tears in his eyes, told me they were trying to take you away from us. Must this [be] so?? I don’t think you have any idea how devoted Henry and I are to you – nor what sunshine you are in this household. Your delightful temper, fine spirits – devotion and amazing understanding and quickness has as Henry said been the sunshine of this house.38

While working for Grey, Drummond advanced the idea of a ‘League of Peace’ and in 1916 drafted a paper that ‘fused British security, international organization and legal norms into one grand synthetic view of the future international order’.39 At that time Drummond first met US Presidential adviser Colonel Edward House40 and he established a secret and direct means of communicating with House.41 Working at the highest levels of the civil service, Drummond was a member of an informal group of influential colleagues who called

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themselves the ‘Black Crows’ and who dealt with problems that might impact on the government’s efficient running. Drummond recalled that on one occasion he was deputized by the Crows to meet with Lloyd George to suggest that he should head a war cabinet while Asquith remained in post as Prime Minister, a suggestion that was amenable to Lloyd George but eventually rejected.42 He used his Catholicism to advantage during the War. It became clear that the influence of Austria, Germany and Bavaria at the Vatican was doing Britain harm among Catholics in many countries, particularly America and Canada. Drummond suggested that a temporary mission should be sent to Rome as there were not only the intrigues of the Central Powers at the Vatican to counter, but also the anti-English sentiments of the Irish College.43 Ireland was to remain a problem for AngloAmerican relations throughout the war and beyond.44 Drummond’s strategy was to help keep Irish-American opinion on moderate lines, to build the foundation of better feeling on the part of American Catholics towards Britain and to help prevent the clergy and laity from siding with the Germans. Shane Leslie, Drummond’s co-religionist, kept him alert as to the influence on American public opinion of Cardinals John Murphy Farley and William O’Connell—the former the Irish-born Archbishop of New York, and the latter Archbishop of Boston and a son of Irish immigrants.45 On the dissolution of Asquith’s Government in 1916, he received a knighthood and became ‘Sir Eric’.46 His career then took a wholly new turn while serving incoming Conservative Foreign Secretary, Balfour.47 On joining Lloyd George’s new coalition government, Balfour received a note from Drummond via Lord Robert Cecil, a junior FO Minister, suggesting that in the event of Belgium and France seeking a separate peace with Germany (which Cecil thought unlikely) the US President might be invited to act as mediator in ‘securing fair terms for ourselves as well as for our allies, and of assuring that the Alliance of France, Russia, Italy, and ourselves shall continue after the war on its present friendly basis’.48 This was written in the context of an apparent peace overture from the German Chancellor. Drummond followed up with a memorandum to Balfour, advising that the Chancellor be requested to announce the bases of peace on which Germany was ready to negotiate, and that the Allies should then consider these in common before sending a joint reply.49 Drummond, later renowned for his modesty, wrote to Cecil, saying ‘I hope you will be able to see the PM tomorrow & have a talk with him.

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I believe (don’t smile) that the suggestions I made are much better than his’.50 He also sent a private letter to the Prime Minister emphasising the points made in his memorandum.51 As Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary, Drummond acted as a point of contact between the FO and the British secret service. In the period before the United States entered the war, Drummond kept Balfour apprised of Washington politics through several informants.52 Intelligence from William Wiseman, an MI-6 officer in New York and a key person in Anglo-American relations, was passed to Drummond by Arthur Murray, of the FO’s Political Intelligence Department—Murray’s code name for Drummond was ‘Bond’.53 Coincidentally, author Ian Fleming was to work briefly in the League of Nations (see Chapter 5). The practical advice that Drummond received from Wiseman continued after he was appointed Secretary-General.54 Another major contact was the aristocratic spy Count Jan Horodyski, who served as a British secret service agent from the spring of 1915.55 The United States entered the War in April 1917 and, as noted in the Prologue, Balfour immediately set out for Washington. The role of Drummond in this high-level mission of bankers, military personnel and civil servants was that of chief FO aide. They all embarked on the RMS Olympic in Greenock on 13 April. Drummond expressed delight that they had completed the journey from London incognito, only to be told by Balfour that he had given his autograph to hotel staff en route.56 Much of the joint US/UK policy planning between President Wilson and Balfour was done with Drummond present, and a ‘Drummond/ House Memorandum’ was approved by the President.57 After his return (on 6 June 1917) Drummond received a letter from Washington saying I heard on A1 authority that the President was completely captivated by Balfour, talks of England’s ability always to produce a great man in the hour of need, recalls Pitt, professes himself ready to learn European politics at his feet.58

Drummond wrote a gracious thank you letter to House saying ‘you were so kind to us on the mission … You know how well the two men got on together’ and he concluded, possibly with a little flattery, ‘I do not like to contemplate what the position might be if [the President] were deprived, even for a short period of time, of your counsel and assistance’.59

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After the Armistice, he urged Balfour not to be rushed by the French and to resist overtures for drafting an Anglo-French agreement before the Americans arrived for the Peace Conference. While the experience of cooperation between allies during the War demonstrated the feasibility of the great organizational enterprise that was to follow, one aspect that the French put forward was unacceptable to Drummond—the proposal to exclude neutral countries from the proposed conference: he felt these nations had a strong interest in seeing a League of Nations established.60 While serving on the British delegation to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, Drummond bolstered his reputation ‘by his sincerity, grasp of detail, procedural knowledge, and detached approach to complicated and difficult questions’.61 This is illustrated well by Elmer Bendiner who describes how throughout the negotiations at Paris an unassuming figure hovered at the elbow of Lord Balfour [sic]. Timely reminders would be whispered in the Foreign Minister’s ear and memoranda would materialize before him, complete with the very data for which his Lordship might be fumbling. The shadowy presence operating with such unobtrusive efficiency was Sir Eric James Drummond, a lean, sad-looking, and altogether unimpressive forty-two-year-old man with a long nose, prominent Adam’s apple and pale grey eyes. Balfour had found Wilson’s League fixation something of a bore, and turned over most of the work on that subject to Drummond, who responded enthusiastically – within the limits of his reserve – to the League, to Wilson and to Colonel House. The Americans came to value his judgement as well as his efficiency and treated him as a trusted confidant.62

Wilson turned to Drummond to assist him with the diplomacy needed to steer through his ideas.63 The British and American delegations proposed that the League should be headed by a prominent statesman with the power to take political initiatives. Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and Czechoslovakian President Tomas Masaryk both turned down the offer to take office as ‘Chancellor’. The Great Powers decided to seek instead a Secretary-General and Cecil records that it was left to him to propose a suitable person for the position. He recounts that, after Maurice Hankey had chosen to remain Cabinet Secretary, he was extremely lucky in persuading Drummond to take it.64 It was clearly desirable, from Cecil’s

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perspective, for a Briton to hold the topmost post in the League since ‘no matter how depoliticized the Secretary-Generalship appeared to be, the office was still intrinsically political’.65 It was in the end the counsel of his family, rather than Cecil, that persuaded Drummond to take the post.66 A journalist records the informality of the decision: he reported that when the Big Four met to make the choice, Clemenceau turned to Balfour saying ‘why not that quiet Scotsman, Drummond, you always have with you? He would be ideal’.67 Thus, on 28 April 1919, Wilson’s Covenant was placed safely in the hands of someone who had long and keenly supported the League of Nations idea.68 The only ground upon which criticism of Drummond’s appointment was made was his comparative youth.69 He conveyed, in office, the impression of having just wandered in from the lochs or grouse moors of Scotland: on almost all save formal occasions he wore soft collars and grey tweed, ‘the heather was in his clothes’.70 He was never at ease before photographers. The features of a long face, dark brows, military moustache, large mouth and oval chin under his civil servants’ bowler hat prompted a journalist to ask ‘is he as simple as he looks?’ He was of medium height (1.8 metres). In the Gerald Kelley portrait that hangs in the Palais des Nations, Geneva he sits in a formal pose at his desk. The faint smile that he used to great effect was captured by the artist Emil Stumpp whose work is depicted in Illustration 1.1. On Wednesday 13 August 1919, and on most Wednesdays throughout his tenure, Drummond met with his Directors to give them an opportunity to exchange views and to learn what was happening in the Secretariat as a whole. The Minutes of these meetings survive and give a fly-on-the-wall view of how Drummond conducted himself. His character comes through strongly on reading these. A prime concern was reputation: he would urge staff ‘to do nothing which could be taken as a handle by critics of the League’, drawing attention to the fact that, as a corporate body, the credit of the whole was affected by the acts of individuals. He urged them to concentrate on making the League the greatest possible success. He consequently encouraged wide-ranging debates and tolerated combative views, courteously listening to others before speaking in a gentle and felicitous way—although he usually exercised his authority in the end, saying for instance ‘the present system did not seem to him to work badly’ or ‘there was more than one course to be followed in the matter’. He encouraged initiative, indicating that money

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Illustration 1.1  Eric Drummond 1928, sketch by Emil Stumpp, courtesy of Lord Strathallan

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would be forthcoming for work within Member States. Additionally he showed loyalty to junior staff, spreading enforced budget cuts gradually, so that those affected might be absorbed elsewhere in the Secretariat. In an International Secretariat, there is no place for racial prejudice and he told his Directors in one of his Confidential Circulars that the spirit of the Covenant implied ‘equal liberty and independence for all races’.71 It was the personality and ‘sound practicality’ of Drummond that decisively shaped the Secretariat’s character.72 A prominent aspect of this was his self-effacement. His blue-pencilling is seen in the draft of a text that accompanied a posed photograph showing him at work at the League—all hyperbole is deleted, all superlatives removed and the script is depersonalized.73 A well-balanced description of his character in the Spectator found nothing but Drummond’s shyness to censure. Drummond would say nothing startling about himself (or indeed about anyone else) and the article goes on to praise him for his invariable and scrupulous fairness, his very careful attention to detail, and his constant hard work. After Drummond had spent a decade in office, statesmen, diplomats and journalists all were of the view that no one of his calibre was available to succeed him. If, at times, he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders he went out to play golf, or to fish. The article concludes a little unkindly: Perhaps the truth is that he is the product of an ancient and very subtle form of education, little understood even by those who have evolved the training of English gentlemen. Count Keyserling in his solemn German way calls it a system of yoga, in which the training of character makes up for deficiencies in intellectual equipment.74

When he left the League, all ranks of the Secretariat expressed their gratitude and respect for his leadership although many regretted that he did not overcome his natural reserve and establish more direct relations with them. Those who were close to him remembered him with affection and kept in touch: Séan Lester, for example, at the time of the League’s demise; Erik Colban at the birth of the UN; Arthur Sweetser until his last days; and Monnet’s friendship continued into the next Drummond generation. It was the view of another former colleague that he was a man who possessed ‘not so much exceptional gifts as ordinary gifts possessed to an exceptional degree’ and that ‘his patience and calm are qualities on which external evidence may properly be called’:

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They were tried hourly, by persons both within and without the Secretariat, but his patience was affected by neither importunity, nor complaining, nor touchiness, nor verbosity or any other of our little ways, nor could the distraction of the most urgent or anxious affairs disturb his invincible calm. Another quality which Drummond showed himself to possess to a supreme degree is personal modesty. This quality, besides giving to his character its undoubted charm, showed itself in his disposition to notice the good rather than the bad in his colleagues and in his utter aversion from dictatorial methods … It is true that Sir Eric Drummond never impressed his vision on his staff by the method of direct appeal … [He] preferred to let his staff learn their duties, including the highest, by practice rather than by precept … … the intellectual graces showed themselves chiefly in a supple and workmanlike written English, which owes something no doubt to association with those masters of official prose, Asquith and Balfour, but most to the inherent distinction of a mind naturally perceptive, quick and humble. His recreations really were important to him. Perhaps it was his single-mindedness more than any other quality which held, even while they disagreed with him, the trust of delegates and colleagues … he became, more than men of greater celebrity and popular influence, the essential pivot, the silent standard bearer …75

Those who visited him at home in Geneva noticed the family atmosphere.76 A colleague who knew him better than most observed that to pierce behind the reserve of the British official and strike the real personality one had, above all, to see the ideal family life in which he found repose. When he returned home at the end of the day, he left the office behind and tried to have dinner every evening with his family, banishing discussion of work and tolerating diversions that were a common part of the household, such his children playing jazz records.77 Thus he derived from his wife and children strengths that sustained him in the stressful post of Secretary-General. Anger was never a feature of Drummond’s public persona, but he expressed this in private dialogue with the British Government, particularly but not exclusively, over budget economies.78 He did occasionally show weakness: stronger assertions at crucial moments of the obligations owed to the League might have stiffened the backbone of Member States.79 During the 1931 Manchurian crisis (see Chapter 6) he hoped that a measure could be found to minimize the risk of rupture between Japan and the League and he emphasised to the Secretariat ‘the strict

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necessity for impartiality’.80 This was a crisis that called into question the value of a Secretary-General manifesting strict neutrality—not for the last time.81 In the days of the cold war, Nikita Khrushchev asserted that ‘an impartial official is a fiction’.82 Other critical assessments of Drummond’s tenure at the League conclude that Drummond—because of his personality and circumstances—never came to exercise a strong guiding hand in directing the League’s work.83 The chapters that follow show this to be a quite incorrect judgement. Criticisms such as these failed to see that the League developed by simple processes directed towards the pacific organization of international relations.84 Drummond’s career after he left Geneva in 1933 is covered in detail in Chapter 3 and Annex 2. The post in the diplomatic service to which Drummond was assigned on returning to the FO was one in which his character proved to be a disadvantage. The high reputation that he earned in his 14 years at the League began to erode in the post of Ambassador to Mussolini’s Italy. In Rome, he was too courteous and too understanding of every point of view. Privately, he was dismayed by the ‘boasting, the posturing, the rampant nationalism, the gross misrepresentations of the British attitude, the absurd egotism and conceit [that] have been enough to turn the least Anglo-Saxon stomachs’.85 Drummond, who inherited the Earldom of Perth during his Ambassadorship, was blamed unfairly for becoming too close to the Fascist regime.86 When the Duce seemed determined to conquer Abyssinia, Drummond tried vainly to settle the dispute through dialogue and conciliation, principles that he had successfully employed in the League. Drummond achieved some success in avoiding alienating Mussolini in the face of the serious threat coming from Germany (see Chapter 3). An Italian perception on Drummond’s assignment is provided in the 1937–38 diaries of Count Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law and Foreign Minister. On Drummond’s departure from Italy he wrote: I must acknowledge that [Drummond] has worked well – intelligently and honestly … And yet the first day he saw me he wrote to his Government – we have the document – describing his repugnance which he felt, and forced himself to overcome, when he shook hands with me.87

At the age of 63, Drummond left the FO and returned to Britain a tired man. Ciano implied that he was losing his vigour and showing signs of

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stress, recording that: ‘Usually he is witty and quick in argument, but today he was bewildered and vague in his replies and had little to say for himself. To use a boxing term, I might describe him as “groggy’’’.88 Back in London, after a short period in the new Department of Information he retired and took up his seat in the House of Lords (see Chapter 3). His retirement years were spent in Fyning House in the Sussex village of Rogate, where he took pride in his wife’s accomplishment as a gardener. This domestic life was interrupted in early 1951 when an American graduate student from Cambridge, Stephen Schwebel, arrived to interview him on the political powers and practice of a SecretaryGeneral. In the book that Schwebel subsequently published he includes three Drummond quotes, namely that a Chancellor would not have been successful in the League; that the political activities of the SecretaryGeneral were only known to very few; and that he (Drummond) was neither parliamentarian nor politician.89 These seem to be Drummond’s response to an influential book by a former League official whose opinion was … that it was a mistake on the part of the statesmen responsible for establishing the League to choose an administrator. The purely administrative tasks could well have been entrusted with advantage to a man of Sir Eric’s fibre, but the political tasks should have been in the hands of a statesman … Experience shows that it is a statesman who must be chosen as head of a political agency. He must be an international leader.90

A life-long smoker, he died of lung cancer at Rogate on 15 December 1951 and was buried in Scotland, not on Drummond soil but in the Galloway lands of Ela’s family at Sweetheart Abbey, which takes its striking name from a devoted thirteenth century wife laid to rest with her husband’s heart. The inconspicuous grave that marks the final resting place of James Eric Drummond, 16th Earl of Perth describes him as ‘a great international civil servant’ and carries a poignant inscription from the Beatitudes, ‘Blessed Are The Peacemakers For They Will Be Called Children Of God’. Ela, who died in 1965, lies beside her husband. Of their children, two of his daughters married during his Rome assignment, Margaret to John Walker, a member of the American Academy there, and Angela to an Italian Count, Alessandro Collestatte (the marriage did not last). Gillian married John Murray Anderson, an

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officer in the Seaforth Highlanders shortly after the Second World War ended. Only David entered the political milieu of his father. He worked with Monnet early in his career as a banker, advising the Chinese government on economic matters. In 1934, he married an American, Nancy Fincke. A successful financier of great integrity, he caught the attention of Harold Macmillan, who appointed him Minister of State for Colonial Affairs.91 Later, he facilitated discussions between Monnet and Prime Minister Edward Heath on the European Economic Community.92 In the 1960s he bought back Stobhall, the former Drummond home on the River Tay and, with Nancy’s help, restored it. Eric Drummond left the world as he entered it—with only modest wealth. At the time of his death many commented on his character, stating that he was ‘unruffled, shrewd, diplomatic, a little pawky’, and showed ‘patience, even temper, good sense and transparent honesty of purpose’.93 Sweetser circulated a eulogy stating that he was quite sure, from the closest contacts, that Drummond had no realization of the unique and lasting contribution that he had made to human progress. His judgement was that ‘Drummond will come into his full recognition as having conceived and then constructed one of the new, permanent elements of world life’.94 The creation of an International Civil Service was an enduring achievement of the internationalism that emerged in 1919. On learning of his death, representatives at the UN General Assembly rose and observed one minute of silence.95

Endnotes

1.  Stb7/1/3/1, Yates-Brown, F. (1929), ‘The League of Nations: The Character of Sir Eric Drummond’, Spectator, 5 January. 2. Stb7/1/3/1, Couduriere de Chassagne, J. (1938), ‘Un cadet d’Écosse; the Earl of Perth’, L’Illustration, 23 April. 3.  Stb7/3/1/3, Drummond to Angela Constable-Maxwell, 2 December 1903. 4. Stb7/3/4/1, Autobiographic note (undated). 5. Bucks Herald & Buckinghamshire Advertiser, 31 and 24 May 1890; Innerpeffray Library, Visitors’ Book entries of 20 April 1894, 8 May 1896 and 30 June 1897. 6. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy of Sir Eric Drummond, p. 88. 7. Stb5/1/5, Newspaper Clipping, 1 August 1885. 8. Eton College Chronicle, 7 November 1895, p. 131. 9. Stb7/3/4/1, Autobiographical note (undated).

1  THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ERIC DRUMMOND 1876–1951 











19

10. Lloyd, L. (2004), ‘Drummond (James) Eric, seventh earl of Perth (1876– 1951) Diplomatist’. 11. Gardyne, C. (1915), Records of a Quiet Life, p. 516. 12. Stb5/1/9, Drummond, 22 August 1919. 13. Balhousie, London Gazette, 29 October 1895, p. 5860; ‘Record Book of the Third Battalion Royal Highlanders, 1801–1904’. 14.  Balhousie, ‘Permanent Order Book, 3rd Battalion Royal Highlanders, 1865–1899, Battalion Orders Perth 31 December 1896’. 15.  Stb7/3/1/3, Drummond to Angela Drummond, 26 August 1914, p. 9; Stb5/1/9, The Evening Standard, 29 April 1919, p. 66; Stb7/4/9, ‘Sportsman’s Record’, 31 December 1895. 16. Walton, Issac. (1653), The Compleat Angler, p. 84. 17. Stb7/4/9, Sportsman’s Record of game and fish caught in various locations in 1894–1947. 18. Buxton, A. (1932), Sporting Interlude at Geneva, p. 93. 19. Stb5/1/6, Daily Graphic, 28 January 1897; Strathearn Herald, 30 January 1897. 20. Stb7/4/9, ‘Sportsman’s Record’, 1896; Preylowski, J.F. Tr. Hoffman, R. (1999), ‘John Horrocks 1817–1881’, pp. 13–20. 21. Hansard, HL, Lord Perth, ‘Germany and European Security’, vol. 140, cc. 814–5, 16 April 1946. 22. Stb7/4/9, ‘Sportsman’s Record’. 23. Kennedy, A.L. (1952), ‘Article 5—Lord Perth’, p. 188. 24.  Stb5/1/9, ‘Diplomatic Plum’, The Evening Standard, 29 April 1919, p. 66; Fosdick, R. (1972), The League and the United Nations, p. 19; Stb7/1/4/6, Wilson, J.V. (1933), ‘Sir Eric Drummond a Personal Sketch’, Union, June. 25. Stb7/4/9, ‘Sportsman’s Record’. 26. Jones, R. (1983), The British Diplomatic Service 1815–1914, p. 143. 27.  London Gazette, 20 April 1900; Roach, J. (1971), Public Examinations in England, p. 211. 28. Stb7/3/1/1, Angela Constable-Maxwell to Drummond 19 December 1902; Drummond to Angela Constable-Maxwell, 23 December 1902. 29. Stb7/3/1/1, Angela Constable-Maxwell to Drummond, 26 August 1903. 30. Stb7/3/1/1, Drummond to Angela Constable-Maxwell, 30 November 1903. 31. Stb7/3/1/1, Yorkshire Herald, 21 April 1904. 32.  Stb7/3/1/1, Drummond to Angela Constable-Maxwell, 2 December 1903. 33. Stb5/1/8, ‘Drummond’s Chief. Birth of an Heir Recalls Many a Stirring Romance’, New York Tribune, 3 October 1907; Stb5/1/9, The Sketch, 27 October 1915.

20  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. 34. Rovine, A. (1970), The First Fifty Years, p. 19. 35. Murray, G. (1955), ‘The League of Nations Movement’, p. 9. 36.  Brock, M. and Brock, E. (2014), Margot Asquith’s Great War Diary, p. 55. 37.  Brock, M. and Brock, E. (2014), Margot Asquith’s Great War Diary Biographical Note, Drummond, p. 352. 38. Stb7/1/5/1, Margot Asquith to Drummond, 23 February 1915. 39. Mulligan, W. (2014), The Great War for Peace, pp. 125–6. 40. Rovine, A. (1970), The First Fifty Years, p. 20; Egremont, M. (1998), Balfour, p. 285; TNA, FO800_197, pp. 122–3, Drummond to Cecil, 21 December 1916. 41. TNA, FO800_197, Balfour to PM, 15 December 1916; and Drummond to Cecil, 21 December 1916. 42. Stb7/1/3/1, Letter from Drummond, 3 January 1937. 43. Georgetown University Archives, Box 45, Folder 7, Lady Perth to Leslie, 30 June 1951. 44. McCulloch, T. (2008), ‘The Correspondence of Arthur C. Murray’. 45. TNA, FO800_329, Leslie to Drummond, 12 August 1918, Enclosure p. 142; FO800_329, p. 155, Barnes to Drummond, 9 January 1918; FO800_383, p. 76, Cunliffe-Owen to Drummond, 18 January 1917. 46.  The Tablet, ‘Et Cietera’, 30 December 1916, p. 23. 47. Kennedy, A.L. (1987), ‘Article 5—Lord Perth’, p. 188. 48. TNA, FO800_197, p. 92–6, Drummond to Cecil, 13 December 1916. 49. TNA, FO800_197, p. 97–8, ‘German Peace Proposals’, ED 14 December 1916. 50. TNA, FO800_197, p. 100, Drummond to Cecil, 14 December 1916. 51. TNA, FO800_197, p. 101, Drummond to Prime Minister, 15 December 1916. 52. TNA, FO800_384, Drummond Memorandum ‘America and Peace’, 22 January 1917. 53.  NLS, Elibank Papers, MS 8805, Volume 1, Murray to Drummond, 31 May 1918, img295 and Murray Note, 14 February 1944, img250. 54. Fowler, W.B. (2015), British–American Relations, p. 18. 55. Latawski, P. (1987), ‘Count Horodyski’s Plan’, p. 391. 56. Egremont, M. (1998), Balfour, p. 287. 57. Rovine, A. (1970), The First Fifty Years, p. 20. 58. TNA, FO800_383, Butler to Drummond, 21 June 1917. 59. Stb7/1/1/1, Drummond to House, 10 July 1917. 60. TNA, FO 800_385, Drummond to Balfour, 27 November 1918. 61. Lloyd, L. (2004), ‘Drummond (James) Eric’; Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 12. 62. Bendiner, E. (1975), A Time for Angels, p. 133.

1  THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ERIC DRUMMOND 1876–1951 



21

63. Rovine, A. (1970), The First Fifty Years, p. 21–2. 64. Cecil, R. (1949), All the Way, p. 150. 65. Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 34. 66. NRS, Malcolm Diary, 22 and 26 April 1919, quoted in Barros, Office Without Power, p. 13. 67. Stb7/3/3/2, ‘The Quiet Man Who Faced Mussolini’, News Chronicle, 17 December 1951. 68. The Times, 30 April 1919, p. 11; Anonymous, ‘League of Nations in Being’, p. 13. 69.  The Tablet, 3 May 1919, p. 22. 70. Slocombe, G. and Kelen, E. (1937), A Mirror To Geneva, pp. 323–4. 71. LONA, Directors Meeting, CC. 13, 24 March 1927. 72. Tams, C. (2006), ‘League of Nations’. 73. Photo and draft text of Sir Eric at work 1926, Roger Eggleston, Personal Communication, 2015. 74.  Stb7/1/3/1, Yates-Brown, F. (1929), ‘The Character of Sir Eric Drummond’, p. 14. 75. Stb7/1/4/6, Wilson, J.V. (1933), ‘Sir Eric Drummond’. 76. Stb7/3/3/2, Sweetser to Countess of Perth, 22 December 1951. 77. Rotunda, D. (1970), The Rome Embassy, pp. 91–2. 78. Stb7/1/1/6, 16 July 1920, Drummond to Balfour and 23 November 1921 Drummond to Johnson. 79. Scott, G. (1973), The Rise and Fall of the League, p. 252; Housden, M. (2014), The League of Nations, p. 12. 80. LONA, Directors’ Meetings M304 and 305, 4 and 11 November 1931. 81. Kille, K. (2005), The UN Secretary-General, p. 30. 82. Khrushchev, N.S. (1961), New York Herald Tribune, 17 April in Mihajlov, D. (2004), ‘The Origin and the Early Development of International Civil Service’. 83. Giraud, E. (1963), ‘Le Secrétariat des institutes internationals’, p. 13. 84. Kennedy, D. (1985), ‘The Move to Institutions’, p. 876, fn. 96. 85. Gelardi, A.J. (1982), Sir Eric Drummond, Britain’s Ambassador to Italy, p. 114. 86. Drummond, E. (1944), Letter to The Spectator, 13 October, p. 18. 87. Mayor, A. (1952), Ciano’s Diary, 16 November 1938. 88. Mayor, A. (1952), Ciano’s Diary, 9 October 1937 and 2 July 1938. 89.  Schwebel, S. (1952), The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Introduction and p. 227. 90.  Ranshofen-Wertheimer, E.F. (1945), The International Secretariat: A Great Experiment in International Administration. 91. Roth, A. (2002), ‘Obituary, Lord Perth’, The Guardian, 10 December. 92.  The Herald, ‘Lord Perth Internationalist Who Oversaw the End of the Empire and Defended Scotland’s Industrial Interests’, 2 December 2002.

22  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. 93.  Spectator, ‘The Deaths of Lord Perth and Hilary St. George Saunders’, 844, 21 December 1951; The Times, ‘Obituary, Earl of Perth’, 17 December 1951, p. 8. 94. Stb7/3/3/2, Personal, Sweetser, Washington, 16 December 1951. 95. Stb7/3/3/5, United Nations, A/PV356, 20 December 1951.

CHAPTER 2

Leadership

2.1  Leadership of the Secretariat Although Drummond was marked out at Eton as having leadership potential, his early career did not reflect this. In the Foreign Office (FO), although he worked one-on-one with powerful political figures, he only supervised a small staff. However, his leadership ability was apparent by the time of the 1919 Peace Conference. Harold Nicolson records that at the Conference, when Drummond asked him to join the League, he said he was delighted beyond words and commented that he ‘could not conceive of a cause, a job, a chief which I should prefer …’.1 At the League, Drummond worked closely with his immediate associates and was accessible to his senior colleagues, but he remained remote from the staff at large. This remoteness stemmed from shyness, to such an extent that he had only an occasional general staff meeting and, even then, it was ‘most painful to see how he suffered with the effort’.2 The directorate of the Secretariat to a large extent formed a distinct group, ‘much taken in its spare time in entertaining members of delegations and committees visiting Geneva for League meetings’; below this group, others formed, more loosely connected by status in the service, by similarity of occupation or by national or linguistic ties.3 Drummond nevertheless succeeded in establishing an esprit de corps that permeated the entire League. It was his good fortune that Monnet, Salter, Attolico, Mantoux and Pierre Comert had already established a closeness through their © The Author(s) 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0_2

23

24  D. MACFADYEN ET AL.

work in the wartime inter-allied supply structure. As seen in the previous chapter, Drummond was raised in a strong tradition of loyalty, which he now extended to the staff he led. A contemporary wrote that he inherited from a long line of Scottish forebears ‘that mixture of the deliberate, the judicial and the analytic which has always made his countrymen reliable in leadership’.4 The move to Geneva had the effect of drawing international staff together as outsiders. Loveday records dining out frequently with his peers or taking long walks with them at weekends. Drummond built on this and achieved ‘admirable relations with his staff. He wanted their judgements and solicited their opinions, and there was frankness on both sides’.5 He observed that the Geneva climate affected staff morale, remarking that when there was hardly a glimpse of the sun, the nerves of my collaborators are apt to get fragile, and personal frictions occur too frequently. But on the first day that the sun shines the whole atmosphere alters, bitterness vanishes; and harmony is completely restored, with a resulting increase in efficacy.6

He combined this awareness with consideration for the personal situations of the staff, for example, continuing to support American employees whom he had recruited. Fosdick was grateful and when he left the League recorded the privilege of working together and ‘the proud memory of a gallant beginning in a great cause under your leadership’.7 Character and manners underpinned Drummond’s achievements. In 1932, before he told the Council that he intended to resign, he wrote to his immediate colleagues to tell them of his intention.8 Then, on returning to his home in Sussex, he wrote letters of thanks to them in his own hand.9 He was very approachable; thus colleagues such as Loveday and Pietro Stoppani were happy to confide in him even when they were presented with external career opportunities.10 Relationships were not sweetness and light all the time. Drummond found Monnet’s successor, Avenol, trying to work with (in this he was by no means alone—see Chapter 6). He manifested his distrust by excluding Avenol from a discussion at his own Foreign Ministry which prompted Avenol to write to him that ‘For the first time in nine years I have not been admitted to a secret meeting of the Council … I came here [to Paris] in the hope of assisting you at a difficult period. Since my arrival I have remained [in] complete ignorance of your actions and your plans’.11 Drummond also had a difficult relationship with the Head of the Disarmament Section Salvador de

2 LEADERSHIP 

25

Madariaga who, disappointed in his career prospects at the League, left to take up a professorship at Oxford University and complained that Drummond refused to raise my status and salary to the level of my colleagues [Director] though I daresay some of them were ‘sound’ but by no means ‘brilliant’. I use these words because candid friends had reported to me that ‘brilliant but not sound’ was Drummond’s diagnosis for me. … His second point was more forthright. ‘I am not sure you have all the qualities required for a director’. This was … outrageous, considering that, for years, I had been a director, but for the gold braid and salary. … I also felt Drummond’s personal hostility, the cold draught of which chilled me even after it had passed through the warmer air of Frank Walter’s climate.12

Another Director whom Drummond found problematical was Rappard, who led the Mandates Section. In 1921 he felt that Rappard’s pessimism was beginning to affect other colleagues and ought to be checked.13 An open confrontation occurred in 1923. Drummond had launched a wide-ranging discussion on the continuation of Directors’ Meetings. He and Rappard both agreed on the need for Directors to be well informed on current issues, but Rappard went on to make the following blunt criticism: The admitted inadequacy for this purpose of the Directors Meeting was … partly due to the attitude of the members and partly to the attitude of the Chair [Drummond]. All were working together for a common object, and whatever might be the risks, the basis of this work must be mutual confidence. Without contesting the Secretary-General’s sole responsibility under the Covenant, more confidence should be shown in the Directors Meetings.14

The tolerance with which Drummond received this honestly expressed opinion, that Directors were being ignored, is seen in the way he gently but firmly asserted his authority. The Minutes record that he agreed that … individual Directors did in fact exercise a considerable influence on opinion in League matters within their respective countries. It was essential that they should all speak with one voice and, therefore, desirable that we should agree in advance the lines to be taken. As regards the proper course of authority and taking decisions, two opposite theories might be

26  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. stated: The Secretary-General might be regarded as a dictator or, on the other hand, every decision might be the result of discussion at a meeting of Directors, forming in fact a Cabinet. Neither of these theories seem to be applicable. The present system, something between the two, did not seem … to work badly.15

He delegated extensively while requiring to be kept informed, mainly through the Directors’ Meetings when, most weeks, they met together to examine possible organizational improvements or weaknesses.16 Typically, delegation extended to very sensitive and potentially difficult situations. Drummond was very much a leader who having chosen the right person, expected him or her to get on with it, backed them up, and generally did not interfere. He ensured that his senior colleagues were responsible for their actions and that they undertook them as ‘servants of the League’ rather than as Drummond’s ‘personal subordinates’. Thus, the financial rescue of Austria, in 1923, was conceived during one weekend by Monnet, Salter and Basil Blackett of the British Treasury (acting as a League consultant) without reference to other officials.17 In a similar vein, Crowdy was given a free hand to involve civil society in social questions and Rajchman was allowed to focus on broad technical cooperation with China, often requiring long absences from Geneva. The Secretariat’s cohesion was fostered by these trusting relationships. He was always accessible for consultation and welcomed it, an attitude that greatly increased the efficiency of the organization.18 In retrospect, this style of leadership was indispensable to the functioning of an independent international civil service, because staff from different nationalities were treated in the same way, had the same opportunities and were perceived— and perceived themselves—to be working for the same purpose. It was this cohesion that saw the Secretariat through the difficult days of Avenol’s tenure as Secretary-General (1933–1940) and, arguably, bolstered those few staff who remained during the Second World War to pass on their experiences to the next generation of international civil servants. Drummond had an enquiring mind and was a hands-on manager who absorbed detail. This shows in his interest in the broader aspects of his colleagues’ work. Loveday records that he sent Drummond a highly technical paper on tariffs, noting: ‘I don’t suppose you can possibly find time to read this article. But I send it on the off chance’. Drummond not only found time the read the article but provided comments

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27

I began it with some trepidation but as I went on I got absorbed in it and therefore have read it to the end with much appreciation and I hope some … knowledge. But you seem to indicate that the M.F.N. [Most Favoured Nation] clause is working against high tariffs, to me it seems that it is exactly the M.F.N. clause which faces high tariffs in certain countries. Anyhow I congratulate you on a scientific article which interested my very lay mind.19

Drummond’s style of inclusive leadership stood in contrast to that of his opposite number at the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Albert Thomas, who insisted on centralized control. Avenol, too was in the mould of Thomas but, unlike Drummond and Thomas, was not popular. The different styles of the two Secretariats eventually coalesced to set the tone for the management of international organizations in the future (see Chapter 10). For his part, Drummond included colleagues’ opinions in reaching decisions ‘even if his innate caution may have eventually mitigated against following their suggestions’.20 He was not so cautious, however, as to discard innovative approaches, such as financial rescue packages and the assembly of international peace-keeping forces to oversee plebiscites. Drummond chose British nationals to staff his own office and was not alone in this bias; the DSG and all the USGs’ offices were primarily staffed by their own nationals, a practice attributable to their being channels to the Great Powers through which the League worked when dealing with ‘high politics’ (see Chapter 5 and Illustration 5.3). As noted by one staff member, Drummond ‘effectively barricaded himself against all foreigners by installing Frank Walters at one of his approaches and Miss Howard at the other’ (Text Box 2.1).21 The need for confidentiality trumped a desirable broader international representation within those offices. This is a facet of executive leadership that is less noticeable in today’s international organizations. * * * The ‘clan chief’ in Drummond came into play in the loyalty he showed to colleagues. He stood by Crowdy at a difficult moment over her expressed opinion concerning some paintings claimed by the Irish. The Irish benefactor Sir Hugh Lane, who drowned on the Lusitania, left an unsigned codicil that willed his collection of French impressionists to his Dublin gallery. The pictures were, however, in the custody of the National Gallery in London, which refused to recognize his wish.

28  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. Text Box 2.1  The Gatekeepers, Frank Walters (1888–1981)a and Joan Howard (1879–1963)b Walters was Drummond’s Chef de Cabinet and a close confident. He had formed a bond with Drummond during his time as Private Secretary to Grey (a position earlier held by Drummond) and as Private Secretary to Cecil during the Peace Conference. He and Howard were the only members of the Secretariat to be on first-name terms with Drummond. Walters’ relationship possibly arose from the fact that he was part of an old-boy network, there being a record of him attending an Old Etonian dinner in Paris with Drummond and Balfour. Salvador De Madariaga writes that he ‘had a first rate mind and, as a person, was what one calls in England a thoroughly decent chap’. His further comment that Walters was ‘not the type of Briton who easily gets on an even footing with foreigners’ suggests that he did not know him well, since Walters was married to French stenographer Louise Roux Bergeris, who worked in Drummond’s office. In a very positive evaluation, Drummond stated that Walters’ only shortcoming was that ‘he should learn to suffer fools more gladly’. He was influential in the Secretariat, especially in his later years when he headed the Political Section. During a crucial period in the Manchurian crisis, Drummond sent him to Japan. From 1933 to 1939 he was USG and, with the approach of the Second World War, gave the highest priority to saving the Technical Organisations. He is best known for writing the authoritative history of the League. Joan ‘Tiger’ Howard was Drummond’s personal secretary. As noted in Chapter 1, she was a bridesmaid at his wedding and was well acquainted with most of his aristocratic friends and colleagues, calling all by their first names. Her close personal connections with the many (British) leaders of the IWOs made her a useful resource for those women in the Secretariat who dealt with women’s issues. One visitor to the Secretariat referred to her as being ‘a slender, distinguished figure with pale and yet youthful features wearing a smile at once diplomatic and girlishly diffident under hair unexpectedly white. Despite her modest rank she is more important in this house than the highest officials; she is called the “Tiger” with mixed familiarity and fear; and at the courts and embassies whither she accompanies the Chief on his journeys she is received like an ambassador’. She corresponded with her uncle, Ambassador Esmé Howard, during her time with Drummond and called on him for assistance, for example, when Crowdy visited Washington in 1926 to attend a Pan American Red Cross Conference. Howard was clearly feared by the clerical staff and even held in awe by some of the senior ones. She was made redundant by Avenol shortly after Drummond’s departure. aFosdick, R. (1978), The League and the United Nations After Fifty Years, p. 2. Eton College Archives; De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, p. 13; Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 374; Bendiner, E. (1975), A Time for Angels, p. 248; Dykmann, K. (2014), ‘How International Was the Secretariat of the League of Nations?’; Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, p. 260 bBeer, M. (1933), The League on Trial, p. 210; Carlisle Archives, DHW 4/3/19, 26 April 1926; Pederson, S. (undated), ‘Women and the Spirit of Geneva’, p. 13; https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch–20551/dissemination/pdf/Article_Level.Pdf/ tcwaas/002/1964/vol64/tcwaas_002_1964_vol64_0031.pdf [accessed 13 July 2017]

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29

In 1924 Cecil met with Crowdy in Geneva, and she told him that the dispute was a source of bitterness in the recently established Irish Free State. At his request, she wrote a note on the matter. Her injudicious letter put the Secretary-General in hot water with the FO. Drummond dealt with Crowdy’s diplomatic blunder skilfully, expressing support for her, coupled with a reprimand. He penned a calming letter to Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, after showing the draft to Crowdy. It read … is not your letter somewhat severe on Dame Rachel Crowdy? Several prominent Irish people have been from time to time in Geneva, and most of them are on excellent terms with Dame Rachel Crowdy. They … told her that one of the sources of bitterness between Great Britain and the Irish Free State was the question of these pictures … [she in turn] told Lord Cecil …. Lord Cecil asked for the facts as given to her, and she wrote to him privately … she [did not] expect her name to appear in any way in connection with the affair. Unfortunately, her well-intentioned action seems to have had such unhappy results that I could wish that it had not been taken. I shall certainly tell Dame Rachel so.22

Crowdy accepted the reprimand. Relationships with Crowdy were problematic. She had managed several thousand during the war and found the bureaucratic constraints on staffing difficult. She commented to Drummond that it was not until 1928 that her staff support included an ‘adequate deputy and a loyal competent staff’.23 She also clashed with Drummond over the way in which she dealt with Member States concerning social issues on which, she felt, they were lagging behind League policy and principles. Drummond, with his more cautious approach, was hesitant to challenge governments in the same way.24 To her chagrin, he did not offer her a second seven-year contract. Although this decision was contested by various women’s groups it may indicate that Drummond was more interested in expanding the range of nationalities serving in senior positions. However, he did extend her contract twice to give her time to arrange her departure. She left finally in 1931, completing over eleven years of service. There were a number of instances in which Drummond stood firm against governments. When the FO tried to influence him over the inconvenient truth of anti-Semitism in Poland, he simply pointed out Britain’s obligations under the Minorities Treaties (see Chapter 7). In 1931 and 1932, he praised Rajchman for his devotion to the League

30  D. MACFADYEN ET AL.

when he had become the focus of complaints from Japan.25 In short, Drummond was the buffer between Member States and his Directors who were leading pioneering international initiatives. He also protected his staff from potential conflicts with their own governments by ensuring, as much as was possible, that they did not work on issues directly involving their own countries. He fought particularly hard to get them the budgetary resources that they needed to undertake their work. This in turn invoked loyalty on their part and, as seen in the previous chapter, several staff continued to stay in contact with him after he left. A final feature of his approach to managing staff was to maintain a broad and open dialogue with them. Thus, in 1928, when he was instructed to modify the Staff Regulations he appointed five officials to study the matter and all Secretariat members were entitled to communicate their views. The staff constituted a committee of their own whose conclusions were forwarded to his committee. He also consulted both the ILO and the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), institutions linked to the League.26 He himself found it wiser to set up, more than would be the case in a National Service, committees to deal with many questions which arise, so that the equity of the decisions cannot be open to doubt. For instance; all appointments and many questions of internal administration, are considered by committees composed of members of different nationalities.27

While he was respected, his leadership style was not free of fault. Whether through shyness or for other reasons, he found it difficult to break through the hierarchical barrier: ‘It … never occurred to the Secretary-General to assemble his subordinates to celebrate any event—a New Year’s Day or the tenth anniversary of the League … most of his colleagues do not know him and have never exchanged a word with him’.28 He could be remote even from those lower levels of staff who were close to him. Tiger Howard wrote to her uncle that Eric is a perfect Chief to work for and I am interested in The Hague and should stay here for a while. I spoke to Eric and as far as he is concerned he does not mind if I go or stay, it is a matter of complete indifference to him. Disheartening, isn’t it … never to be missed, but it’s just as well to realize it.29

2 LEADERSHIP 

31

A staff member writing in Union, the staff journal, commented that ‘many … will regret that he did not so far overcome his natural reserve to establish more direct relations with their body as a whole’.30 Despite this, junior staff realized that they were working for an exceptional talent. Everyone respected him and recognized his merits as being ‘one of the most capable, if not the most capable contemporary diplomat’ (Text Box 2.2).31 He was criticized for not being strong enough in dealing with his staff.32 League staff under Drummond enjoyed more freedom than their counterparts in ILO. Wilfrid Benson, for example, received a severe reprimand from Thomas for publishing under his own name the book Dawn on Mont Blanc, because it was seen to portray the League in a damaging light.33 ILO, and to a slightly less extent the League, was a-buzz with this ‘scandalous’ book, the most objectionable feature of which was the ‘constant insistence on the bad blood which exists between the officials of the different nationalities, particularly between the British and the French’.34 The literary and journalistic efforts of Drummond’s own staff were better tolerated, because they mostly wrote under pseudonyms: Six Proud Walkers, Francis Beeding’s international espionage novel set in the League was penned by two of Drummond’s staff, John Leslie Palmer and Hilary St. George Saunders; and Konni Zilliacus wrote extensively on the League under several pseudonyms, and freelanced for the Manchester Guardian (see Text Box 8.2).35 Perhaps Drummond’s greatest weakness was that he found it difficult to confront staff who failed to accept the self-discipline of being an international civil servant. De Madariaga was particularly critical of this, especially as regards Italians in the Secretariat who supported the Fascist regime (see Chapter 6). A serious incident occurred in 1926, when several Italian staff were involved in a disturbance at a Fascist meeting in Geneva, the so-called Plainpalais incident. This caused difficulties with the Swiss authorities as, at some point, a shot had been fired. Drummond set up an internal enquiry which resulted in a half-hearted warning.36 The letter of reprimand on the personnel file of one miscreant stated: I fear that I must agree with the Committee that your conduct has certainly been imprudent, and I trust you will be extremely careful in the future with regard to matters of this kind, though I hope circumstances of a similar character will not recur.37

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Drummond seemed to be ‘more concerned with safeguarding good relations with Member States than defending the correct functioning of the League and its public image’.38 * * * Text Box 2.2 Farewellsa At the end of his tenure, Drummond was presented by the League’s staff with a fine piece of silverware and a book of appreciation. This is one of the few occasions when he addressed his staff and explained his management philosophy. Exceptionally for any subsequent executive head, he apologized for any shortcomings he may have had. It is worth noting some of his comments: Equally I want to thank you for the service you have rendered the League and for your loyalty to me personally. It is true that to be Secretary-General of the League means to occupy a high and great international position; but the Secretary-General alone can do very little, indeed nothing. It is on you, each of you, that a great responsibility rests for the maintenance and consolidation of an organization which is an essential organ of the League, and therefore, as such, carries with it the hopes of many millions of men and women, who see in the League the future salvation of the world. Each of you has a very important task. There is no distinction between us in spirit, whatever nationality may be ours, whatever division of the Secretariat we may belong to. Each of us can contribute to the good fame of the Secretariat, each of us has it in our power to mar to some extent the smooth working of the machinery. I know personal questions must sometimes arise. Some of us may feel that our particular abilities have not been sufficiently recognized or that the Administration in certain cases has been a little hard. But I would ask you to believe that, in every case, I have, and I think we have all, done our best to act with justice and with what we believed to be fairness. Around the same time the members of the Council and the Assembly also had opportunities to thank Drummond. In 1932, at the Assembly, the President, Paul Hymans of Belgium commented that The value of institutions depends upon the value of the man in charge of them. Sir Eric Drummond was one of those who built and who inspired the League of Nations. We must pay a tribute to him and thank him. … I trust that he feels that we cannot leave each other without instinctively coming back and stretching our hands towards each other. At the Council, Nicholas Politis, the Greek President, noted Drummond’s impartiality and his exquisite courtesy, stating ‘One of my predecessors said once that he had become an article of the Covenant. I think it is truer to say today that he is placed above the Covenant, the incarnation of an elucidating principle, like those declarations of rights which form the basis of constitutions’. Eamon De Valera speaking at a later Council concluded

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Perhaps he would himself say he has merely fulfilled the purposes of a buffer, slowing down the momentum of opposing interests, representing to each party the other’s case until a position of agreement was found. But that is always a difficult task, and very often a thankless one, and Sir Eric Drummond appears to have faced it with equanimity, and, as a loyal servant of the League, to have faced it with success. … It is a duty and a pleasure to voice from this place an appreciation of his courtesy and impartiality and wisdom. The League owes him a great debt which can be repaid, not by tribute in words, but only by the maintenance and development of that international co-operation to which he has devoted so many valuable years, so much labour and so great an ability. aFor Drummond’s speech see LON. (1933), The League from Year to Year. For Hymans’ see LON. (1933), The League from Year to Year, p. 240. For Politis’ see LON. (1932), Official Journal, Special Supplement 104, Records of the Assembly, Plenary Meetings, Texts of the Debates 1932, Twelfth Meeting 17 October 1932 and for de Valera’s see LON. (1932), Official Journal, Council, Plenary Meeting 26 September 1932

* * *

2.2  Drummond’s Influence Beyond the Secretariat * * * External observers were impressed by Drummond’s qualities. A.L. Kennedy, the Times correspondent, felt that on leaving the League he should have been made Head of the Foreign Office. Fosdick was a lifelong admirer and supported many of the League’s technical activities. Drummond also had backing from, and friendships with, his former bosses Grey, Balfour and Cecil. As early as 1921 he was urging his staff to avoid bringing disrepute on the League in both their functions and their personal life, particularly as Geneva was a small city where their activities were bound to be more obvious than in a large capital.39 Leadership is not simply an internal matter and Drummond was well-aware of the importance of the League’s image in the world context. There was one weakness in external relationships, namely with the Genevois. Although relationships were good and supportive at an official level, no real bridge was established between the international staff and the conservative citizens of Geneva.40 In the League’s early days there were no permanent missions representing Member States and there were few other associated institutions working alongside the international organizations, which have since helped Geneva to thrive as an international city (see Chapters 5 and 13).

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Members of the Secretariat were an island within the city, frequenting a few favourite bars and restaurants. There was a lack of intermixing, resulting in officials moving within the same society in both their work and social lives, leading to a degree of inhibition and linguistic isolation.41 Council and Assembly meetings were opportunities for socializing with key delegates and Drummond and his senior colleagues would host dinners and lunches to explain their positions and proposals. Diplomacy conducted with those attending League meetings took on a different dimension to the old, conventional discussions between ambassadors and the governments to which they were accredited.42 Drummond has received slender recognition for the political role he played in achieving settlements between Member States. A possible reason for this was because he was more comfortable operating behind the scenes. Council members gradually grew to trust and confide in him43 and ‘rarely did a problem emerge untouched by his influence’.44 He was adept at finding solutions to issues that separated Member States, bridging the positions of adversaries and leading the League to act through new mechanisms of cooperation. Thus, for the first Council meeting’s discussion of the Saar Commission, he instructed the Secretariat to prepare a brief, an entirely unexpected and new procedure. Although this was initially a surprise, it quickly became standard practice. He actively participated in Council deliberations and worked by persuasion, explaining that the League ‘cannot immediately impose its will on a recalcitrant party’. Cecil noted that ‘in committee [Drummond] could express his views, when asked to do so, most persuasively’.45 His ability to work within the bureaucratic environment should not be confused with those few occasions in which he exercised true leadership, when he had ‘the courage to go against the weight of public opinion because he knew such a course to be right’.46 The only occasion when he acted independently on a threat to peace was in December 1928, when he notified the Council of the brewing war between Bolivia and Paraguay over control of the Chaco region. There was no authority in the Covenant for him to act in this way but he did so when Aristide Briand was President of the Council. Briand was acknowledged by senior Secretariat staff as being an ardent supporter of the League’s work47 and ‘a charming man who spoke with feeling’.48 He and Drummond had on several occasions worked closely to ensure the Council acted in a crisis and this was a continuation of their partnership.49 The result was that, following the Council’s intervention, the two states agreed to arbitration. In the light of Drummond’s

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limited authority, the UN Charter’s Article 99 was framed whereby ‘the Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of peace and security’. Under the relevant article of the Covenant, Drummond was obliged to leave it to a Member State to raise concerns, following which he could call a Council meeting. This call was the one important political duty that Drummond jealously guarded, refusing to share it with the President or with the Council.50 Thus, in 1925, after Greece’s incursion into Bulgaria, he summoned an extraordinary Council meeting. Again, Briand was President and arising from his and the Council’s intervention, the matter was eventually settled and was regarded as a validation of the Covenant’s protocols. A comparable situation occurred earlier, when Italy occupied Corfu in revenge for the murder of General Tellini and his Italian colleagues who had been assigned to define the GrecoAlbanian border. A crisis when Drummond became more personally involved was over Manchuria (see Text Box 6.3), but in this case, as he acknowledged, the results were unsatisfactory. On that occasion, he worked hard to involve the USA and the result was that for the first time the US participated in a Council discussion, although it soon pulled back in the face of adverse press reaction. Drummond did not sit on the sidelines but did emphasize his ‘Secretary’ role rather than ‘Generalship’ which conformed to Woodrow Wilson’s concept of leadership as being ‘interpretation or articulation’.51 One of his initiatives was encouraging Germany to join the League and assuring that it would be treated equally and fairly (see Chapter 8). His innate belief in the concept of universality and the empathy he held for the German people, following his travels as a young man, must have played a part in this. The issues this invoked, concerning broader Council membership, led to one of the few occasions when Drummond openly lobbied for a solution, namely the acceptance of Spain as a permanent member; in this, however, he was unsuccessful.52 Drummond has been compared to UN SG Hammarskjöld, but this is a misleading comparison. Hammarskjöld was an interventionist and, although he appreciated Drummond’s example, he went far beyond in his actions. In fact, Drummond has been criticized for not acting assertively when confronting Member States over their obligations.53 Closer to Drummond’s style was SG Pérez de Cuéllar, who worked quietly and formulated consensus positions. Like Drummond, de Cuéllar was seen as rather remote, but delegated extensively and was later to write: ‘The

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Secretary-General must be mediator and standard bearer, moderator and guide, conciliator and arbiter, impartial in all’.54 In this, he was replicating the example set by Drummond. Drummond was not, in Barros’ words ‘a leader of men’ in the political sense. He did, however, extend his influence and attracted cooperation from powerful figures beyond the immediate confines of the Secretariat. Four of these connections illustrate his impact, as described below, the most important of which was with Cecil, the prominent British advocate for the League. The others were Colonel House, ILO Director Thomas, whom he dealt with on a ‘daily’ basis and Fridtjof Nansen. * * * 2.2.1   Robert Cecil Cecil played a key role throughout the League’s history: ‘I am sure’, said Wilson in Paris, ‘that it is chiefly due to you that the Covenant has come out of the confusion of debate in its original integrity’.55 His involvement with League matters started in 1917 when he was Minister of Blockade in the FO. It extended to the end of the institution’s life when at the final Assembly on 9 April 1946, he spoke the oft-quoted words ‘The League is dead, long live the United Nations’. Drummond’s involvement with Cecil intensified as soon as he was appointed Secretary-General, and he consulted him on initial organizational issues as Cecil was Co-chairman of the small Organisation Committee of the League of Nations. Cecil had headed the wartime Allied Maritime Transport Council and was, therefore, probably influential in encouraging selection of early staff members such as Monnet and Salter as well as Frank Walters and Philip Noel-Baker (who were his assistants at the Peace Conference). Thereafter, he became Drummond’s confidant and a channel of communications to the British government. As Cecil was also frequently a British representative on the Council and the Assembly, he was fully conversant with the League’s activities and policies. Drummond used Cecil to advance League positions both when Cecil was in government and outside it. He asked him not only to help in policy matters but also to resolve issues of concern to the Secretariat. In 1924, Britain’s first Labour Government appointed Lord Parmoor to act as its Council representative but he was not particularly able and upset many delegates. Although Cecil was no longer in government, Drummond asked for help, saying

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I may tell you confidentially that three or four of the more important representatives of the Council last time spoke to me with much sadness about his being the British Representative. He certainly is letting us down at Council Meetings: but this does not perhaps matter so much as the views he has been setting out … I know it is extraordinarily difficult for you to do anything, but I thought that you ought to know what is happening, and I really hardly see what action I can take.56

The result was that Parmoor was replaced. Drummond kept Cecil informed about important meetings, such as those he held in Germany, with the Pope and with Mussolini. Much of their correspondence concerned problems surrounding the enlargement of the Council; Japan’s Manchurian invasion; work on a European Union and always in the background the League’s budget and British parsimony. He was not averse to using Cecil as a safety valve. He complained about the attitude taken by Eyre Crowe at the FO who ‘would like to see [the League] perish, and therefore opposes what is good for the League and encourages what is bad’57 and berated Hankey at the Cabinet Office, opining that ‘the trouble with the Government is that it is absolutely under the thumb of its permanent officials … and I am afraid Hankey also, [has] always in effect been hostile to the League’.58 He also informed Cecil about personnel matters such as Attolico’s recall by the Italian government and his attempt to have the move postponed and Comert’s desire to become Legal Counsel. At times, he asked Cecil to support senior British members of the Secretariat. In 1925, Crowdy was having problems with the Opium Conference and Drummond forwarded a note from her which pointed out that Britain would get all the blame if the Conference failed.59 Additionally, Britons on the Secretariat, such as Salter, Walters and Tony Buxton felt able to consult Cecil themselves. Cecil took an interest in staff welfare and donated £1000 to support social activities [equivalent to £50,000 today] some of which went to constructing a tennis club. Ela, on hearing that Cecil was no longer to represent the British government wrote to him expressing her disappointment … what a real sorrow it is to us that we shan’t see you and Nelly here for the Assembly. I know you have done what you think is best but the League is much the poorer for your going, and we miss you so, and all you stand for. It is so sad for us when our friends – whose ideals are what the

38  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. League’s ideals should be – leave us. You stood for all that was good and great in the League and there are so many left who stood only for their own self interest. I hope so much we may soon meet again.60

* * * 2.2.2   ‘Colonel’ Edward M. House House, an anglophile, was Wilson’s principal adviser from 1911 to 1920. Wilson sent House to London to liaise with the British government in the winter of 1915–1916 and House was struck by Lloyd George’s opinion that only America could win the war. He and Drummond developed a close working relationship and the friendship blossomed in 1917 when Drummond accompanied Balfour to Washington. Both House and Wilson were impressed with Drummond’s drafting and abilities. House was self-important and vain, but his political instincts were sharp and he was described as knowing more about Wilson than Wilson knew about himself.61 A Texan, born into a frontier family, his military rank (in the Texas Reserves) was purely honorific. From an early age, he was interested in politics but did not like to make speeches, preferring ‘the vicarious thrill which comes to me through others’.62 By 1918, he was involved in US discussions about the structure of the post-war international scenario and through Wiseman, the British intelligence representative in the USA, contributed to the Phillimore Committee’s work which had similar aims. He accompanied Wilson to Paris and closely followed discussions on the Covenant, Wilson’s principal interest. House was thinking about Drummond as a possible candidate before Hankey formally turned down the position. He recorded that ‘The British and I agreed some months ago to substitute Sir Eric Drummond for Sir Maurice Hankey as Secretary-General of the League’.63 Once the Covenant had been signed, House was assigned the task of identifying a suitable building for the League’s headquarters and selected the Hotel National in Geneva as a possibility and Drummond, on a later visit with Monnet, accepted the choice.64 Drummond seems to have done House a favour by employing his son-in-law, Gordon Auchincloss, for a few months, as a member of the team creating the Secretariat. This may have been in order to convince House that the right persons were ‘on board’ the embryonic executive for, at one point, House seemed to have had second thoughts about

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Drummond.65 Auchincloss had been a member of the US Secretariat in Paris and may have had some influence over Drummond’s international staff appointments as he sent him a memorandum advocating that the League Secretariat be ‘international’ (see also Chapters 4 and 10). When Wilson had a stroke in October 1919, House had also fallen ill and was out of action. He recorded in his diary ‘At the moment when energetic action is imperative I am bedridden and all we fought for is in grave danger’.66 Drummond’s opinion of House as a reader of the US mood remained high. In 1923 he wrote to Cecil, who was just about to embark on a US trip, recommending that he discuss the matter of American reaction to League activities with House, whose insight on American politics he trusted.67 House died in 1938 and the small community of Emhouse, in Texas, is named after him. * * * 2.2.3   Albert Thomas Thomas had a personality that was the polar opposite to Drummond. He was a dynamic and forceful character, a great orator, who believed in an activist role for the ILO Director. They did, however, share common traits; both had a first-class memory and a grasp for detail, both preferred to persuade their colleagues to reach a decision rather than give an order and both were family men. Crowdy felt that, along with Briand, Thomas stood out in the League’s history commenting that ‘when those two men died, international understanding died with them. They were men of vision who coupled that vision with the logic and horse sense for which the French people are famed’.68 Salter was more restrained noting that ‘I always thought that Albert Thomas, although he had perhaps more personal genius and dynamic quality than anyone else then stationed in Geneva, failed through his more authoritarian attitude to make the most of his personnel as Drummond did’.69 His introduction of the French cabinet system combined with Drummond’s concept of an independent ICS shaped the structure and nature of future International Secretariats. Drummond, despite the differences in their characters got on well with Thomas; in fact, without Drummond’s efforts to secure from the British Government an initial loan and an advance budget contribution for the first ILO Conference,

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the organization might well have been still-born (see Chapter 4). In the beginning, there were differences of opinion between the two Secretariats as to their proper relationship. Ever forceful but mindful of Drummond’s difficult position as Secretary-General, Thomas persuaded the League’s Members that on matters concerning workers he should be heard.70 There were, of course ‘turf wars’; one such was over the responsibility for refugee resettlement. Apart from meeting at a club for international staff, the two organizations’ staff did not mingle much. Thanks to Thomas, the ILO grew to acquire a world authority nearly as weighty as that of the League. This activism eventually resulted in a backlash from more cautious states, including his own country, which reduced the ILO budget and decelerated its work. An internal UK memorandum gives a good flavour of Thomas’ impact. … M. Albert Thomas, the director, made a series of highly coloured and rhetorical orations, not bearing as a rule upon the items which were being criticized, but ranging over the whole question of the League of Nations and criticizing the representatives of those countries who were venturing to enquire into the necessity of some of the proposed estimates. I took the opportunity in the interval of some of these fireworks to speak somewhat strongly, but not, I think, too strongly, upon the advisability of the International Labour Office taking note of public opinion in Great Britain and elsewhere and not incurring unnecessary expenditure, but, so far as M. Thomas was concerned, it left, I fear, no impression.71

George Bernard Shaw reported on this exchange somewhat differently. This year Mr Locker-Lampson, a novice in Geneva like myself, had to deal with the League budget, and tried starvation tactics. Parading the poverty of England, he opposed every increase in the necessary growing estimates. The difference at stake to his country was about £4,000! … His efforts were as unsuccessful as they were unedifying. Sir Eric jumped on him with all the weight of his authority and his splendid record as the first creator of the international staff. M. Albert Thomas, director of the ILO, a first-rate administrator and a devastating debater, wiped the floor with what Sir Eric had left …72

The League and ILO authored joint economic and nutrition reports, shared a common pensions’ regime and an Administrative Tribunal. In establishing the Tribunal, League and ILO officials appeared before the

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League’s Supervisory Commission to support the concept and present a draft revision of the statutes, Thomas being in favour of a ‘judicial body with functions analogous to those of the Conseil d’État in France’.73 Thomas travelled tirelessly in pursuit of his objectives and to maintain contact with his ‘constituency’ in the ministries of labour, often absenting himself from Geneva for a total of five months or more in a year. He suffered a heart attack on an official visit to Paris and died while in office in 1932. * * * 2.2.4   Fridtjof Nansen Nansen was a celebrity and, like Thomas, was a dynamic and forceful personality. He was also a ladies’ man. Crowdy recalled that ‘when well-oiled’, he cut loose on the dance floor and picked up partners as required. She used to take him yachting on Lake Geneva and he ‘wanted to do all the things I had learned not to do’.74 She further described him as having ‘supreme honesty, supreme courage and extraordinary innocence’.75 When the League was asked in 1920 to oversee the return of prisoners-­ of-war held in Russia, Philip Noel-Baker, then Drummond’s personal assistant, suggested that Nansen was the person best qualified to lead the effort, which required both organizational skills and the ability to raise funds. While Noel-Baker had to persuade Drummond of this, once Drummond had agreed he sent Noel-Baker to Oslo to convince Nansen to take it. Nansen accepted the post of High Commissioner for Russian Refugees but he moved faster than the bureaucracy and was very quickly taking action. Thereafter, Noel-Baker whether working for the League or not, was often at Nansen’s side smoothing out difficulties. Initially, Nansen’s remit was confined to investigating what could be done. His appointment as a Commissioner, rather than the creation of a League body, indicated the ‘growing financial and political disengagement’ of Member States.76 His global contacts and reputation allowed him to react quickly to refugee problems though much of the work was done by a small staff in Geneva while he travelled around Europe securing transport, funding and political support for his initiatives. Drummond pressured the British Government to fund Nansen’s work. In 1920 he wrote to Balfour that he ‘should be very grateful if

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you felt it possible to use your great influence with the government on Dr Nansen’s behalf. It would be rather sad if the League failed in a question in which it has assumed a certain responsibility’.77 Drummond backed Nansen to the hilt, at one time strenuously complaining to a Foreign Office official that this was exactly the sort of thing which really almost drives me to despair. Here is a man, really of international importance … and who comes to England, and the Foreign Minister then says he is too busy to see him.78

At other times he had to try and counter an impression in Britain that Nansen was ineffective and should be replaced.79 Over time Nansen oversaw the League’s other refugee and humanitarian involvements for Greek and Armenian refugees; his position being broadened to High Commissioner for Refugees. He was, unfortunately, hampered continually by meagre funding. In particular, he failed to persuade Member States to provide financial support through the League for the victims of the Russian famine. Nansen’s achievements in support of refugees form part of the League’s legacy (as described in Chapter 11). His influence extended to developing legal protocols establishing the status of refugees, some of which were incorporated into the 1933 Refugee Convention. In 1922 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work the most part of which he donated to Russian relief. He died of a heart attack in 1930 and Noel-Baker, who was himself awarded the Peace Prize in 1959, was one of his pall-bearers. * * *

2.3  Drummond’s Leadership in the Modern Context * * * Hammarskjöld, who stands in the front rank of executive heads, credits Drummond with being the progenitor of the international civil service. Drummond should also be included in the first rank of executive heads of international organizations, although his style reflected the management philosophies of the day. The combined legacies of Drummond, Thomas and Hammarskjöld have given us the ICS that exists now and which is described in more detail in Chapter 10.

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While his leadership needs to be assessed considering the ethos of the age, it is useful to examine Drummond’s management qualities in the light of experience in the modern era and of what makes a good leader of an international organization as seen through modern writings—with the proviso that there are a multitude of such opinions. Erskine Childers and Brian Urquhart (whose UN career spanned the entire period from the Preparatory Commission to 1986, working closely with five Secretaries-General) listed the qualities required of a Secretary-General: • stature, integrity and moral courage • resistance to untoward pressures • commitment to social justice [and] democratic values • diplomatic skill combined with a worldview • respect for cultural diversity • fair-mindedness and freedom from cynicism • maturity of character and absence of excessive ego • executive ability and ability to choose the best deputies and to delegate authority • broad intellectual background and discipline • analytical capability and insight • ability to develop and pursue original ideas • ability to communicate ideas and to inspire people in the world at large • physical stamina • a sense of proportion and humour They commented also that ‘The world’s chief public servant should be a most unusual person’.80 Drummond can be seen to fit the required qualities, with the notable exception of his oral presentation skills. One analysis of the characters of leaders in international organizations concludes that Some leaders have been inspirational and their effects profound, especially those who were the first leaders of their respective organization and had critical influence by conceiving and elucidating a future mission. The very best possessed a clear moral integrity and a high sense of duty and responsibility, which they managed to communicate to their subordinates. Conversely poor leaders have produced disillusionment and crisis.81

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Another analysis considers that that ‘the quality of executive leadership may prove to be the most critical single determinant in the growth in scope and authority of international organization’.82 Although this has been contested,83 what is certain is that in the transition between Drummond and Avenol the Secretariat’s authority diminished. Unlike national civil services, International Secretariats have to ‘reach decisions through consensus rather than by bureaucratic authority and this requires that decision-making processes are open’.84 Consensus was indeed sought by Drummond among his directorate. On a more general level, a leading management theorist concluded that successful leaders ‘paid attention to what was going on, determined what part of the events at hand would be important for the future of the organization, set a new direction and concentrated the attention of everyone in the organization on it’.85 Good leaders bring out the ideas of others and have ‘integrity, dedication, magnanimity, humility, openness and creativity’,86 all of which applied to Drummond. In 1944, Drummond himself identified common sense, courage, integrity and tact as being highly desired qualifications in a future SG.87 The genesis of leadership, according to Henri Peyre, was ‘but a broad ideal proposed by the culture of a country, instilled into the young through the schools but also through the family, the intellectual atmosphere, the literature, the history, the ethical teaching of that country. Willpower, sensitivity to the age, clear thinking, the ability to experience the emotions of a group and to voice their aspirations, joined with control over those emotions in oneself … are among the ingredients of the power to lead men’.88 This is, in effect, a description of Drummond’s backstory. Senior staff—including Arthur Sweetser, Attolico and Colban— showed a loyalty to him that endured long after he left the League. At a broader level, Drummond’s character and attributes clearly instilled the trust and confidence that is the hallmark of successful high-ranking international civil servants such as Hammarskjöld (‘leave it to Dag’) and in the modern era, Kofi Annan. The last word on Drummond’s leadership qualities comes from Sweetser. he was a prodigious worker and reader of documents through a long day and many evenings; but he had also a great capacity for relaxation and forgetfulness. Above all, perhaps, he was immensely judicious and

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fair-minded; he thought long and from many angles before he took a decision; he was open minded and unirritated if questioned; and he was ingenious beyond most people in finding acceptable ways out of a difficulty … he is one of these privileged few of whom it may be said that he made a real contribution to his time and to his fellow-men. 89

Endnotes

1. Nicolson, H. (1933), Peacemaking 1919, p. 328. 2. Arthur Sweetser Diary, Box 31, Letter 4 January 1952 to Le Bosquet, quoted in Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy of Sir Eric Drummond, p. 88. 3. Loveday, A. (1956), Reflections on International Administration, p. 6. 4. Stb7/1/3/1, Morley, F. (1930), The League’s Leader. 5. Fosdick, R. (1972), The League and the United Nations, p. 22. 6. Drummond, E. (1931), ‘The Secretariat of the League of Nations’. 7. Fosdick, R. (1966), Letters on the League of Nations, Letter 9 April 1920. 8. NCA, MS Loveday, Box 7, Letter 25 January 1932. 9. NCA, MS Loveday, Box 7, Letter 10 July 1933. 10. Tollardo, E. (2016), Fascist Italy and the League of Nations, p. 227. 11. Letter of 26 November 1931 quoted in Bendiner, E. (1975), A Time for Angels, pp. 245–6. 12. De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, pp. 79 and 101. 13. Stb7/1/2/3, Drummond to Monnet, 10 May 1921, p. 3. 14. LONA, Directors’ Meeting, M74, 28 February 1923. 15. LONA, Directors’ Meeting, M74, 28 February 1923. 16. Drummond, E. (1931), ‘The Secretariat of the League of Nations’. 17. See the memoirs of both Salter (pp. 176–7) and Monnet (p. 94). 18. Salter, J.A. (1961), Memoirs of a Public Servant, p. 148. 19. NCA, MS Loveday, Box 7, Letter 27 January 1930. 20. Beer, M. Tr. Johnston W.H. (1933), The League on Trial, p. 212. 21. De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, p. 13. 22. Stb7/1/2/6, Drummond to Curzon, 18 March 1924. 23. Crowdy to Drummond, 26 July 1929 quoted in Pedersen, S. (undated), ‘Women and the ‘Spirit of Geneva’ Between the Wars’, unpublished paper, p. 12. 24. Pedersen, S. (undated), ‘Women and the Spirit of Geneva’, p. 12. 25. Balinska, M. (1998), For the Good of Humanity, p. 125. 26. LON. (1930), The League from Year to Year—Oct 1928–Sept 1929, pp. 202–3. 27. Drummond, E. (1931), ‘The Secretariat of the League of Nations’.

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28. Beer, M. (1933), The League on Trial, p. 215. 29. Carlisle Archive Centre, Esmé Howard Ft29, DHW 4 March 1919 Letter from Joan Howard 20 August 1932. 30.  Wilson, J.V. (1933), ‘Sir Eric Drummond a Personal Sketch’, Stb7/1/4/6. 31. Beer, M. (1933), The League on Trial, p. 213. 32. Scott, G. (1973), The Rise and Fall of the League of Nations, p. 66. 33. Benson, W. (1930), Dawn on Mont Blanc. 34. ILO. (2010), ‘ILO Friends Newsletter 49’, pp. 3–6. 35. Potts, A. (2002), Zilliacus: A Life for Peace and Socialism, p. 16. 36. This incident is described fully in Tollardo, E. (2014), Fascist Italy and the League, pp. 122–9. 37. Letter on LONA personnel file of Pietro Marchi, 25 June 1926 quoted in Tollardo, E. (2014), Fascist Italy and the League, pp. 126–7. 38. Tollardo, E. (2014), Fascist Italy and the League, p. 127. 39. LONA, Directors Meeting number 13, 21 April 1921. 40. Slocombe, G. (1938), A Mirror to Geneva, p. 43. 41. Loveday, A. (1956), Reflections on International Administration, p. 3. 42. Géraud, A. (1945), ‘Diplomacy Old and New’. 43. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, p. 86. 44. Rovine, A.W. (1970), The First Fifty Years, The Secretary-General in World Politics, p. 52. 45. Cecil, R. (1941), A Great Experiment, An Autobiography, p. 90. 46.  Time, (1974), ‘Where Are the Leaders?’ 15 July, p. 30. 47. See Crowdy’s comments on Thomas and Briand below. 48. Colban, E. Tr. Halvorsen, D. (1952), Femti År, p. 50. 49. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, p. 394. 50. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, p. 311. 51. Tulis, J. (1987), The Rhetorical Presidency. 52. Webster, C.K., and Herbert, S. (1933), The League of Nations in Theory and Practice, p. 97. 53. Scott, G. (1973), The Rise and Fall of the League, p. 252. 54. Pérez de Cuéllar, J. (1997), Pilgrimage for Peace, p. 16. 55. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51094, Wilson to Cecil, 22 May 1919, f180. 56. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51110, Drummond to Cecil, 27 June 1924, f120–4. 57. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51110, Drummond to Cecil, 27 June 1924, f120–4. 58. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51110, Drummond to Cecil, 30 June 1924, f125. 59. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51110, Drummond to Cecil, 30 June 1924, f150. 60. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51111, Letter 7 September 1927, fl98–9. 61. Ostrover, G.B. (1996), An Illustrated History and Chronology of the First Ten Years of the League, p. 14. 62. Quoted in Bendiner, E. (1975), A Time for Angels, p. 6.

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47

63. House Diary, 28 April 1919 recorded in Fosdick, R. (1972), The League and the United Nations, p. 14. 64.  Aykroyd, W. (1932), ‘Health Section of the League of Nations, The Economic Depression and Public Health’. 65. Fosdick, R. (1972), The League and the United Nations, p. 20. 66. Quoted in Bendiner, E. (1975), A Time for Angels, p. 5. 67. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51110, f18, Letter Drummond to Cecil, 15 January 1923. 68. Crowdy-Thornhill, R. (undated 1920s), Work at the League of Nations, unpublished paper. 69. Salter, A. (1961), Memoirs of a Public Servant, p. 148. 70. Phelan, E. (2009), Edward Phelan and the ILO, p. 201. 71. Beck, P. (ed.) (1995), British Documents on Foreign Affairs Part II, Series J, vol. 9 Legal and Administrative Questions 1924–1939, Document 32 [w9274/59/98] Memorandum Locker-Lampson to Lord Cushenden, 23 September 1928. 72.  Glasgow Herald, 18 October 1928. 73. Cour Internationale de Justice (1954), Memoires, Plaidoiries et documents, p. 53. 74. Huntford, R. (2001), Nansen, p. 631. 75. Huntford, R. (2001), Nansen, p. 632. 76.  Piana, F. (2017), ‘Nansen, Fridtjof’, in Reinalda, R., Kille, K., and Eisenberg, J. (eds). IO BIO, Biographical Dictionary of SecretariesGeneral of International Organizations. www.ru.nl/fm/iobio [accessed 21 January 2017]. 77.  LONA Box R–1475, 40/4525/2792, Letter Drummond to Balfour, 2 June 1920. 78. Stb7/1/1/3, Letter to Ronald Campbell, 5 June 1920. 79. Stb7/1/1/4 and 7/1/2/4, Letters to Monnet (2 March 1922) and from Tufton (Cabinet Office), 14 November 1922. 80. Urquhart, B., and Childers, E. (1996), A World in Need of Leadership: Tomorrow’s United Nations, p. 23. 81. Davies, M., and Woodward, R. (2014), International Organizations, A Companion, pp. 92–3. 82.  Cox, R. (1969), ‘The Executive Head; an Essay in Leadership in International Organization’. 83. Weiss, T.G. (1982), ‘International Bureaucracy; the Myth and Reality of the International Civil Service’. 84.  Mathiason, J. (2006), ‘What Secretariats Do and Does Leadership Matter?’. 85. Bennis, W., and Nanus, A. (1986), Leaders, p. 88. 86. Bennis, W. (1998), ‘The End of Leadership’.

48  D. MACFADYEN ET AL.

87. Perth, Earl of. (1944), The International Secretariat of the Future: Lessons from Experience, p. 31. 88. Peyre, H. (1961), ‘Excellence and Leadership: Has Western Europe Any Lessons for Us?’. 89. Stb7/3/3/2, Sweetser Letter to ‘old friends’, 16 December 1951.

CHAPTER 3

After Geneva

3.1  Leaving the League * * * Drummond had always been of the opinion that the Secretary-General should serve a fixed term, an opinion that has been amply corroborated by the recent experience of executive heads who have overstayed their welcome. After 13 years in office, he gave the Member States a year’s notice that he would retire in 1933. In a letter to Ake Hammarskjöld, Registrar of the Permanent Court of International Justice (older brother of future UN Secretary-General Dag) he remarked that ‘the strain of the last twelve years has been very great’1 and to Sir John Simon, British Foreign Secretary ‘the post itself is extremely strenuous, and after thirteen years I feel strongly the need of a change and a desire to work nationally rather than internationally’.2 But there were other reasons for his wanting to return to British Government service. Although the League had established a staff pension scheme, he was not included and consequently he needed to build-up his UK pension. There were also family health issues to consider.3 He tried to identify a suitable successor, feeling that Avenol did not have the requisite qualities to head the Secretariat. In January 1932, in a letter to Simon, he stated, ‘I do not recommend my Deputy Secretary General, M. Avenol’ and then went on to suggest that his succession ‘would best be met by the Secretary General being a national of a © The Author(s) 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0_3

49

50  D. MACFADYEN ET AL.

small power’ noting that the Dutchman ‘van Eysinga, who is a judge in the International Court, and who is well-known and much liked and respected in League circles’ was one possibility.4 In a vindication of his view, UN Secretaries-General have all been chosen from ‘small powers’. In May that year he sounded out Monnet regarding the position, who replied: I have delayed until now answering you definitely because of my real desire of being able to accept your suggestion. Unfortunately after considering all sides of my own situation and weighing the responsibility that one could not help accepting for a period of years, I had to come to the conclusion that I could not under the present circumstances accept to be considered for your successor … your suggestion to me gave me a real joy. It is now 9 years since you and I parted; during the three years of our cooperation I have learned very much from you, and these years remain away the happiest of my life; it is not often in life that one meets a friend and can live and work with him as I did with you and though our paths and interests seem to be different don’t let us part too long.5

To which Drummond in turn responded: It was a great grief to get your letter because I had hoped, in spite of everything … that you would have been able to allow me to do what I could to secure your appointment as my successor … it is all the more sad because there is no-one in whom I could have had as much confidence to carry on the work here, and no-one who would have been more welcomed by all the members of the Secretariat. It is not now going to be easy to find a successor.6

In the end Avenol got the job by default, the feeling being that it was the turn of France to head the League, a process made easier because a few months earlier Thomas had died and had been succeeded at ILO by his British deputy Harold Butler. Drummond’s last official role was to attend the abortive World Financial and Economic Conference, held in London in June 1933 which was opened by King George V with Avenol acting as conference Secretary-General. The British press was fulsome in its appreciation of Drummond’s tenure, tempered by an understanding of the League’s limitations and by the feeling that it faced a more difficult future.7 * * *

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3.2   Ambassador to Italy * * * Drummond left the League on a high note, notwithstanding the problems surrounding Japan’s occupation of Manchuria. At the time he had hoped to get one of the two top FO postings (Paris or Washington) however he was passed over, a decision often attributed to Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s antipathy to Drummond.8 It is possible, however, that as Drummond had been absent for several years, insiders had a better claim on the top posts. Drummond had been told of his Rome posting before he left Geneva.9 He succeeded Sir Ronald Graham who had enjoyed exceptional access to and the confidence of Mussolini.10 Drummond had developed good relations with the Italian Government while Secretary-General and, in 1929, the Vatican and Italy had concluded the Lateran Treaty ceding territory to and recognizing the Vatican as an independent state. It was therefore advantageous for Britain to have a prominent Catholic as Ambassador. For many the Secretary-Generalship is the apogee of a career in world politics. Drummond, however, resumed an FO career for the reasons given in the prior section. His assignment as British Ambassador to Italy occurred at a time when Mussolini was flexing his muscles and confronting the League. British actions were to give him a weak hand and he attracted considerable later criticism for following Government policies as his position required him to do. One of his critics, Gladwyn Jebb, who served under Drummond at the Embassy until 1935 (and who later was a key player in the birth of the UN) was critical of the appointment of a former Secretary-General as a national ambassador; and recorded in his memoirs that Drummond was ‘almost an apologist for the Duce’.11 Some of Drummond’s London colleagues, on the other hand, felt that he became anti-Italian during his difficult tenure.12 From the outset Drummond took pains to underline to the FO that they should not misconceive his communications, writing to Permanent Under Secretary of State, Robert Vansittart, saying I hope you do not think either that I am identifying myself with or even defending Italian policy…. I fear that in reporting one is unhappily liable to use phrases which can be misinterpreted and may give the impression that one shares the Italian views; but I know that you will read my letters in the light of the premises I have set out.13

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The appointment placed Drummond in a difficult position, since Mussolini, who held the dual portfolios of Premier and Foreign Minister, had a hearty contempt for the League, viewing it as a ‘tottering temple’.14 Mussolini harboured considerable resentment because Italy was not seen as equal in status to France and Britain, even though the British Government had tended to favour Italy as a counterweight to France. He felt that the League worked well when sparrows shout, but was ‘no good at all when eagles fall out’.15 Simon had appointed as ambassador a man who was too ready to see sympathetically others’ points of view. As Secretary-General, Drummond had approached dispute settlement by encouraging international cooperation and through dialogue and conciliation; principles that he was vainly to apply in the face of the Duce’s determination to conquer Abyssinia. Drummond’s difficulty due to his League associations was anticipated, Vansittart advising not to expect too much from him since, in Italian eyes, he was ‘too much identified with the League not to have great difficulties with Signor Mussolini’.16 Later, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was to write: I felt sympathy with Drummond in his thankless duty. His work for the League, as Secretary-General had been exceptional, his patient care and guidance had given confidence to those who worked under him and authority to his advice. Now he was in a post where his past services were a liability rather than an asset. A conscientious and sensitive man, he was aware … that his association with the League must be expected to prejudice Mussolini against him.17

Drummond had to convey the British position through Italian Under Secretary, Fulvio Suvich, although he did enjoy better access to Mussolini than most of Rome’s diplomatic corps.18 Through connections that he had established in Geneva, particularly with his friend Marquis Theodoli head of the Mandates Commission, he was able to get inside information on Mussolini’s thinking. Drummond’s role as Ambassador was to avoid alienating Mussolini in the face of the serious threat coming from Germany but, privately, he was concerned over Mussolini’s attitude and misrepresentation of British positions. Events soon tossed Anglo-Italian relations around in a series of storms. The first was the Dollfuss Affair of 1934 which was dealt with diplomatically

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following a meeting between Mussolini and Hitler. In Drummond’s words ‘the only agreement about Austria was to disagree’.19 The FO was pleased that Germany and Italy were estranged and the good relations that existed when Graham was ambassador seemed to be continuing under Drummond. The calm was not to last. Italy had long harboured desires to colonize Abyssinia and Mussolini reignited Italian colonial aspirations. The British Government’s focus while Italy was making belligerent noises was not on Abyssinia but on Franco-Italian and GermanoItalian relations. In October and November 1934, Drummond informed the FO that Italy was possibly intending to do something in Abyssinia20 and, on 5 December, Italian and Abyssinian forces clashed at Walwal. Abyssinia appealed to the League and Italy responded by bombing some remote villages. The Council requested both sides to negotiate. London, through Drummond, continued to press Italy to exercise restraint. A visit to Mussolini by Pierre Laval the French Foreign Minister resulted in a Franco-Italian agreement, France’s priority being to secure an ally against Germany. In February 1935, after meeting with Theodoli, Drummond passed on the inside information he had obtained and concluded that Mussolini: also felt that Italy was entitled to her place in the Sun. We and the French had taken almost all the dish – only the crumbs were left. It would be intolerable in the Duce’s view if Italy were not allowed even to consume these crumbs. I remarked that this was all very well, but what about the League? This led to the reply that the League must not stop legitimate Italian aspirations.21

Drummond added that the French had definitely offered Italy a free hand in Abyssinia.22 He realized the implications of two League Members being in potential conflict and his warnings were increasingly emphatic. Owen O’Malley, Head of the FO’s Southern Department, later minuted that ‘Sir Eric Drummond has put his finger on a dangerous spot’ and that he felt ‘very uncomfortable about the course which things seem to be shaping’.23 Potential escalation was put on hold for the tripartite Stresa Conference (11–14 April 1935) held to discuss European issues, particularly German rearmament, with the objective of developing a unified response. While Drummond was summoned to join the British team he

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played only a bit part. His recommendation, that the occasion should be used to raise the Abyssinian question, was initially ignored but, just before the Conference commenced, the FO included a specialist on Abyssinia in their team. However, the main deliberations were conducted in private meetings between Mussolini, MacDonald, Laval and their immediate advisers. Side talks were held on Abyssinia but the principals never discussed the matter.24 Hugh Dalton, later to serve in Churchill’s wartime Cabinet, condemned the failure at Stresa to warn Mussolini against his Abyssinian incursion, as: one of the most criminal blunders in the whole course of British diplomacy in these disastrous years … because evidently Signor Mussolini was expecting that this subject would be raised. … I think that not only did the British Government lead Abyssinia up the garden path but it also led Signor Mussolini up the garden path.25

Drummond’s concerns continued to mount and on 17 May 1935 he was called to London to address the Cabinet.26 He was instructed to advise Mussolini of British disquiet and that Britain would back the League.27 It was, said Vansittart ‘a choice between the League busting Mussolini and Mussolini busting the League’.28 Drummond was at a considerable personal disadvantage in pressing the British case. It is now known that during his tenure there was a continual leak of information from the embassy. Starting in 1924 the Italians had been intercepting much of the embassy’s important correspondence. The spy was Drummond’s Italian valet Francesco Costantini but despite suspicions that the embassy had been penetrated, neither Drummond nor Vansittart in London, could identify a suspect and the activities continued even after Costantini was sacked, as his brother Secondo was still employed there.29 Vansittart records: The Ambassador could scarce bring himself to credit such domestic treachery till, returning from a ball, he locked his wife’s tiara in an official box, found it empty in the morning. The purloiners had an eye for better values than despatches …30

It was Drummond however, not Vansittart, who asked that an agent be sent to investigate the embassy’s security.31 The spying went on for many years and the Italian Foreign Minister twice notes that he was

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in possession of embassy documents writing: ‘Perth has been a friend. Witness dozens of his reports, which are in our hands’.32 Drummond had stayed in touch with internal League issues while in Rome and several of his former colleagues corresponded with him some visiting him while on mission.33 James McDonald, High Commissioner for Refugees (Jewish and Other) Coming from Germany sought out his advice.34 Drummond was consulted by the British Government on possible reforms to the League.35 Hilary St George Saunders, one of his more faithful correspondents, wrote in 1934 that ‘The Secretariat is in a poor way … there have been a great many resignations, mainly among the English subordinate staff’.36 Once Britain had decided to throw its weight behind the League, Drummond was suspected by the Italians of being in direct collusion with it. Because of his continuing contacts, there was some reason for the suspicion, even though Drummond was scrupulous in separating his prior opinions from his diplomatic role. Suspicion hung over him, however, like a Sword of Damocles.37 The Abyssinian problem was on the agenda of the League’s 16th Assembly in 1935. Britain came out strongly on the side of the League and respect for the Covenant stating, with electrifying effect that the government would ‘fulfil, within the measure of its capacity, the obligations that the Covenant lays upon it’.38 Other Member States also supported Abyssinia.39 Mussolini stepped up Italy’s incursions deploying a force of 300,000 well-equipped troops and 250 aircraft against a nation armed with machine guns, rifles and spears. Open hostilities commenced on 3 October 1935. Under Article 16 of the Covenant, Italy was declared the aggressor and sanctions were imposed at the end of October. Fifty-two states embargoed the sale of armaments, 39 restricted access to finance and 43 suspended Italian imports.40 Rome blamed Britain for all this and Drummond, his wife and embassy staff were shunned by Italian society and ignored by the Italian Government, although he continued to meet with Mussolini to press him to change course. Germany had left the League and was therefore in a position and willing to supply Italy with sanction-busting goods. In consequence, Italy’s economic ties to Germany increased. While discussions were ongoing at the League to impose further sanctions, especially on fuel, the British received several reports that this would lead to a ‘mad dog’ attack on their Mediterranean fleet. Drummond himself reported on a meeting with Mussolini that

56  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. [he] wanted to impress on me very seriously that in his opinion we were heading for war… [he]… asked me particularly to note what he was going to say. If Italy was faced with the choice of being forced to yield or war she would definitely choose war even if it meant that the whole of Europe went up in a blaze.41

In the end fuel sanctions were never applied. The British and French met bilaterally to try to resolve the crisis. The newly appointed Foreign Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare and French Foreign Minister Laval, in December 1935, proposed ceding about onethird of Abyssinia to Italy; another third becoming an Italian protectorate; the rest staying in Abyssinian hands with a corridor to the port of Zeila. However, this infamous Hoare–Laval plan was leaked to the British press and uproar ensued over the Government giving in to naked aggression. Hoare was forced to resign and the plan abandoned. With the decimation of Abyssinian troops and with Italians camped outside Addis Ababa, Emperor Haile Selassie fled the country in May 1936. He appeared at a special League Assembly in June to appeal for support. He made a great impression in a historic speech, but to no avail. On 4 July 1936, the League Assembly recommended that sanctions be lifted signalling the end of the Italo-Abyssinian crisis, the maintenance of European peace far outweighing other considerations. For the League it was a disastrous blow.42 The support Drummond gave ‘was an important, perhaps even decisive, influence’ in the British Government’s decision regarding sanctions.43 He was sceptical about the power of sanctions unless Members were prepared to back them up with force. In the case of Abyssinia this did not happen and Drummond anticipated their failure. His long-standing realistic opinion as to their effectiveness (echoed by Vansittart) was voiced several times over; others were in favour of their continuation. From this difference of opinion with pro-sanctionists there slowly emerged a perception on the part of some that Drummond was an appeaser and that his Rome sojourn had swung him in support of Fascism.44 This is not supported by more recent scholarship—Rotunda, for instance, states that Drummond’s advocacy was derived not from any sympathy for Italian fascism, but from a pragmatic appraisal of Britain’s strategic position in the Mediterranean.45 Drummond regarded Franco-Italian relations as ‘the key to peace or war’ and refocussed on his original instructions of ensuring that Italy was kept on Britain’s side in an increasingly fractious Europe.46

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The Spanish Civil War commenced in July 1936 with both Germany and Italy supporting the Falangist (Nationalist) forces under General Franco with arms and ‘volunteer’ forces. Much to British disappointment, Italy was slowly moving closer to Germany, alluding to a Rome-Berlin axis, although Drummond felt that Mussolini was trying to play both countries off against each other.47 When Ciano was appointed Foreign Minister in 1936 and became Drummond’s main channel of contact, his task was complicated by the fact that, at the age of 33, Ciano had limited experience in foreign affairs. He required considerable attention and a certain pandering to his self-importance. Drummond was adept at this, so much so that, following the German deadline to Czechoslovakia in 1938, Ciano recorded in his diary: I must acknowledge that [Drummond] has worked well – intelligently and honestly – even the events of 28 September certainly felt the influence of the good relations [he] has established with me. And yet the first day he saw me he wrote to his Government – we have the document – describing his repugnance which he felt, and forced himself to overcome, when he shook hands with me, because I had directed the anti-British press campaign in Abyssinia.48

For Drummond 1937 was a year of personal milestones. Two of his daughters married (see Chapter 1). Despite Drummond’s social ostracization Ciano attended Margaret’s reception and Drummond used the occasion to flatter him by prominently displaying his, quite generous, wedding gift.49 In August he was in London on leave when his halfbrother, the Earl of Perth, died suddenly in France. He inherited the title of 16th Earl of Perth and he had to extend his leave by an extra month to deal with this unexpected change in circumstances. Hankey, on holiday in Italy while Drummond was away, came to the conclusion that a change was needed in FO policy and from his position in the Cabinet Office started to interfere in UK-Italian diplomacy.50 Hankey, guided by emotion and sentiment, felt that there needed to be a rapprochement with Italy while Drummond, ever the realist, subscribed to a more general FO feeling that while closer relations were desirable, Italy had to be handled with caution. Drummond, however, was still involved with efforts to strengthen Anglo-Italian relations in the face of increasing Fascist and Nazi

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cooperation. Rome was at this point consulting Berlin on its handling of British and French relations. In response to a note handed him by Perth (as he was now known) in October 1937 Ciano wrote: ‘Our note [in reply] is now in Berlin. We shall deliver it as soon as we have their agreement to the formula. We must always give the impression of Axis solidarity’.51 The attempt by Drummond to develop an agreement with Italy was subject to on-off negotiations in the light of changing events. A visit by Mussolini to Berlin and deepening Italian involvement in the Spanish Civil War, further damaged ties with Britain. Then on 11 December 1937, Italy gave notice of its withdrawal from the League. In February 1938, Eden resigned as Foreign Secretary in protest at the Government’s stance over Italy and particularly over the position that Hankey and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain advocated. An impending visit to Rome by Hitler spurred the British to reopen discussions on an Anglo-Italian agreement. The new negotiations were again entrusted to Drummond who successfully brought them to a conclusion in April 1938, a key feature being that sensitive differences over Spain and Abyssinia were dealt with by an exchange of letters between Drummond and Ciano, published at the same time as the protocol (Illustration 3.1).52 Unfortunately, the good feelings engendered by the agreement were fleeting. Italy continued to press Britain to recognize its Abyssinian claims, threatening that the agreement would otherwise be abandoned. This was dealt with by Drummond’s exchange of letters and by the FO’s ‘masterly inactivity’.53 Drummond was also aware of the consequences of the Spanish Civil War. In 1939, writing to Lord Halifax, he stated ‘I feel that both the French and ourselves should be prepared for possible serious developments once [it] has come to an end’.54 However, around this time, Drummond started losing his influence in both London and Rome, such that when Chamberlain met with Mussolini in early 1939, Drummond was not involved. The previous March Germany had taken over Austria (the Anschluss). Negotiations between Britain, France, Italy and Germany at Munich, in September 1938, had conceded that parts of Czechoslovakia should be under German control, creating a false feeling of stability although already Germany was trying to form a military alliance with Italy and Japan. Ciano recorded that: The Japanese Military and Naval Attachés brought me a pact of triple alliance, identical with that which Ribbentrop handed me in Munich. I am

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Illustration 3.1  Ciano and Drummond signing the 1938 Anglo-Italian Agreement, Achille Beltrame, Domenica del Corriere

still inclined to put it into cold storage, particularly as Perth has secretly informed me of the British decision to implement the April Pact as from the middle of November. We must keep both doors open.55

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In March 1939 Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. Italy was caught by surprise but in turn, attacked Albania to assert a long-standing claim on that country. Thus the seeds of the Second World War were sown. Although Drummond was by then back home, having left Rome on 24 May 1939, the Anglo-Italian pact he had negotiated held and helped keep Italy out of the war for a year. Felix Gilbert, in a study of Drummond’s ambassadorship some years later, concluded that he ‘could claim to have steered Anglo-Italian relations through a period of stormy weather into calmer waters, and the success of his diplomatic mission seemed confirmed by Italy’s remaining neutral when the war broke out’.56 An entry in Ciano’s diary at the time of Drummond’s departure stated: ‘I am sorry he is going. He is a man who by a slow and painful process has come to understand and even love Fascism. He has a genuine friendship for me, as I have for him’.57 Ciano’s diaries must be interpreted prudently, since Drummond’s own words suggest the opposite. He informed the House of Lords of the objection of Italians to Fascism, illustrating this with a tale of a friend, head of one of the greatest Roman families, who never yielded to Fascism, was severely punished and later died.58 Gilbert commented that The person who tries to explain the issues underlying a totalitarian regime’s policies ‘glides easily into the role of the person who justifies and advocates’ although Drummond did not succumb to the same extent as Henderson [the ambassador in Berlin]. His reports were always marked by certain reservations.59

Responding to the criticism that he had ‘seemed to have been almost as defeatist’ as Henderson, Drummond responded that ‘It was the duty of all Heads of Mission to do all that lay in their power to secure the fulfilment of [Government] policy, whatever their personal opinions might be. … If it be defeatist to carry out instructions to the best of one’s ability, and in this case successfully, I admit the impeachment’.60 His job was to get close to power but the British Government was inconsistent in its positions, making it look as though Drummond’s advice was confusing. That Drummond tried hard to keep Italy onside is not in doubt but his viewpoint was always realistic. Rotunda concluded, from unpublished correspondence and minutes, that the future historian will find that instruction after instruction was written or telephoned to Drummond

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and acted upon by him.61 It was, he said ‘the permanent head of the Foreign Office who decided to reject Drummond’s proposal to bring the Abyssinian dilemma out in the open at Stresa, and it was the Foreign Office which miscalculated by issuing warnings that had no force’.62 These documents reveal that contrary to some opinions Drummond bears little responsibility for the action of the British government during a period that drove Italy into the arms of Germany.63 Gilbert concluded that ‘the decisive period of his embassy was when Chamberlain introduced his appeasement policy [which had a more comprehensive character than is now assumed] to reduce overall tensions … [He] used his sister-in-law (Lady Austen Chamberlain) to open up a path to Mussolini. … [Her] mission to Rome showed Chamberlain did not fully trust Drummond who remained true to the Foreign Office’.64 Rotunda notes that Drummond did not get along with all of his colleagues in London. Examples come readily to mind. Ramsay MacDonald and (in an earlier period) Sir Eyre Crowe, hated him for his Catholicism and where they could, they made their feelings felt. Others, such as Sir John Simon, Sir Samuel Hoare, Anthony Eden (three of the four foreign secretaries under whom Perth served), Sir Robert Vansittart and in particular, Oliver Harvey, greeted him with various degrees of inimical feelings, stretching from mere toleration to a strong antipathy, and those opinions of him, both at the time and in later writings, have to be treated very carefully. Since much of what has been written about Perth as ambassador originates from his personal or political foes, it would be unwise to pretend that these comments on him are wholly detached or objective.65

Drummond began his Rome assignment with a high reputation. This was eroded in the course of his tenure, for reasons that seem not altogether fair at this distance in time. Rotunda refutes the allegation that he was a fascist sympathizer, an insinuation that is contradicted by Drummond’s own words and deeds. It was not he who was the appeaser, but the government that he served. When faced by Mussolini’s aggression, the government drew back from imposing fuel sanctions, backed up by force. Drummond defended himself against the charge of defeatism. He negotiated an Anglo-Italian pact that helped keep Italy out of Hitler’s war for a year. As seen below, Drummond nursed a grievance at Italy’s perfidy in ultimately going to war with Britain, one that persisted long after the war ended. In retrospect, it is clear that, on leaving the

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League, Drummond should have had a completely different function in public life. His return to the FO stimulated current UN restrictions on retiring SGs (see Chapter 10). * * *

3.3  Return to the United Kingdom * * * After 14 years as SG and five in the most difficult British embassy posting after Berlin, Drummond, at the age of 63, was tired and beginning to show signs of stress. However he played squash in Rome and, despite his bad leg and his age, frequently beat his son-in-law at the game.66 Ciano implied that Drummond was losing his vigour, making reference to his rheumatism and a degree of confusion. On his departure from Rome Ciano recorded that: Today was dedicated to peace with England. Lord Perth came at 11 in the morning to present to me his credentials addressed to the King Emperor. He was moved and, in order not to get confused, he had written down the few words he had to speak. Poor old man! He really has been through some emotions at the Palazzo Chigi! Twice during his mission we have been on the brink of war. And now we are leaving behind a crisis which has been very acute and has dragged on for more than three years.67

With war on the horizon the British government decided to create a Department (later Ministry) of Information with Drummond as its Director-General (a rank equivalent to a Permanent Secretary).68 The intent was that John Reith, the BBC Director-General, would take over when war started. Drummond continued to maintain contact with his former League colleagues and Loveday consulted him on the desirability of moving the Economic Section to the USA, recording that: ‘Drummond was most clear and emphatic. Separate … at once and completely. Preserve what you can as a going concern and build up around it’.69 There is little record of his short tenure in the Ministry and he was eventually moved to be Adviser in the Foreign Publicity Section where he used his Catholic connections in an attempt to improve AngloSpanish relations, at one point writing to the Rector of the English

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Catholic College in Vallodolid requesting his help.70 He left the Ministry in 1940 having decided to take his seat in the House of Lords where, on 2 July 1941, he made his maiden speech on the diplomatic service.71 In it, he reiterated the opinion that he had held since he was SecretaryGeneral that: ‘foreign policy is only really effective if it has behind it the backing of force’. He also, indirectly, defended himself against his critics when he said: A second criticism of the Diplomatic Service is to the effect that the heads of our Missions abroad have failed on occasions to inform the Government fully of the general trend of political currents in the countries to which they were accredited. Such an accusation is totally without foundation. If your Lordships could have access to … the Dispatches sent home by heads of Missions, you would find that not only are political tendencies, but also the military, economic, financial and social (including labour) conditions of the country in question, fully explained. … There may be, of course, errors of judgment on the part of the head of the Mission as to the deductions to be drawn from the data …

Drummond’s interventions in the Lords, where he eventually became Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, marked his continuing interests in the British Foreign Service, international relations and religious matters. He remained a strong internationalist and took every opportunity both to defend the League’s record and to analyse its failure which he believed to be due principally to the absence of the USA from its deliberations. Typical was his speech on a post-war international order when he said: I trust that His Majesty’s Government will not be influenced by the scornful references which are so often made to the failure of the League of Nations. It is true that the League of Nations did not succeed in fulfilling the high purposes for which it was created. … [Recent commentators have not] paid sufficient attention to the fundamental cause of the League’s failure – namely, the absence of the United States of America. … [The] League was based on the intimate participation in its inner councils of the United States of America. That League has never been tried, and has never failed. … I am profoundly convinced that had the League as originally conceived come into being it would have fulfilled all the hopes and all the aspirations of its founders, and the present calamities would have been averted.72

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Again when discussing the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, an issue considered further in Chapter 11, he said that when he was Secretary-General I had considerable experience of minority treaties and their workings. I am clearly convinced that the system then adopted was a mistake. The minority thought themselves segregated from the rest of their compatriots. Not only that; they were often looked upon as the scapegoats if anything went wrong in the country. Things may have gone wrong for which they were in no way responsible, but immediately there was an outburst of “Ah, it is due to that minority.” … Therefore, it is much better to have a general Convention applying to all the inhabitants, without any special reference to minorities as such.73

His interests also extended to religious issues and during the war he was particularly concerned for the fate of Jewish refugees. This concern may have sprung from his final year in Rome when he was involved in protecting the interests of 15,000 foreign Jews who were to be expelled from Italy at short notice and whose bank accounts had been blocked, rendering them destitute.74 He was a founding Vice-President of the Council of Christians and Jews from which position he pressed the urgency of assisting refugees from Nazi persecution who had made their way to countries beyond German control. He praised British authorities for allowing Jewish children from Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to enter Palestine and encouraged the Government to grant temporary asylum in its own territories and in territories under its control, including Palestine, to those refugees from Nazi persecution who succeeded in making their way to such territories.75 A related position he held, but one in which he was less prominent, was as Vice-President of the British National Committee for Rescue from Nazi Terror. On several occasions he made a point of speaking in the House not as a Liberal peer but as a Catholic. After the war he made a few excursions into international matters. He was anxious to see friendly relations with Italy restored but for many years remained unforgiving of Italy’s treachery. When three Italians of his acquaintance complained of being ostracized by their former London clubs he admonished them replying, ‘have you not got your values slightly mixed? The Fascist government of Italy declared war on us when we were in a very precarious position’.76 Despite his reservations over

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Communism he supported the right of the Chinese People’s Republic to hold the Chinese seat on the Security Council,77 just as he had pressed for Germany and Russia to be League Members. What was important for him was inclusivity. At one point he considered writing his memoirs but in the end decided that it was too great a task, writing to Arthur Salter that he would find it difficult to overcome his laziness or get started on a draft and that time may have distorted the relative importance of events. As he wrote: ‘What a fine lot of excuses!’78 His refuge from the pressure of everyday life was, just as in Geneva, fishing. He became the Chairman of the Hampshire Rivers Catchment Board, which encompassed Britain’s finest trout-fishing rivers. Drummond was, however, aware that the League and particularly the international civil service, could form a blueprint for its successor organization and, as will be seen in Chapter 9, towards the end of the war he chaired two committees that studied the League, its Secretariat and the lessons that should be learnt and carried forward into the future.

Endnotes

1.  LONA, 1928–32, General and Miscellaneous 50/39242/39242 of 5 February 1932. 2. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51112, Drummond to Sir John Simon 7 January 1932, f35. 3. Fosdick, R. (1972), The League and the United Nations, p. 43. 4. Stb7/1/1/6, Drummond to Simon 7 January 1932. 5. Stb7/1/1/4, Monnet to Drummond 3 May 1932. 6. Stb7/1/1/4, Letter Drummond to Monnet 6 May 1932. 7. For example, The Spectator and The Times both 30 June 1933. 8. Gelardi, A. (1982), Sir Eric Drummond, Britain’s Ambassador to Italy, pp. 42–4. 9.  Carlisle Archive Centre, DHW 4 March 19, Joan Howard to Esmé Howard, 11 May 1933. 10. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy of Sir Eric Drummond, p. 100. 11. Jebb, H. (1972), The Memoirs of Lord Gladwyn, p. 49. 12. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, pp. 136–7. 13. TNA, R918/37/3/P0371/183147, Drummond (Rome) to Vansittart, 3 February 1934 reply 13 February 1934, quoted in Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 13. 14. Kennedy, A.L. ed. Martel, G. (2000), The Times and Appeasement: The Journals of A. L. Kennedy, p. 194.

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15. League of Nations, New World Encyclopaedia, http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org [accessed 7 February 2016]. 16. TNA, J2073/1/1 FO371/19110, Vansittart Minute of 30 May 1935, quoted in Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 271. 17. Eden, A. (1962), Facing the Dictators, p. 229. 18. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 17, note. 19.  TNA, R3510/37/3 FO371/18352, dated 20 June 1934 quoted in Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 143. 20.  TNA, J2475/2082/1 FO371/18032, Drummond to Oliphant 2 October 1934 quoted in Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 155. 21. TNA, J973/1/1 FO371/19105, dated 17 February 1935, Drummond to Simon quoted in Gelardi, A. (1982), Britain’s Ambassador to Italy, p. 28. 22. Gelardi, A. (1982), Britain’s Ambassador to Italy, p. 28; Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 188. 23. TNA, J3108/18/1 FO371/18027, O’Malley note 20 December 1934 quoted in Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 170. 24. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 218. 25.  Hansard, HC debate on the Foreign Office 6 May 1936, vol. 311, cc. 1721. 26. Medlicott, W., et al. (1976), Documents on British Foreign Policy, Series 2, vol. XIV, 178, Simon to Drummond 26 February 1935, p. 170. 27. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 248. 28. Roi, M.L. (1997), Alternative to Appeasement, p. 95. 29. West, N. (2005), The A to Z of British Intelligence. 30. Vansittart, R. (1958), The Mist Procession, p. 516. 31. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 135. 32. Mayor, A. (Tr.) (1952), Ciano’s Diary 1937–1938, entries for 16 April and 16 November 1938 33.  For example, see NCA, MSS Loveday Box 7, 3 December 1935 and Stb7/1/3/2, correspondence with St. George Saunders 1934–5. 34. Burgess, G. (2016), The League of Nations and the Refugees from Nazi Germany. 35. Beck, P. (ed.) (1995), British Documents on Foreign Affairs Part II, Series J, vol. 2, The League of Nations and Its Members 1924–1939, Document 130 Drummond to Simon 1 December 1933. 36. Stb7/1/3/2, Letter Saunders to Drummond 2 March 1934, p. 2. 37. Breckenridge Long’s Diary (Box 4) for 30 October 1935. 38. Gelardi, A. (1982), Britain’s Ambassador to Italy, p. 37. 39. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, pp. 648–9. 40. LON. (1936), Official Journal, Sixteenth Assembly, Special Supplement number 146, p. 7.

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41.  TNA, J7088/1/1 FO371/19156, memorandum 30 October 1935 quoted in Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 288. 42. Gelardi, A. (1982), Britain’s Ambassador to Italy, pp. 106–8. 43. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 307. 44. Gilbert, F. (1953), ‘Two British Ambassadors: Perth and Henderson’ in Craig, G., and Gilbert, F. (1953), The Diplomats 1919–1939, pp. 537–54; and Scott, G. (1973), The Rise and Fall of the League of Nations, p. 327. 45. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 31. 46. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 132. 47. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 348. 48. Mayor, A. (1952), Ciano’s Diary, entry for 16 November 1938. 49. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 39 interview with Lady Gillian Anderson. 50. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 321. 51. Mayor, A. (1952), Ciano’s Diary, entry for 7 October 1937. 52. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 379. 53. Kennedy, A.L. (2000), The Times and Appeasement, entry for 17 June 1938, p. 274. 54. Woodward, E. and Butler, R. (1952), Documents on British Foreign Policy Overseas Series 3, Volume IV, Document 309, 31 January 1939. 55. Mayor, A. (1952), Ciano’s Diary, entry for 27 October 1938. 56. Gilbert, F. (1953), ‘Two British Ambassadors’, p. 327. 57. Mayor, A. (1952), Ciano’s Diary, entry for 16 December 1938. 58. Hansard, HL Debate Italy. 14 October 1943, vol. 129, cc. 196–8. 59. Gilbert, F. (1953), ‘Two British Ambassadors’, p. 547. 60. Stb, Drummond, Letter to the Editor The Spectator, 13 October 1944, p. 18. 61. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 252. 62. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 252. 63. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 153. 64. Gilbert, F. (1953), ‘Two British Ambassadors’, pp. 548–9. 65. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, p. 45. 66. Rotunda, D. (1972), The Rome Embassy, pp. 91–92. 67. Mayor, A. Ciano’s Diary, entry for 16 November 1938. 68. Hansard, HC Debate on the Ministry of Information, 7 September 1939, vol. 351, cc. 572–5. 69. NCA, MSS Loveday, Box 35, 2 July 1939. 70. Burns, J. (2011), Papa Spy: A True Story of Love, Wartime Espionage in Madrid and the Treachery of the Cambridge Spies. 71. Hansard, HL Debate on the Diplomatic Service, vol. 119, cc. 609–13. 72. Hansard, HL Debate on Post War Settlement, 2 June 1942, vol. 123, cc. 8–11.

68  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. 73. Hansard, HL Debate on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, 5 May 1948, vol. 155, cc. 649–54. 74. Jewish Telegraph Agency. (1939), ‘US, British Diplomats in Rome Study Jewish Question, Obstacles to Emigration’, 6 January. 75. Stb7/1/5/65, re Council of Christians and Jews, June 1942; BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51112, f157, Text of the Council of Christians and Jews’ resolution proposed by the Earl of Perth, 4 February 1943. 76. Stb7/1/5/6, dated 7 January 1950 Perth to Daniele Vare. 77. Hansard, HL Debate on Foreign Affairs, 28 February 1951, vol. 170, cc. 646. 78. Stb7/1/3/1/, letter dated 25 December 1945.

PART II

Creating an Enduring International Civil Service

CHAPTER 4

An International Secretariat Appears on the World Stage

Joseph de Maistre asked in the nineteenth century why a society had never been established to end the quarrels of nations.1 The stumbling block to the creation of La Société des Nations, according to him, was national sovereignty, an issue that still stands in the way of nations acting collectively. During the First World War, many (including Drummond) were taken with the idea that some sort of international organization should be created in its aftermath. Over the period 1914–1919 no less than 42 new schemes were drafted.2 There seemed to be as many opinions concerning a League of Nations as there were groups working up plans.3 The League acquired its English name possibly from an early British proponent, G. Lowes Dickinson. In 1916, a paper derived from a wide set of ideas about a League of Nations and expressing a vision of international cooperation in economic and social policy, labour conditions, transport and public health reached the Foreign Office desk of Lord Robert Cecil.4 These international ideas were developed at a time when, in wartime Britain, national governance was being centralized. When Lloyd George came to power in December 1916 he created a five-person War Cabinet, supported by a Cabinet Secretariat headed by Hankey, and a ‘Garden Suburb’ of five advisers including Drummond’s friend, Philip Kerr.5 The presumption by British prime ministers that Britain’s place is by America’s side dates to Lloyd George’s premiership. In 1917, the forging of Anglo-American relations fell to his Foreign Secretary, Balfour, whom © The Author(s) 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0_4

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he despatched, together with Drummond, to the United States. Balfour was tasked with exploring how the two Allies might coordinate their activities.6 He had a thought—later abandoned—to assign Drummond to Washington to strengthen the British presence.7 Economic cooperation with the United States during the last months of the war was largely the responsibility of Cecil, then the Allied Maritime Transport Council’s co-chairman. The Council’s Secretary was Salter who chaired the four-person Executive (AMTE) that comprised the American, George Rublee plus Monnet and the Italian Bernardo Attolico, the latter two of whom transited to the League Secretariat along with several others in the network of 20 inter-allied committees.8 Thus the international work of today’s intergovernmental bodies, such as the UN and the European Union, had their origins in the Inter-Allied Transport and Supply Committees of 1917–1918. Wilson’s idealism drove the Covenant to be drafted and adopted in Paris.9 This term for the League’s constitution stemmed from his Calvinist roots: ‘This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature’ said God to Noah after the flood. Wilson had employed the word in the first and last of the fourteen points of his 1918 speech. The biblical allusion was lost in translation to the French. For them, the constitution was simply ‘Le Pacte’. Before President Wilson crossed the Atlantic for the Peace Conference, American experts under House had shaped a draft ‘Covenant of the League of Nations’. The host nation had made similar preparations: the French Prime Minister appointed a Committee of fourteen, chaired by ex-Prime Minister Léon Bourgeois, to consider the problem of the ‘Society of Nations’.10 In Britain, Balfour and Cecil combined efforts to appoint a Committee to draft a scheme for a League of Nations, chaired by Lord Phillimore, a noted authority on international law.11 Other countries also drafted proposals—League historian Frank Walters considered the wellspring to have been the South African Jan Smuts’ pamphlet The League of Nations: a Practical Suggestion, which advocated that the League ‘should be put into the very forefront of the programme of the Peace Conference, and be made the point of departure for the solution of many of the grave problems with which it will be confronted’.12 US State Department officials, meeting to draw up the outlines of a new world organization in 1942, found Smuts’ pamphlet ‘surprisingly apt’.13 French Premier Georges Clemenceau was elected President of the Peace Conference in January 1919, Wilson saying that his election was

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‘a special tribute to the sufferings and sacrifices of France’. That, said H. G. Wells, ‘unhappily, sounded the keynote of the Conference, whose sole business should have been with the future of mankind’.14 The Conference Committee charged with drafting the Covenant established its headquarters in the Hotel Crillon. By the time the Committee first met in February 1919, Wilson had redrafted the Covenant four times. The Committee included two representatives from Britain, France, Italy, Japan and the USA to which were added nine more representatives from other countries present at the Conference. In a matter of eleven days, this Committee, which included Wilson, Cecil, Bourgeois and Smuts, agreed on a final draft of the Covenant.15 The drafting was, however, the work of the legal advisers to the American and British delegations, David Hunter Miller and Cecil Hurst (a member of Phillimore’s Committee). The Covenant certainly reflected Wilsonian policies, but the framework was British.16 Hankey formulated a detailed secret sketch plan for the organization of a League that drew upon the experiences of the War Cabinet and inter-allied organizations, particularly the Inter-Allied Transport and Supply Committees.17 Drummond appears to have played no part in the drafting process.18 A delegation of women called on Wilson in the spring of 1919 (see Chapter 8). Although they were unsuccessful in securing the participation of International Women’s Organizations in the Peace Conference, women’s delegations were permitted to make submissions to the Labour Commission and the League of Nations Commission, the only non-governmental entities to do so. This influenced the final texts of Article 23, which specified that the League ‘will endeavour to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labour for men, women and children’, and entrusted the League with ‘general supervision over the execution of agreements with regard to the traffic in women and children’.19 In addition, following an intervention by Cecil, prompted by Lady Aberdeen, Article 7 specified that ‘All positions under or in connection with the League, including the Secretariat, shall be open equally to men and women’.20 The American President’s idealism stands in contrast to that of Clemenceau who cynically said of Wilson’s Fourteen Points, that ‘le bon Dieu only had ten’ and Hankey later dismissed the Covenant saying, ‘I have always considered the Covenant a thoroughly bad instrument and a great handicap’.21 A draft ‘racial equality clause’ was excluded for reasons explained in Chapters 6 and 11.

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The Peace Conference appointed a small ‘Organisation Committee of the League of Nations’, the functions of which were to establish arrangements and rules of procedures for the first meetings of the Council and the Assembly, to guide the organization of the Secretariat and to approve initial appointments and expenditures.22 The Chair, French Minister of Foreign Affairs Stéphen Pichon, invited Drummond, as Secretary-General, to take a seat on the Committee. It met for the first, of only two occasions, on 5 May 1919 in Paris.23 Drummond was given authority to establish a provisional Secretariat at the first meeting.24 Nominations had to be approved by the Council which did not meet until January 1920, leaving Drummond time to choose colleagues at leisure.25 The crucial decision that Drummond took was to establish a Secretariat that was international. This key concept was first advocated by an influential group of British civil servants and politicians known as the Round Table (see Chapter 10). Drummond’s confidant, Philip Kerr, was a member of the group and, in March 1919, wrote a leading article in their journal proposing that at the capital of the League, there should be … an International Secretariat. … They must not be national ambassadors, but civil servants under the sole direction of a non-national Chancellor; and the aim of the whole organization … must be to evolve a practical international sense … a sense of common purpose.26

Drummond received similar advice from Harvard lawyer Gordon Auchincloss, who reinforced the Round Table’s ideas, that Secretariat members should not have positions in their own governments. He also proposed that, to attract people of merit, they should report directly to the Secretary-General.27 Wiseman, a key person in Anglo-American relations, was an important source of practical advice to Drummond and advised him that the Hankey draft was too detailed and suggested that he should start in a preliminary fashion as regards staff, structures and office accommodation.28 Characteristically, Drummond took time to reflect before embarking on his great experiment. After the Organisation Committee’s decision, he spent five days fishing alone in Hampshire, on the favourite river of his former boss Grey of Falloden, and six days fishing with his wife in the Derwent.

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Meanwhile, Monnet asked Henri Fromageot, a French lawyer who became a judge of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), to go through the Peace Treaty and make a summary of the duties imposed on the League by the Treaty, and by the Covenant. Manley Hudson, an eminent international law specialist, did the same for the United States.29 Walters, who was still in Paris, drafted a press article for Drummond on the suggestion of Monnet, Auchincloss and US foreign policy expert Whitney Shepardson, which set out the international character of the Secretariat. After clearing the draft with Monnet and Auchincloss, Walters passed it to Cecil to take up with Drummond.30 By the end of May 1919, Drummond was in a position to issue from London a memorandum derived from a consensus of views, which defined a basic structure for the League.31 Another subject of considerable discussion was the issue of channels of communication: how would Drummond’s Secretariat communicate with the Member States and in particular how would he get access to the political information necessary for him to make informed judgements.32 In the event, he continued to be privy to FO documents during his tenure. Drummond received little guidance on the International Secretariat from the Organisation Committee, which had just one further brief and un-minuted session on 9 June 1919. Questions connected with this were left over until the Council began meeting in 1920. The International Secretariat that Drummond began to put together in London was quite different from the model conceived by Hankey.33 He arrived at a plan for a truly international body, its members divested of national preconceptions.34 He explained his position as follows: when I was appointed Secretary-General in April 1919, I found that there were two opposed ideas as to how the Secretariat should be constituted. The first arose out of the valuable work which had been accomplished by numerous inter-allied organizations during the war. On this analogy, it was proposed that the Secretariat should simply be a body on which all the members of the League should have representation who should consult together and prepare the way for decisions of the Council and Assembly … The second idea, which was one I personally had cherished, was to constitute a truly international civil service … officials who would be solely the servants of the League alone.35

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Put rather differently, the first option would have the Secretariat constituted as national delegations, salaried and instructed by their respective governments. The second option would comprise officials paid from a common treasury and released from bonds of loyalty to their respective governments. Hankey was in favour of the former. Cecil and Drummond were in favour of the latter.36 Drummond felt bound to place these two views before the members of the Organisation Committee, making no secret of his strong belief that the adoption of the second plan would not only result in progress in international affairs but was essential if the League were to become what its founders hoped it would be. Decisions that Drummond took to establish the world’s first-ever International Civil Service (ICS), while acting under the authority of the Organisation Committee, were later approved at a Council meeting in May 1920.37 This victory brought problems for Drummond. While the first option would have made it easy to staff the Secretariat—simply by seconding members of national civil services to the Secretariat—the second called for staff to be recruited on the basis of expertise rather than nationality, those whose experience was international rather than national. Personnel with these qualifications were hard to come by in 1919. The decisions of Hankey to continue in the British civil service and of Drummond to accept the Secretary-Generalship had a long-lasting effect on relations between the two men. Shortly after he took office, Drummond told Cecil about a long and stormy talk with Hankey saying, ‘the truth of the matter is that Hankey has not the slightest conception of what the League of Nations means’.38 He railed against the weight attached by Hankey to the views of the conservative British newspaper, the Morning Post.39 Operating first out of a backroom of his home at 23 Manchester Square with one assistant, Lord Colum Crichton-Stuart, one stenographer, and an office keeper, Drummond began to put together the group of men and women who would form the Secretariat’s nucleus.40 Drummond specified that the Secretary-General was to be assisted in his duties by two members of the Secretariat styled, respectively, the Deputy Secretary-General (DSG) and the Under Secretary-General (USG). The topmost posts were to be filled by nationals of the Great Powers. Monnet, Drummond’s Deputy, had been at Versailles and during the war had acquired experience of working internationally with AMTE. Fosdick (Text Box 4.2) was approached by House who said ‘Permit me to suggest you be designated as the American Under Secretary-General.

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It is important that we have our best men’.41 Drummond then appointed two other USGs—Dionisio Anzilotti, an Italian international lawyer and Inazo Nitobe, a Japanese liberal statesman and educator. His working relations with these were not however as close as with Fosdick and Monnet.42 Not one of the four was a career diplomat. In writing about this period, Fosdick told his wife: ‘We eat and sleep in terms of the League’s present status and future development … This generation is in a race with international anarchy, and Monnet and I stress[ed] the point that the world has very little time in which to set up the framework of international government and establish the habit of teamwork’.43 For the task of inaugurating the world’s first international civil service, Drummond was given a very limited budget and finances were a prime concern during the early years of the Secretariat’s existence. At the beginning it survived precariously on overdrafts and on advances from the British and French Governments.44 The League had requested an advance of £100,000 for set-up and initial running costs, but was offered only £5000 by Chancellor of the Exchequer Austen Chamberlain. After interventions from Balfour and Foreign Secretary Curzon it eventually received £24,000.45 Total expenses incurred up to 31 March 1920 were £130,500. Some member states did not pay their assessed contributions, and Drummond and many Directors deferred their salaries to keep the League operating. Erik Colban stated that ‘week after week went by before [he] got any pay leaving [him] to draw on limited savings’.46 Once according to Crowdy, ‘a large cheque was handed to the financial director by the Minister of a country whose exchequer had not always been above reproach. A boy on a bicycle was rushed off to the bank with the cheque to see if there was enough money in the national kitty while the tactful head of the department, Sir Herbert Ames, engaged the Minister in conversation’.47 Much of Drummond’s time and emotional energy during these initial years, and throughout his term of office, was consumed in defending the Secretariat’s funding, particularly to the British government which (along with France) was the largest contributor. Drummond faced similar difficulties in finding financial support for the International Labour Organisation as its budget was also a League responsibility (Text Box 4.1). ILO’s Deputy Director, Harold Butler, turned to Drummond for assistance when the Conference to establish the Labour Organisation ran out of funds and staff resources.

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Drummond obtained a loan from the British Government to enable ILO to set up temporary headquarters in Seymour Place, Park Lane and later in Parliament Street, London.48 * * * Text Box 4.1  The International Labour Organisation and the Permanent Court of International Justicea The International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) were both conceived in Paris in 1919 and were directly connected to the League through the budget. At the end of the First World War the victorious nations were concerned that the millions of conscripted soldiers returning to civilian life might cause unrest if they faced mass unemployment. At the same time, it was recognized that many workers were exploited and common standards were needed to improve workers’ rights. Articles 387 to 399 of the Treaty of Versailles brought ILO into being. Later, in 1946, the ILO became a Specialized Agency of the newly formed UN. The origins of PCIJ date from the Hague Conference of 1899, which tried to establish an international court, but instead created a Permanent Court of Arbitration to resolve disputes between states. This initiative was strengthened in 1919 by Article 14 of the Covenant, namely that ‘The [League] Council shall formulate and submit to the Members of the League for adoption plans for the establishment of a Permanent Court of International Justice. The Court shall be competent to hear and determine any dispute of an international character which the parties thereto submit to it. The Court may also give an advisory opinion upon any dispute or question referred to it by the Council or by the Assembly’. It held its first session in The Hague in 1922 at which Drummond said ‘there have been various well-distinguished marks in the progress of mankind. The opening of the Court is not the least of these’. In 1946, under a new name, the International Court of Justice, the Court recommenced its work; it was initially led by the same President and effectively applied the PCIJ’s rules for the first 25 years of its existence. aTams,

C. and Malgosia, F. (2013), Legacies, p. 3

* * * Because of these financial constraints, the infant League came to life in cramped headquarters. As the Secretariat expanded, Drummond moved first to 117 Piccadilly, described to Mantoux as being ‘offices big enough for a provisional organization, not much luxury, a Spartan simplicity, few keys—doubtless because of the principle that the League has twisted the neck of secret diplomacy’.49 On arrival, he had a telephone and a few pieces of furniture but not much else. Even after acquiring additional space in Sunderland House, the sumptuous former home of the Duke

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of Marlborough situated four blocks away on Curzon Street, offices were small and inconvenient for the growing staff; Crowdy for instance, had to fight with Colban for space and took over an office vacated by Nicolson after refusing to accept the ‘cupboard assigned to her’.50 Other staff and visitors however, found the quarters welcoming and were excited by the frantic and pressurized pace. Fosdick commented that a visitor to the League could not help being struck by the variety of work being undertaken by people of many nationalities, as well as by its practical applicability to matters of vital importance. Food, coal and health were its concerns rather than boundaries and indemnities and, while the Paris Conference sat down ‘with a map and a ruler to make a new heaven and a new earth, the League Officials [were] taking first steps to protect vast populations from starvation and disease, and to re-establish the economic life of the world’.51 Fosdick had recognized, from the outset, the importance of the League’s technical work which came to prominence as humanitarian and economic crises unfolded, even though it had received little attention in the Covenant. Thus, this immediate practical work drew on the experience of League technical experts, as opposed to diplomatic staff. The world’s problems were brought to the door of the Secretariat in its temporary headquarters. Fighting continued on the eastern fringes of Europe; strikes and uprisings plagued industrial centres; an economic slump increased unemployment and hunger; and epidemic disease and humanitarian crises affected millions of people especially in Russia. As the League pushed ahead with its internationalist agency-building, the Secretariat became responsible for administering the territory of the Saar and the Free City of Danzig. It was also being asked to consider ways of alleviating the international economic crisis, and to help those affected by ethnic conflict.52 Drummond had to deal with all these issues at a time when he was immersed in determining the Secretariat’s composition, with planning the move to a permanent home, fighting for finance, and facing the existential question of US participation. Barros likened Drummond to the mythical Sisyphus, condemned to roll continuously uphill the heavy stone of America’s non-membership of the League, only to have it topple back.53 In August 1919, at the first of his regular meetings with his Directors, Drummond said there was an urgent need ‘for the economic condition of the world to be discussed’.54 He and his colleagues were operating before the Versailles Treaty came into force and every day’s delay made

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things worse in Europe, the odium for this unjustly falling upon the League.55 The first conference planned by the League, and for which several staff were immediately recruited, was the Brussels International Financial Conference. It was the League’s one permanent organ, the International Secretariat that stepped forward immediately to begin implementing the Covenant. Among the many problems that fell into the Secretariat’s lap was the management of issues that stemmed from the fall of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. Here Colban and William Rappard put systems in place that adhered to principles set in Paris, the former to protect minorities within the multi-ethnic states formed by the Peace Treaties, and the latter to ensure that the mandated territories of the former Empires were governed in the interests of indigenous populations.56 The Secretariat’s operations extended into this line of work through a gradual accumulation of functions, a process of ‘defining by doing’.57 As the League’s prime function was to defuse conflict between nations, Drummond devised a mechanism for resolving differences. His impartial Secretariat would draw up objective statements indicating those points on which conflicting parties seemed to be in accord; consequently discussion would then be limited to matters where divergence of view existed, thereby increasing the chances of reaching a settlement. The execution of decisions would subsequently be entrusted to himself and colleagues who, being the servants of all the Member States, could be relied upon to carry them out with complete freedom from national bias.58 The International Secretariat was not to be a locus for political activity but was rather a body that served the Members with objectivity and especially to provide them with facts.59 In assessing the work of the League’s first 10 months, there was an ambivalence about its expansion into technical and humanitarian issues. Some saw the League primarily as a peace-keeping and a political body rather than a technical organization, pointing out that the latter had only two or three articles of the Covenant against 23 for the others. In Monnet’s optique, however, the League was viewed more broadly, as an organization for international cooperation, and he was ‘not inclined to sit on the sidelines’.60 Fosdick too was a strong supporter of the non-political functions outlined in Articles 23 and 24 of the Covenant—control of disease; the trafficking in women, children and dangerous drugs; communications and transit.61 Extending the

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scope of international cooperation required the consent of the League’s governing bodies and budgetary approval. The British League official Konni Zilliacus offered the following explanation of the difference on the one hand, between the Council and Assembly and on the other, the Secretariat-General; a distinction that even today bedevils public understanding of how international organizations function: The Secretariat … is no more the ‘League of Nations’ than the State Department in Washington is the ‘United States of America’. In fact even less so: the United States is a federal system, whereas the League is an association of independent states that maintain their sovereignty unimpaired.62

Much of Drummond’s time and energy was spent dealing with the uncertainty in America over the ratification of the Versailles Peace Treaty. He announced at a staff meeting in August 1919 that ‘it is more important than ever for the staff to avoid doing anything which could provide ammunition for the opponents in America. For this reason, it would be best for the present not to make any further appointments to the staff’.63 The League’s governing bodies only began to operate when the Treaty of Versailles was ratified on 10 January 1920. Six days later, the Council held a first short meeting in the Clock Room of the French Foreign Ministry. The New York Times reported how nine men gathered about a green-covered table in one end of the salon of crimson and gold and put in motion the machinery of the most ambitious experiment in government man has ever essayed.64 A fuller meeting took place in London a month later in the historic Picture Gallery of St. James’s Palace. Balfour caught the attention of the world’s press, saying ‘we are eight instead of nine’, referring to the US’s vacant chair. The Council was convened on ten occasions in five European cities before the first Assembly met in Geneva. US opposition to the League caused Drummond to lose one of his closest colleagues and collaborators (Text Box 4.2). Fosdick resigned in early 1920, saying that ‘the continued lack of decision as to America’s course places me personally in a position of peculiar embarrassment’.65 The extent to which Drummond felt this loss is expressed in a letter from League official Huntington Gilchrist, in which he tells Fosdick that ‘Drummond said two or three times lately that he really must have someone to assist him in handling such questions as you and he were accustomed to go over together last summer and fall … Monnet does

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not enjoy looking over papers and giving the careful consideration to some of the memoranda and specific problems which are presented for the opinion and action by the SG. Drummond feels very much the need of your assistance in that direction …’.66 In March 1920, the US Senate finally decided against ratifying the Treaty. While Fosdick felt obliged to leave the Secretariat, Drummond persuaded other Americans, notably Sweetser, to remain.67 He explained to his friend Kerr (now editor of the News Chronicle) that his strategy was to welcome a US presence at conferences held by the League for humanitarian objectives, such as the suppression of the opium trade, international health and traffic in women and children.68 The United States did participate in such activities and later in the ILO. * * * Text Box 4.2  Raymond Fosdick (1883–1972)a Born in Buffalo, New York State, a rigid religious upbringing shaped Fosdick’s career in public and philanthropic service. He was educated at Princeton where a chance meeting with the new University President, Woodrow Wilson, marked the start of a long friendship throughout which Fosdick was much influenced by Wilson’s commitment to internationalism and world peace. After graduating, Fosdick went to law school and then was appointed as Commissioner of Accounts by the Mayor of New York City. It was during this time that he met another influential figure in his life, John D. Rockefeller Jr., who asked him to undertake a study on prostitution for his recently created Bureau of Social Hygiene, thus laying the foundation for Fosdick’s lifelong interest in and commitment to social and humanitarian issues. During his brief time in the Secretariat, he was of enormous help to Drummond and made a lasting mark in establishing the structure of the organization. His interest in social hygiene lay behind his admiration for Crowdy whom he supported for the post of Head of the Social Section. After leaving the League, Fosdick returned to work with the Rockefeller Foundation where he continued to sustain the League, in particular by securing funding for its non-political work, particularly on health. Long after leaving the League he succeeded in keeping US nationals involved in such activities. He was also instrumental in obtaining Rockefeller’s grant of $2 million for the League’s Library. A personal tragedy befell him in 1932 when his wife of 20 years succumbed to mental illness, killing both herself and their two children. Fosdick, however, remarried in 1936 and was appointed President of the Rockefeller Foundation—a post he held until his retirement in 1948. aMiller,

L.A. (2015), ‘Raymond Blaine Fosdick’

* * *

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Geneva was finally accepted as the League’s permanent home—warmly by most, grudgingly by a few. Cecil had favoured Geneva because he thought the ‘League should not be situated in the capital city of any country’ and because he saw the advantages of a central location.69 The French, however, continued to push for Brussels, aided from the inside by Monnet. The proponents of Geneva won the argument that the League should be sited in Switzerland, which was a republic, democratic and non-sectarian, and ‘vowed to absolute neutrality by its constitution and its blend of races and languages’.70 Geneva, with its rich history of independence, neutrality and as a refuge, was a natural host for the organization. In the first half of the sixteenth century, it had welcomed Jean Calvin, John Knox and other reformateurs as part of the ferment of Protestant revolutions sweeping parts of Europe. In the late eighteenth century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was exporting the enlightenment philosophy of his home town in a manner that heavily influenced the French revolution. Pressure from another Genevois, Henri Dunant, led to the establishment in 1863 of what was to become the International Committee of the Red Cross and the beginnings of Geneva as the world’s centre for humanitarianism. Drummond and Monnet visited Geneva to select finally a building that could accommodate the fledging Secretariat. House, on an earlier visit to Geneva, had thought that the Hotel National might serve that purpose.71 On a sunny August afternoon in 1920, they stood on the right bank of Lake Geneva; behind was the Hotel National and, in front, across the shining waters, rose the snow-capped majestic Mont Blanc. It was this view that led Drummond to settle on the Hotel, then undergoing restoration, as the home for the League. Following his visit, Drummond asked the city to make the Hotel National available for the Secretariat and the old Salle de la Réformation for the Assembly. Thus was born ‘Genève internationale’ which, through much adaptation and change over the ensuing century, is still such an important element of the city. Putting the choice of Geneva into effect was far from plain sailing. Establishing the seat in Geneva required Swiss membership of the League and Swiss adhesion was delayed, first by the need for the League to recognize the country’s permanent neutrality and then by the need for a national referendum on membership. The referendum, which took place on 16 May 1920, authorized membership but, whilst there was a clear majority in the popular vote, the cantonal vote was very close as only 13 of the 25 Swiss cantons voted in favour.72

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In spite of the referendum’s favourable result, the Council at its meeting in Rome in May 1920, unanimously asked Wilson (who was bound by Article 5 to convene the Assembly) whether he might consider convening it in Brussels.73 Rappard pressed the merits of Geneva.74 Then, on 3 June 1920, the Governing Body of ILO met. Thomas, concerned that delay in determining the headquarters of the League would jeopardize the successful launching of the work of his Organisation, aggressively pushed the ILO Governing Body to decide while awaiting a definite decision of the League, to establish ILO’s seat at Geneva.75 ILO staff transferred from London to Geneva on Bastille Day 1920 and were met at Brig Station by the Delegate from the Swiss Federal Council, a leap of faith given that the League had not yet made the decision to move to Geneva.76 The issue was finally settled by Wilson’s cable to Drummond in July 1920, summoning the Assembly to ‘convene in the city of Geneva on 15 November 1920 at eleven o’clock’.77 Thus, after numerous obstacles and delays, Drummond and the staff packed their bags and left London in a hired train for the League’s permanent home. Years later, the Secretariat perceived it as being akin to the confident and courageous departure to the New World of the Mayflower pilgrims.78 Many of the 160 members were accompanied by their families and among the passengers was Lady Drummond (baby Gillian was 8 months old). In Paris, the entourage could not find taxis to take them from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon, since there was a taxi strike, but Major Anthony Buxton (Text Box 5.3) saved the situation by boldly stopping a big lorry and getting it to transport them.79 Drummond and senior members of the Secretariat broke their journey in Brussels to attend a meeting of the Council, while the bulk of the travellers continued their journey to Geneva. When the train arrived there on 28 October 1920, they received a red carpet welcome from the President of the Swiss Republic and the mayor, who hosted a magnificent breakfast in the station restaurant.80 It was left to Ames and Colban to thank the Conseil d’État for their welcome to the staff and their families.81 The train bringing Drummond, USG Anzilotti, Buxton, Joan Howard and the chief interpreter, Henri Parodi arrived a few days later, the Secretary-General’s party having been previously welcomed at Lausanne. Drummond was profoundly touched by the warm welcome and gave an elegant address to the Cantonal authorities, expressing the hope that the internationals would soon be seen, not as foreigners, but as fellow citizens. He also praised Switzerland for its commitment to and adoption

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of the Covenant, which he saw as a good augur for the future of the League.82 They arrived just in time to prepare for the first Assembly, which met from 15 November to 18 December 1920. The Secretariat established its reputation more rapidly and more solidly than the League’s other organs.83 Its members developed a corporate sense under Drummond, a pride in the good reputation of their services.84 The achievement of the early officials was facilitated by their youthfulness and by good interpersonal relations. The latter had largely developed prior to their joining the League: in the urgency and exigence of wartime work, they had demonstrated their professional expertise and competence one to another. Most remarkable of all was their transnationalism. Drummond and his senior colleagues had none of the bigoted attitudes displayed by national bureaucrats of the time towards other nationalities (Hankey once referred to three distinguished League Commissioners in derogatory, racist terms).85 It is an irony that Drummond’s difficulties were not within his Secretariat, but externally with the two most powerful Member States, when he was confronted by the French Government’s obduracy and the British Government’s apathy. France’s confidence in the League was initially fragile. There was a paranoia that the whole business was stage-­managed by the Anglo-Saxons, who would continue to control it. Drummond experienced first-hand this ambivalence and vented his frustration to Cecil.86 He despaired of France’s lack of commitment, saying that ‘the French Government while professing fervent support of the League turned down every proposal made to utilize the League or its organs in concrete instances’.87 Five years of Anglo-French tȇte à tȇte at the Assemblies brought matters back into perspective and French politicians eventually succumbed to the ‘esprit de Genève’.88 During one Council meeting, the date of a subsequent meeting was proposed for the month of June; the Secretariat asked if the date could be fixed a few weeks earlier and Briand asked why. Drummond whispered something in his ear. ‘Je vois’, said the French politician, raising his arm and going through the motions of casting a fishing rod.89 However, in the UK as in France, many old-school politicians were isolationist and hated the international cooperation that the Covenant required: British policy tended to elbow the League out of the chief problems of the world.90 Lloyd George arranged a meeting with Clemenceau in Paris, on the League, behind Drummond’s back.91 He remained wholeheartedly against the League, was contemptuous of

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Drummond and thought that British nationals in the Secretariat needed to be stronger.92 Drummond felt that, with the fast-developing interdependence of the world as an economic unit, time was running on his side and the sheer necessities of the situation would ‘force the growth of some kind of world organization, even if we were to muff this particular attempt’.93 A French commentator judged that Drummond was not a man for heavy weather. It was the League’s good fortune, however, that it had handed the helm to James Eric Drummond. The perceptive author, Max Beer, later observed that the Secretary-General had not been appointed to embark on adventurous courses, but rather to command prudently the giant vessel that was the League.94 Noel-Baker had the insight to see that the importance of the institutions in Geneva lay not in what they were in their early days, but in what they would become. It is the outcome of this growth that gives so great a claim to our attention to them today.95 At Easter 1921, Drummond took a well-earned fortnight’s holiday.96 The timing was significant; the Mayflies were beginning to hatch and his precious leave was mostly spent with a fly rod in hand on the Areuse. Swiss trout proved more elusive than their Scottish counterparts and the catch was meagre, weighing in at 6 lb, 1 oz and one-quarter.97

Endnotes

1. De Maistre, J. (1836), Les Soirées de Saint Pétersbourg, p. 16. 2.  Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 18; Manson, J. (2007), ‘Leonard Woolf’, p. 8; Ross, A. (1950), Constitution of the United Nations, p. 13. 3. NLS, Elibank Ms 8006, House to Cecil, 24 June 1918, p. 40. 4.  Manson, J. (2007), ‘Leonard Woolf’, p. 3; Noel-Baker, P. (1969), ‘Mr. Leonard Woolf: Vision of International Cooperation’, The Times, Thursday, 21 August, 8f. 5. Morgan, K. (2012), ‘Number 10 under Lloyd George 1916–1922’. 6. Stb7/1/1/1, Drummond to House, 5 April 1917. 7. NLS, Elibank Ms 8005, Drummond to Murray, 18 January 1918. 8.  Holthaus, L., and Steffek, J. (2016), ‘Experiments in International Administration’, p. 8. 9. Stienstra, D. (1994), Women’s Movements and International Organizations, p. 54. 10. Zimmern, A. (1936), The League of Nations, p. 186.

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11. HL, Phillimore, 16 November 1927, vol. 69 cc62–110. 12.  Zimmern, A. (1936), The League of Nations, pp. 160–1; Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, pp. 28–9; Smuts, J. (1918), The League of Nations, p. vi. 13. Mazower, M. (2009), No Enchanted Palace, p. 14. 14. Wells, H.G. (1923), The Outline of History, p. 1258. 15. Monnet, J. (1978), Memoirs, p. 80. 16. Zimmern, A. (1936), The League of Nations, pp. 238–9. 17.  Stb7/1/2/1, ‘The League of Nations, Sketch Plan of Organisation’ (attributed in pencil to Hankey), Villa Majestic Paris, 31 March 1919. 18. Bendiner, E. (1975), A Time for Angels, p. 133. 19. Stienstra, D. (1994), Women’s Movements, pp. 55–7. 20. Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, p. 23. 21. Stb7/1/1/, Hankey to Drummond, 13 October 1920. 22. LONA, Section 25, Document 257, Dossier 111, Paper of Philip Baker. 23. Stb7/1/2/1, Memorandum, 16 August 1919; LONA, Drummond to Jean Gout, Délégation Françoise aupres de la SDN, 10 December 1920. 24. LONA, Minutes of First Meeting of the Organisation Committee of the League of Nations. 25. Langrod, G. (1963), The International Civil Service, p. 174, quoted in ‘L’ancienne Société et la nouvelle ONU’, Dictionnaire diplomatique, p. 106. 26. Kerr, P. (1919), ‘The Practical Organization of Peace’. 27. LONA, R1455, Section 29, Document 301, Dossier 255, Auchincloss Memorandum, 20 May 1919. 28. LONA, R1455. Section 29, Document 266, Dossier 255, Wiseman to Drummond, 30 April 1919. 29. YUA, Auchincloss Papers, BS580, III, Box 10, Folder 259, Memorandum of Conversation, 14 May, Hotel Crillon. 30. YUA, Auchincloss Papers, BS580, III, Box 10, Folder 259, Memorandum of Conversation, 21 May, Hotel Crillon. 31. LONA, Section 29, Document 262, Dossier 255, Drummond Memorandum, London, 31 May 1919. 32.  Stb7/1/1/2 Drummond, General Observations and Method of Communication with National Governments, June 1919. 33.  LONA, R1455, Section 29, Document 266, Dossier 255, Hankey ‘A Sketch Plan of Organisation’, 31 March 1919; Stb7/1/2/1, ‘The League of Nations, Sketch Plan of Organisation’, 31 March 1919; Habermann-Box, S. (2014), ‘From the League of Nations to the United Nations’, pp. 16–7.

88  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. 34.  LONA, Box 1332, 22/2382/2382 and 22/271/133, Kearley letter of 12 November 1919 and Drummond article ‘Seeing Past National Boundaries’ in The Guardian. 35.  Drummond, E. (1931), ‘The Secretariat of the League of Nations’, pp. 228–38. 36.  Rappard, W. (1929), Uniting Europe: The Trend of International Cooperation Since the War, p. 211. 37. Finch, G. (1920), ‘The Work of the League of Nations’, p. 627. 38. Stb7/1/2/1, Drummond to Cecil, 18 August 1919. 39. Stb7/1/2/1, Drummond to Cecil, 18 August 1919. 40. Fosdick, R. (1972), The League and the United Nations After Fifty Years, p. 23. 41. Fosdick, R. (1966), Letters on the League of Nations, 4 May 1919. 42. Bendiner, E. (1975), A Time for Angels, p. 134. 43. Fosdick, R. (1966), Letters on the League of Nations, letter to Mrs Fosdick, 31 July 1919. 44.  Howard-Ellis, C. (1928), The Origins, Structure and Working of the League of Nations, p. 432. 45.  Egerton, G. (1979), Great Britain and the Creation of the League of Nations, p. 172. 46. Colban, E. Tr. Halvorsen, D. (1952), Femti År, p. 65. 47.  Gorman, D. (2012), The Emergence of the International Society in the 1920s, p. 63. 48. Phelan, E.J. (1949), Yes and Albert Thomas, p. 11. 49. Bendiner, E. (1975), A Time for Angels, p. 135. 50. Crowdy-Thornhill, R.E. (undated post 1945), To Ourselves Unknown. 51. Fosdick, R., (1920), ‘The League of Nations is Alive’. 52. Mazower, M. (2012), Governing the World: The History of an Idea, p. 146. 53. Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 37. 54. LONA, Minutes of Directors Meetings, 13 August 1919. 55. LONA, Minutes of Directors Meetings, 3 September 1919. 56. Smejkal, T. (2010), Protection in Practice, p. 21; Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, pp. 1–4. 57.  Borowy, I. (2009), Coming to Terms with World Health, pp. 32–3; Mazower, M. (2012), Governing the World, p. 143. 58. Graham, N., and Jordan, R. (1980), The International Civil Service, p. 7. 59. Sweetser, A. (1920), The League of Nations at Work, p. 79. 60. Pedersen, S. (2007), ‘Back to the League of Nations’, p. 1093; LONA, Directors Meeting 15, 20 May 1921. 61. Fosdick, R. (1966), Letters on the League of Nations, Fosdick to Newton Baker, 15 August 1919. 62. Williams, R. (1923), The League of Nations Today, Chapter IV.

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63. LONA, Directors’ Meeting, 27 August 1919. 64. Sweetser, A. (1920), The League of Nations at Work, p. 44. 65. Fosdick, R. (1966), Letters on the League of Nations, Statement to the Press, 19 January 1920. 66. Fosdick, R. (1966), Letters on the League of Nations, Huntington Gilchrist to Fosdick, 22 January 1920. 67. Stb7/3/3/2, Sweetser to the Countess of Perth, 22 December 1951. 68. NRS, GD40/17/82, Drummond to Kerr, 18 January 1922; Yearwood, P. (2009), Guarantee of Peace: The League of Nations in British Policy, p. 159. 69. Cecil speaking at the Commission on the League of Nations, 10 April 1919, quoted in Rappard, W. (1929), Uniting Europe, p. 239. 70. Wilson speaking at the Commission on the League of Nations, 10 April 1919, quoted in Rappard W. (1929), Uniting Europe, p. 239. 71. Aykroyd, W.R. (1968), ‘International Health—A Retrospective Memoire’. 72.  Årgauer Tagblatt, 17 May 1920; LONA, R1446 28/4398/44. 73. Conwell-Evans, P. (1929), The League Council in Action, p. 89. 74. Rappard, W. (1929), Uniting Europe, p. 242. 75. Phelan, E. (1949), Yes and Albert Thomas, pp. 19–20. 76. Djokitch, A. (1973), Staff Union of the International Labour Office: Its Origins, pp. 19–20. 77. Quoted in Rappard, W. (1929), Uniting Europe, p. 243. 78. Stb7/1/4/6 1932–3, Union, Editorial. 79. Colban, E. Tr. Halvorsen, D. (1952), Femti År, pp. 65–72. 80. Crowdy-Thornhill R.E. (undated post–1945), To Ourselves Unknown. 81. Journal de Genève, 31 October 1920. 82. Gazette de Lausanne, 31 October 1920. 83. Walters, F. (1952), History of the League of Nations, pp. 419–21. 84. Walters, F. (1952), History of the League of Nations, pp. 76–7. 85. Rudman, S. (2011), Lloyd George, pp. 121–3. 86. BL, Cecil, MSS ADD 51099, Drummond to Cecil, 22 June 1923. 87. BL, Cecil, MSS ADD 51110 Drummond to Cecil, 24 July 1924 quoted in Gellardi, A. (1982), Sir Eric Drummond, Britain’s Ambassador to Italy, p. 60. 88. Aubert, L. (1925), ‘France and the League of Nations’. 89. Buxton, A. (1932), Sporting Interludes in Geneva, p. 94. 90. Butler, H. (1941), The Lost Peace, p. 37. 91. NRS, GD40/17/82, Drummond to Kerr, 10 September 1919; Riddell, G. (1933), Lord Riddell’s Intimate Diary of the Peace Conference, entry 18 December 1920. 92. NCA, Loveday MSS, Box 31, 2 April 1922.

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93. Fosdick, R. (1966), Letters on the League of Nations, letter to Mrs Fosdick, 31 July 1919. 94. Beer, M. (1933), The League on Trial, pp. 217–8. 95. Noel-Baker, P. (1926), The League of Nations at Work, p. 128. 96. LONA, Directors’ Meeting, 17 March 1921. 97. Stb7/4/9 ‘Sportsman’s Record’, 1–15 April 1921.

CHAPTER 5

The International Secretariat and Its Ethos

If the Secretariat staff found working conditions inconvenient in London, they must have wondered what they had signed themselves up to during those first months in Geneva. In its early years ‘the League lived in hotels with its mountains of documents filed in bathtubs’.1 The Secretariat, which comprised some 180 officials in 1920, was installed in the former Hotel National. The work of the League started there under conditions that Kelen described as ‘truly pixilated’, while those at the Hotel Victoria, where the Assembly met, were merely eccentric (Text Box 5.1). It was to remain thus until the League moved into the specially designed Palais des Nations in 1936 (see Chapter Note 1). * * * Once settled in Geneva, Drummond’s attention turned towards seeking a nationality and gender balance in the Secretariat, decisions which were to shape the way in which the staff was built up. Although the Covenant said nothing about the nationality of staff, from the earliest days Drummond was under considerable pressure from Members, especially the Great Powers, to meet their expectations in terms of the geographical distribution of nationalities in senior appointments (see Chapter Note 2).2 At the same time, the International Women’s Organizations (IWOs) which had lobbied for the provision in Article 7 of the Covenant, continued to apply pressure to adhere to the provision ‘that all posts in the Secretariat be open to men and women’.3 The first two Assemblies were © The Author(s) 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0_5

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92  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. Text Box 5.1  Arrangements at the Hotel National and the Hotel Victoriaa At the Hotel National, an ageing dog still in residence from hotel days would lie by the steps at the entrance on the carpet. Drummond’s corner office on the first floor was a sunny room with beautiful views over the lake, where Franz Joseph’s sister-in-law Countess Mathilde von Trani had once stayed. He furnished it with plain, comfortable furniture and, hanging on a wall, he had a map marked with the pools on the Versoix River favoured by three large elusive trout—Moses, Aaron and Ham. Adjacent rooms were allotted to the Deputy Secretary-General. The departments of the Under Secretaries were at the opposite end of the building. The various Sections were mainly located on the next two floors. Ancillary services such as those of translators, typing staff and the elaborate but most efficient Archives Department were located at the top of the building. Assembly meetings were held at the Salle de la Réformation, in the old city, situated some two kilometres away across the lake from the Hotel National. The building, an annex of the Hotel Victoria, was a barn-like structure, intended for concerts, lectures and Calvinist worship. It had to be entered through the Hotel lobby where Philippe, the porter, bowed to distinguished diplomats arriving under the cover of a special marquee erected by the Canton of Geneva. This was ‘the only lobby of any parliament in the world that had a piano with a lace doily on it. Here you could see if you stayed long enough … the Aga Khan … the Maharaja of Kapukala … and keeping an eye on her husband’s orphan offspring was Mrs Woodrow Wilson’. The League ran a motor-car shuttle between the Assembly and the central services of the Secretariat at the Hotel National. aHotel National: Buxton, A. (1932), ‘Sporting Interludes in Geneva’; Noel Baker, P. (1926), The League of Nations at Work, pp. 56–65; Beer, M. (1933), The League on Trial, pp. 191–200. Hotel Victoria: Kelen, E. (1964), Peace in Their Time, pp. 125–8; Howard-Ellis, C. (1929), The Origins, Structure and Working of the League of Nations, pp. 170–1

decisive moments for establishing a truly independent secretariat and Gram-Skjoldager and Ikonomou described how the Secretary-General’s authority over choosing staff, together with settled regulations for staff selection, came to be firmly established over the years 1920–1922.4 Personnel were graded into three ‘Divisions’ according to the character of duties performed, and were either locally or internationally recruited. The ‘First Division’ (one-quarter of the total), was a category that included leadership posts as well as ‘Members of Section’ who undertook the core analytical, research, and administrative work, and was recruited with regard to the Secretariat’s international character. The ‘Second Division’ was the largest, making up two-thirds of the staff in 1930; it embraced clerical staff and was equally divided between those recruited locally and internationally. The ‘Third Division’ was almost entirely locally recruited and included janitors, porters, receptionists and telephone operators.

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When selecting candidates for posts in the First Division, Drummond first indicated the nationality from which he would prefer to find a candidate. The best persons, in terms of competence, were then sought, sometimes narrowing the choice to a shortlist from that nationality. Next, if Drummond thought it necessary, the League representative of the country in question would be confidentially contacted to ascertain if the candidate’s government had any objections to the appointment. If objections were raised based on valid reasons, Drummond had to accept them since he could not afford to jeopardize his relations with that government.5 The prime importance of maintaining a strictly international character worked against women. Women from the Great Powers found that national quotas were filled by male compatriots who, unlike them, had essential experience in international politics, and few women from smaller states had international qualifications or experience.6 Those who were selected did not enjoy equal standing with men. Crowdy while doing the same job as those heading a Section, was never given the rank of ‘Director’, but rather that of ‘Head of Section’ which was remunerated about 25% lower. When she was replaced in 1931 by a male Swedish diplomat, he was appointed at the higher rank and salary7 although the subsequent male who followed him reverted to the rank of Head of Section. Drummond left it to his long-suffering secretary, ‘Tiger’ Howard, to explain to so many capable women applicants that there were no positions available—except perhaps in lower grades. In 1931, just under half of the 718 staff members were internationally recruited and, while there were equal numbers of women and men, the vast majority of women were in the ‘Second Division’.8 Most found themselves doing ‘routine’ work, the supportive tasks thought to require a good educational standard and superior technical skills. Such was the League’s appeal that many well-qualified women accepted junior positions, leading continental observers to comment that ‘the League’s clerical staff, and especially its British contingent, was both socially more elite and educationally much better qualified than was the office staff of any purely national administration’.9 A caricature from those days, showing a poised ‘perfect secretary’ (Illustration 5.1) suggests that this large contingent of staff played a significant role in making the new international organization an efficient one.10 Internal promotions were prioritized under staff statutes established in 1921.11 This early personnel policy benefitted women serving in the Second Division. In the life of the League, three-quarters of the 22 women who eventually became

94  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. Illustration 5.1  A poised League of Nations Secretary, caricature by Branimir Petrovic, United Nations Archives at Geneva

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‘Members of Section’ were promoted out of the Second Division, as opposed to only very few men. In later years, the creation of an ‘Intermediate Class’ of positions that were slightly better paid but still formally in the Second Division was a strategy to accommodate some of those doing ‘administrative’ work beyond their grade.12 Despite the hurdles, however, women at all levels were able to make a significant contribution to the League’s work—even if they often failed to receive credit for their achievements. One of those working beyond their grade was Nancy Williams, who had a First Class Honours degree in Classics. She accepted a position in 1920 as a stenographer just to get her foot in the door. Very quickly, and while still holding the formal rank of a Second Division clerk, she was running, virtually single-handedly, the League’s entire personnel activities. Only after many years did she succeed in being promoted to ‘Member of Section’ but, when she finally left Personnel to join the Minorities Section, the Czech male diplomat who replaced her was immediately accorded the rank of Director at a salary several times higher. Gertrude Dixon held a Doctor of Science degree and had been a biology lecturer before working for the wartime Commission on Wheat Supplies and helping with the work of the Supreme Economic Council during the Peace Conference—work that landed her the job of Private Secretary to Monnet when he became Drummond’s Deputy. When Monnet left she was discontented and, after threatening to resign, took over editing the Official Journal; by that time, she was responsible for the final checking of crucial Council and Assembly documents. Her protest to Drummond that she was doing work equally as complex as a Member of Section fell on deaf ears until 1929, when her Italian supervisor succeeded in promoting her.13 The American Florence Wilson, who attended the Peace Conference as a liaison officer of the American Library Association, was recruited to establish the Library. She was taken on at a relatively low rank, although assuming the duties and responsibilities of Chief Librarian (see Chapter 7).14 More successful was the German-born Lady Mary Blennerhassett, who joined the Secretariat as a translator in 1919. She had perfect English, French, German and Italian, as well as proficient Spanish and Portuguese. Her supervisor protested to Drummond that she was his best translator and should be given the same rate of pay as the men. This time Drummond, who had a soft spot for titles, agreed and she was eventually promoted in 1932 to head the English interpretation section.15

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Crowdy (Illustration 5.2) was the most notable senior woman and was supported in her position by the international women’s movement. She repaid these lobbyists by working from within to get issues of importance to women on the League’s agenda, by supporting women delegates at the Assembly and by pushing for the appointment of non-governmental women experts/assessors on committees and commissions (Text Box 5.2). * * * Text Box 5.2  Rachel Crowdy (1884–1964)a The extraordinary life and career of Rachel Crowdy is covered in two short biographies, which are supplemented by her own unpublished autobiography. Born in London she trained as a nurse with a diploma in pharmacy. During the First World War, after working with volunteer nursing units attached to the Territorial Army in Britain, she was put in charge of all Voluntary Aid Detachments on the continent, setting up rest stations throughout France and Belgium—work that resulted in her being made a Dame of the British Empire in 1919. When Drummond was seeking a senior woman for the Secretariat, Crowdy was on his shortlist, but on receiving his letter asking her to join the League, she hesitated: ‘I argued that there were other women who were better qualified and that someone should be appointed who had fought for the special interests of women more than myself. I had never wanted women qua women to hold any post. I only wanted equal opportunity. I had no great belief that a League of Nations could put an end to war for all time … yet a troubled voice within me argued that if there were only a 50% possibility of the horrors I had seen in France being prevented, I must cut in on this League of Nations gamble’. After being interviewed by Drummond in Boulogne, at the house of his friend Lady Caernarvon, she made her decision. Crowdy had many close friends in the Secretariat, particularly Philip Noel-Baker with whom she had a strong (and rumoured amorous) relationship (see Chapter Note 3) and her secretary and wartime chauffeur Norah Figgis. Fosdick says of Crowdy ‘I doubt if there was a more popular or respected person in the group [of first appointees]’. She also had friends among the delegates who came to the Council and Assembly meetings. She reported that ‘Mr. Balfour … made a great speech in support of my Convention … [and] he was always friendly and helpful’. And ‘Briand was also very friendly and very helpful to me and his speeches at the Council or Assembly on social questions were written as a rule in my section and taken to him before his comments were delivered’. Drummond felt that she was sometimes too forward with delegates. Although never a feminist, Crowdy nevertheless built up and drew support from a network of women with whom she worked extremely closely. On leaving the Secretariat in 1931, she continued her involvement in the work she had started as an assessor to both the Traffic in Women and Children and the Child Welfare Committees. She was a member of the drafting committee on the UN Convention on the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and of Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, one of the earliest human rights instruments, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1949, based on the League’s draft Convention on Prostitution of 1937. aIn paragraph 1: Prochaska, A. (2004), ‘Dame Rachel Eleanor Crowdy (1884–1964)’; Housden, M. (2014), ‘Dame Rachel Eleanor Crowdy’; In paragraph 2, Gorman, D. (2012), The Emergence of International Society in the 1920s, p. 62; In paragraph 3: Crowdy-Thornhill, R.E. (undated, post 1945), To Ourselves Unknown; Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, p. 120; Fosdick, R. (1972), The League and the United Nations, p. 24; LONA, personnel file, Rachel Crowdy, Annual Appraisal 1925 [Carton S749]; Metzger, B. (2007), ‘The League of Nations Combat of Traffic in Women and Children’, p. 26

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Illustration 5.2  Rachel Crowdy, circa 1932, University of Bristol Library, special collections, DM1584/1

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While being heavily involved with the IWOs, Crowdy was against the formation of a special League section for women (although in later life she regretted not having done more for them) and the IWOs were themselves split on this issue.16 She supported Drummond who was adamant from the start that there should be no women’s section in the Secretariat, although he recognized the power of the IWOs and, as early as 1919, spoke about the need for ‘a good woman in the Publicity Section through whom we can get in touch, for purposes of propaganda, with the various women’s organizations’.17 There was a similar reaction to the push for an annual Women’s Conference under the auspices of the League—a proposal which Drummond thought could prejudice the wider aim of having women appointed as delegates to the Assembly. Again, he felt it would be more effective to have a senior woman within the Information Section who could liaise with IWOs (and other voluntary organizations) and coordinate women’s issues.18 Such a person was eventually appointed in the form of the Lithuanian princess Gabrielle Radziwill who was supported externally by the formation of the Council for the Representation of Women in the League of Nations. Radziwill played an important role on women’s issues, heading off consideration of an Equal Rights treaty at the League (something which lacked consensus among international women’s groups), proposing instead an inquiry into the status of women. This idea was resurrected after Radziwill’s departure by her successor, the Canadian Mary McGeachy (see Text Box 8.2).19 The League’s structure is shown in Chart 5.1. Five types of organization were in due course created, each serviced by corresponding sections in the Secretariat: (1) Subsidiary Technical Organisations (Economic and Financial; Communications and Transit; and Health); (2) Permanent Advisory Commissions (including Military, Naval and Air Questions and Permanent Mandates Commissions); (3) Special and Advisory Committees (such as Traffic in Women and Children); (4) International Bureaux (such as the Nansen Office for Refugees); and (5) Institutes with an executive function (for instance, the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, Paris).20 As seen in Chapter 4, the ILO and the PCIJ were linked to the League through the budget. Twelve sections were entrusted with the Secretariat’s specialized and administrative work, the composition of staff within each section being multinational. The Secretariat also staffed a Library, and branch offices in London, Paris,

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Chart 5.1  Structure of the League and its Secretariat (circa 1930)

Rome, Berlin and The Hague (with offices opening later in both Japan and Latin America). Any initial problems involved in working in multinational teams quickly dissolved as ‘rubbing shoulders everyday’ led to increased trust and the feelings of common purpose. Crowdy noted that Secretariat members who initially had misgivings about their foreign colleagues, later began to seek their expert knowledge saying ‘I remember how in the first few months, so often I said to myself—I won’t go to the French Director—he will probably ring up the Quai D’Orsay. I won’t consult the Japanese USG for how can the East understand the West … but gradually I found myself thinking instead I must talk to my friends—we were all working in a common cause as the servants of the world, not of our nations’.21 Most staff thought in terms of serving the League rather than their own governments. When the British civil servant Sir Malcolm Delevingne told Crowdy that she would never get a post with the British government when she left the League because she had never taken the slightest opportunity to push the British point of view and had sometimes even opposed it, she answered that he had paid her the highest compliment.22 The Italian Stoppani declared himself a man who ‘would always prefer to serve an independent international organisation than any government, my own included’.23

Illustration 5.3  Staff of the Secretary-General’s Office, circa 1922, L to R: Hilda Kershaw, Belle Williams, Joan Howard, Tony Buxton, Frank Walters, Eric Drummond, Charles Manning and Emily Johnston, United Nations Archives at Geneva

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Some appointment procedures were ill-advised. A topmost post, once filled by a national of a particular country through negotiations, was then considered to be ‘owned’ by that country and vacancies were filled without due process. Thus, Monnet was succeeded by another Frenchman; Anzilotti by another Italian; and Nitobe by another Japanese. This ownership of the highest posts was much debated and seen by some as being a trend through which the national civil services secured a foothold in the Secretariat.24 It also meant that smaller powers were consistently excluded causing Carl Hambro, the Norwegian delegate, to comment at the Eighth Assembly that ‘the Great Powers only are represented in the five highest posts in the Secretariat and it is about time a national of a small Power held such a post’ (see Chapter Note 4).25 The Committee of Thirteen which investigated the Secretariat’s structure and staffing in 1930 looked into these issues and, furthermore, noted the lack of women in senior posts, in spite of Article 7. Drummond insisted that he had no preference for men and ‘in view of the limited number of women, he would be very pleased to appoint female candidates, whenever possible’.26 * * *

5.1  The ‘Spirit of Geneva’ * * * Before the League’s arrival, there was little business in Geneva besides banking. When the Federal Government decided to host the League the result was to transform the built environment, the landscape, the communications, the culture, and to some extent the language of what was in 1920 a patrician francophone city of parks and gardens. Voluntary organizations based in Geneva, came to function as a sort of secondorder secretariat.27 These included the world’s great international human­ itarian organizations, the Save the Children Union and the IWOs and they were a source of assessors and experts for the League’s committees. Other experts and scholars—many of them world-renowned figures— regularly came to Geneva to attend advisory committees. Crowdy noted that the committee with the ‘greatest bag of celebrities was probably that which dealt with Intellectual Cooperation. Einstein, with his vague charm and childlike characteristics. Marie Curie, unique not only in her

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life’s work but in the fact that no autograph hunter could obtain her signature … people who had only been names to me before became friends and acquaintances’.28 Author Ian Fleming worked briefly in the League Bureau of Intellectual Cooperation in 1930.29 The Assembly brought in delegates from all over the world and the lobby of the Hotel Victoria throbbed with a Who’s Who of the ‘Roaring 20s’. Geneva had taken on a new life as a centre of global diplomacy. In 1929, Robert de Traz introduced the term L’ ésprit de Genève, a spirit inspired by the life and work of Jean Calvin who turned Geneva into a place of refuge; by Jean-Jacques Rousseau who found in Geneva a sense of justice; and by Henri Dunant, who made the Red Cross a pillar of humanitarianism.30 The term ‘the Spirit of Geneva’ came to be used to describe the convivial interaction at the fringes of official League meetings and as shorthand for the pragmatic, upbeat atmosphere of the soft diplomacy of the League. De Madariaga described this as ‘the elusive Ariel of international politics’.31 Governments hosted parties for the League, the press, the voluntary organizations and each other. Voluntary organizations returned the favour. Lady Aberdeen (see Chapter Note 5) persuaded her close friend Drummond to host a reception of executive members of the International Council of Women (ICW) and this was followed by a dinner offered by the ICW to the President and members of the Council.32 The Villa Lammermoor, the lakeside home of British hostess Alexandrina Barton-Peel, provided an elegant setting for this type of social diplomacy. In his novel Grand Days, Frank Moorhouse’s character Edith Campbell Berry observed that ‘Assembly time was a fifth season for Geneva. The city overflowed with delegates, journalists and visitors from all over the world. A new social season at least … it disturbed and changed Geneva just as much as climatic seasons’.33 According to de Madariaga, ‘Geneva attracted a regular migration of American doves … the halls and corridors of the League were always crowded with these frustrated lovers of the League’.34 Pedersen commented that when people ‘began referring to “esprit de Genève”—they meant something more [than the Assembly, the Council and the Secretariat]. Experts, academics, NGOs, and philanthropists all supplemented the modest staff and budgets … The Secretary-General presided over that cacophony but did not control it. No one did: that was the whole point’.35 The press, encouraged by the League’s embrace of ‘open diplomacy’, also flocked to the Assembly in increasing numbers. The Bavaria Brasserie,

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the International Club and the Bar de la Presse were popular venues for the press corps and the Secretariat to meet and mix. Kelen describes how in the year of his arrival in Geneva, internationalism had infiltrated only as far as a single table at the Bavaria under the presidency of the owlish Pierre Comert, Director of the Information Section, who over beer and pretzels served information to journalists. As the League grew, shadier-looking foreigners moved in, and gradually the local burghers moved out.36 There are snippets of information, from various Assembly meetings and conferences, of quiet and comfortable interaction between delegates and the Secretariat. Playing tennis with colleagues and delegates features in the memoirs, biographies and diaries of staff. Balfour had many friends in Geneva and it was quite common to see him rapt in conversation with the beautiful Mrs. Wellington Koo, popular wife of the Chinese delegate, in the early morning on ile Rousseau.37 All of this was recorded in daily outpourings by the press, in caricatures by Derso and Kelen, and in the memoirs of staff and delegates, as well as in biographies and even works of fiction (Text Box 5.3).38 Moorhouse’s Edith Campbell Berry says that ‘as she walked to the Bavaria she felt pleasantly stateless. She thought that Geneva with its medley of languages helped people to feel stateless. Whatever she had shed of her nationality had been replaced with a sense of momentousness which she drew from her work at the League’.39 As McGeachy (on whom Edith was thought to be based) told Moorhouse many years later ‘everything in my life was connected—there was no separation of work and life. Every waking moment went to the League … It was an experiment. There were no precedents. We were all intense, and we had a sense of mission. Especially the British’.40 McGeachy clearly had a full and fulfilling life in Geneva both at work and socially. After work, she frequented the Bavaria and the Bar de la Presse which was near to the Information Section’s offices, where she enjoyed drinks with journalists; although young ladies could not go unescorted, she rarely lacked an invitation.41 She was also active in voluntary work. She belonged to a music group, learned to ski and liked playing tennis. She had many friends—some of the British delegates she met during Assembly meetings helped with her later career (see Text Box 8.2). She also organized a residence and club for graduate students and visiting scholars attending the Geneva Institut de Hautes Études Internationales and she registered there to take courses on international politics and law. She was young, attractive, unattached and had

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many male acquaintances—and even one soul mate, her boss Konni Zilliacus—although it is uncertain whether their friendship was anything other than platonic.42 Romantic involvements aside, as with many of the young people, and especially the young women who came to Geneva in the 1920s, it was the romance of the internationalist cause which sustained her, the Spirit of Geneva, a spirit that stayed with many as they went to work in new international organizations following the League’s demise. * * * Text Box 5.3  An eccentric colleaguea Genevois travelling down country lanes early in the morning often caught sight of Major Anthony Buxton shedding his knickerbockers and changing into his office clothes, having risen at dawn to watch birds. At lunch time, he would make a 25–minute drive to a river to catch trout which he kept in the Secretary-General’s wash basin. The image of the ‘mad Englishman’ was reinforced when he introduced a pack of beagles to Geneva, which brought him in conflict with the law. The yellow-coloured van, in which he transported his hunting dogs, had wire netting on its sides, giving rise to the idea among passers-by that the inmates were being taken to the asylum. Among the distinguished persons conveyed in it were Lords Balfour and Cecil. These amusing anecdotes come from Buxton’s elegantly composed memoir of his days in Geneva, in which he recorded that: Contrary to the popular belief, the League official is a busy man or woman: Leisure hours are short and business hours are long. Therefore the sport that I enjoyed with rod, rifle or camera was crammed into the corners of my Geneva life, into the hours before breakfast, about sunset or at the short weekend. Drummond tolerated such eccentricity because Buxton brought clarity of expression to the League’s work—he circulated a note that Buxton drafted with a view to raising the standard of writing. In 1926 Buxton married a cousin of Lady Drummond. aBuxton,

A. (1932), ‘Sporting Interludes in Geneva’

* * *

5.2   Ahead of Their Time * * * Whatever else came out of the great experiment of the International Secretariat, it fostered a wave of new approaches and new ventures, which were ahead of the times. These were the first-ever international civil servants with all that entailed, and the Secretariat was also the

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first-ever organization (national or international) to offer women equal access to job opportunities, work after marriage, maternity leave and in theory, equal pay for equal work. Some of these women were ‘advocates’ and ‘pioneers’. Wilson was the first woman to be head of any library in Europe. Grace Abbott (see Chapter Note 6), who sat as the unofficial American representative on the Advisory Commission on the Traffic in Women and Children, suggested that a true assessment of the situation could only be obtained through research being conducted at the field level, thus leading to field research becoming a prerequisite for informing policymaking at the League. The League’s work was ground-breaking. Countries around the world began to accept practices by international civil servants that were quite new, such as: the in-country presence of technical staff in Poland and Russia; organizing financial rescue packages for countries in economic and financial meltdown; impartial international scrutiny of large states in the case of the indigenous populations of mandated territories and of smaller states in the case of the protection of minorities; supporting the implementation of norms established by the League’s governing bodies, and the practice, championed by Monnet, of tackling international problems by bringing together specialists rather than going through diplomatic intermediaries.

The League was the first to view trafficking in women and prostitution as a social and economic problem rather than a moral one; the first to coordinate international help to refugees outside of the voluntary sector and the first to introduce official papers (the Nansen passport) for refugees. This golden age of experimentation had a multitude of successes, successes that were, unfortunately, only too quickly to be forgotten along with the extraordinary men and women who helped to bring them about. The presence of the League brought in its train much else. In the 1920s, League staff were involved in the establishment of two pedagogic institutions now of international renown. Rappard, Rajchman, Salter and Sweetser, together with senior ILO staff, established the International School of Geneva in 1924. The school, which began life

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with eight students and a rabbit in the family chalet of the well-known Swiss founder of progressive education, the Quaker Adolpe Ferriere, offered bilingual courses that sought to make the students ‘citizens of the world’. In the early years, the school thrived due to female volunteers. It was directed from 1929 to 1949 by Marie-Therese Maurette (wife of a senior ILO official) during which time she was not paid. Ruth Gregory, Sweetser’s wife, obtained a large number of donations through family connections with Chicago industrialists.43 A group of individuals associated with the League and the Rockefeller Foundation, including Rappard, Mantoux and Fosdick joined forces to establish an institute for international studies. The Institut de Hautes Études Internationales was born from the realization of the need for specialized training for international civil servants in areas that cut across the traditional academic disciplines of law, social sciences and economics. And where better to house such an institute than the world capital of international affairs, Geneva? Paul Mantoux became the first Director of the Institute, which began teaching in 1927 with 32 graduate students and 21 undergraduates preparing their licence. After an initial period in town, the Institute moved to Villa Lammermoor, the former lakeside home of Mme Barton-Peel.44 Kelen likened the League to a jilted virgin.45 During the early ‘courting’ years, Drummond and his senior colleagues set exemplary standards of competence, integrity and impartiality—an ethos that is explicit in the Standards of Conduct of today’s ICS. Although Drummond had battles to fight to keep Member States happy with the distribution of senior posts in the Secretariat, he succeeded in his ideal of maintaining a truly independent civil service that operated without undue interference from national governments. There was, of course, contact between staff and their own governments—that was the whole idea—but, in the main, it was more a case of Secretariat staff influencing their national governments rather than the other way around. * * *

5.3  Loss of Innocence * * * By the late 1920s, the Secretariat was far from being the ‘free spirit’ it had been at the beginning of the decade. In 1927 Rappard reported that

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‘several unmistakable symptoms began to appear of a gradual evolution tending towards … governments of member states taking increasing interest in the selection as League officials of their own nationals’.46 In the summer of 1927, he pointed out that of the 4 [Under Secretaries–General] appointed in 1920 – none was a professional diplomat. Today, 3 out of 4 of them are. Although still theoretically responsible to the SG alone, they, as well as many other recently appointed officials, were all chosen in close consultation with the governments of their respective countries.

He went on to say that it is more than one may expect of human nature for someone on temporary assignment from the diplomatic service of their own country to consider themselves to be solely international, and it is more than common sense will admit, that a Secretariat largely constituted of people thus seconded should be held to be entirely impartial when dealing with questions affecting the interests of their respective countries.47 Some claimed this system of reporting back to national governments had been around almost from the beginning. Kelen, for example, felt that ‘cuckoo’s eggs by the hundreds had been nurtured in the Secretariat’—Englishmen who placed more faith in the stability of the British Empire than in a collective destiny and Frenchmen unable to disengage their hearts from la belle France.48 Because the allegiance of a few in the Secretariat did lie elsewhere, rumours spread of infiltration by spies. This reached a head when the Fascist Parliament in Italy passed a law ‘by which any Italian holding any post abroad including any international post, was bound under various pains and penalties to keep in touch with the local representatives of the Italian Government and to give up such post immediately, and without the right to reason why, on being ordered to do so by his Government’ (see also Chapter Note 7). Simultaneously, Mussolini recalled USG Attolico and insisted on replacing him with Paulucci di Calboli Barone, who had been his Chef de Cabinet. Once Germany entered the League, its USG Albert Dufour-Féronce ‘considered himself as nothing other than an agent of the Wilhelmstrasse seconded to the Secretariat’s upper echelon’.49 Consequently, one commentator noted that less than ten years after the Secretariat’s establishment, ‘a national hierarchy has replaced the hierarchy of competence, and not only at the top; the evil of nationalism

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(the League called it national representation) was spreading downwards; moreover it was accompanied by a still worse evil – the increasing predominance of former diplomats and bureaucrats in posts requiring technical experience … .’50 In 1928, Hambro complained that ‘Drummond has failed to resist government pressures and appointed too many diplomats to staff positions’. Drummond’s response was that governments were indeed suggesting several more names, but that he had never taken someone who he did not think could do the job.51 Nevertheless, he felt that the situation had become so grave that he agreed that all staff members, including himself, should swear an oath of allegiance to serve the League alone (see Chapter 10). De Madariaga who was Spanish delegate at the time—and who takes credit for this happening—says ‘I was under no delusions as to the actual strength of this oath in cases such as Fascist or Communist States, or even of other nations, but I felt that even if its efficiency were not total it would be a useful moral force’.52 Although this was discussed in the Assembly as early 1928, with Hambro asserting that ‘there has been an extension of the influence of Foreign Offices in the work of the League’, it was not until 1932 that Drummond was able to introduce the Oath (based on Article 1 of the Staff Regulations). What brought about this setback? Several factors seem to have been at play. In many ways, the Secretariat seems to have been a victim of its own success. When the League was novel, delegates to Assembly and Council meetings had intermittent League duties which were never their main task, and simply delivered speeches, read reports and voted on resolutions (often drafted by the Secretariat). Beyond ensuring that they were adequately represented in the Secretariat, Governments showed little interest in who Drummond chose to be on the staff, as long as they were not persona non grata. As the League grew in importance, however, governments sent the same delegates to the Council and Assembly time-and-time again and fully briefed them so that they developed a better grasp of the organization and exercised more control over proceedings. Concurrently, governments began to take an increasing interest in the choice of their nationals recruited to the Secretariat, to ensure that they had people they trusted to keep them informed of goings-on in Geneva. As a result, Drummond had less of a say, especially on higher posts.53 Not only were governments taking a firmer role in proposing

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candidates, they were also in some cases supplementing salaries and guaranteeing that posts in the national civil service would be held for them while officers were ‘on secondment’. The League was becoming a posting where people served for a period but where they did not make their careers.54 In other words, the Secretariat was heading in the direction of that alternative constitution that Drummond had fought so hard against in 1919—one composed of officers instructed by their respective governments, rather than one composed of individuals appointed independently of governments and working within a purely independent and impartial organization. It is to Drummond’s credit that despite the upsurge in nationalism and lacklustre leadership that was to follow his tenure, the ideals of an independent ICS survived and continues today. Part of this shift in the balance of influence between the Secretariat and the Member States was the increasing trend towards having permanent representatives based in Geneva. By 1930, sixteen Member States were maintaining permanent delegations, with others using their consular agent in Geneva as diplomatic representative. One report summarized the reasons for this development, which included the cost of sending delegates to meetings from distant countries, the prolonged attendance of national participants at meetings, and the feeling by some smaller states that because they were not well represented on the Secretariat, they were not able to access ‘insider’ information. It pointed out, however, that a permanent delegate was not omniscient and no substitute for experts participating in conferences and committees.55 It was Drummond’s set policy to minimize the significance of Geneva-based permanent delegates (especially among the Great Powers) and to grant them the slightest possible recognition.56 In early 1933, the American consul in Geneva declared that Drummond’s policy in this context was that ‘the presence permanently in Geneva of diplomatic officials of high rank, would greatly reduce the position and prestige of the Secretary-General and other Secretariat officials in their role of liaison with their respective capitals; and for this reason in particular, Sir Eric is described as having been most apprehensive and resentful of the suggestion that London accredit an Ambassador to Geneva’.57 Given this, Drummond might have been surprised that New York has numerous permanent missions that interact with the Secretariat in a broadly manageable way, while following their governments’ policies.

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Notes to Chapter 5 1. The ILO which had started life in even worse accommodation than the League, moved into its own purpose-built HQ on the shore of Lake Geneva as early as 1924. 2. Appointment, tenure and particularly distribution of nationality of officials presented major problems. The 1921 Noblemaire Report laid down principles which were followed for several years (see Chapter 10). 3. Noel-Baker’s biographer states ‘There is, for her (his wife), too much of a liaison between her husband and a certain lady, a Dame Rachel Crowdy’.58 4. Eventually, they managed to get a Spanish USG appointed—Pablo D’Azcaráte. 5. Ishbel Aberdeen was a close friend of both Cecil and Drummond and used her political connections to lobby for women’s issues at the League. She was appointed the first President of the ICW in 1893—a position that she held on and off until 1936.59 6. Abbott, Director of the Child-Labor Division of the US Children’s Bureau, sat on the Advisory Commission from 1922–1934. 7.  Stoppani, then in charge of Economic Policy, was the first Italian to defy this order (in 1927) and went on to be Director of the Economic Relations Section. Rappard felt that the Italian Government’s position was perhaps not very different from that more discreetly assumed by others and that, while that position remained unchallenged by the League as a whole, it would be very difficult to consider all Secretariat members as being entirely above suspicion of national partiality in their international functions.60

Endnotes

1. Kelen, E. (1963), Peace in Their Time: Men Who Led Us In and Out of War, pp. 125–8. 2. Meyers, D.P. (1935), Handbook of the League of Nations, p. 47. 3. Lobbying before and during Versailles is covered in Chapter 8. 4. Gram-Skjoldager, K., and Ikonomou, H. (2017), ‘The Construction of the League of Nations Secretariat. Formative Practices of Autonomy and Legitimacy in International Organizations’. 5. Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 63.

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6. Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 63. 7. Pedersen, S. (undated), ‘Women and the Spirit of Geneva Between the Wars’, p. 9. 8. Meyers, D.P. (1935), Handbook of the League of Nations, p. 47; Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, pp. 78–9. 9. Pedersen, S. (undated), ‘Women and the Spirit of Geneva’. 10. Fosse, M., and Fox, J. (2014), The League of Nations: From Collective Security to Global Rearmament, p. 9. 11. LONA–R1460, Statutes for the Personnel of the Secretariat—Provisional Statutes for the Staff of the International Secretariat, Staff Regulations 1st Edition, quoted by Gram-Skjoldager, K., and Ikonomou, H. (2017), ‘The Construction of the League of Nations Secretariat’. 12. Pederson, S. (undated), ‘Women and the ‘Spirit of Geneva’’, pp. 6–9. 13. Pedersen, S. (undated), ‘Women and the ‘Spirit of Geneva’’, p. 10. 14. For more on the Library and its first Librarian see Chapter 5. 15. Pedersen, S. (undated), ‘Women and the ‘Spirit of Geneva’’, p. 11. 16. Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, Chapter 2. 17. LONA Carton R/1332, Drummond to Monnet 23 June 1919 quoted in Davies, T.R. (2015), ‘A ‘Great’ Experiment of the League of Nations Era’, p. 408. 18. Galey, M.E. (1995), ‘Forerunners in Women’s Quest for Partnership’, pp. 4–5. 19. Rupp, L.J. (1997), Worlds of Women, pp. 219–20; Kinnear, M. (2004), Woman of the World: Mary McGeachy, pp. 59–66. 20. Meyers, D.P. (1935), Handbook of the League of Nations, pp. 45–75. 21. Crowdy-Thornhill, R.E. (undated, 1920s), Work at the League of Nations. 22. Crowdy-Thornhill, R.E. (undated, 1920s), Work at the League of Nations. 23. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, p. 35. 24. De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, pp. 278–9. 25. Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 68; Howard-Ellis, C. (1929), The Origins, Structure and Working of the League of Nations, p. 185. 26. Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, p. 83. 27. Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, p. 4. 28. Crowdy-Thornhill, R.E. (undated, 1920s), Work at the League of Nations. 29. Pearson, J. (1966), The Life of Ian Fleming, p. 51. 30. De Traz, R. (1929), L’esprit de Genève. 31. De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, p. 91. 32. Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, p. 73. 33. Moorhouse, F. (1993), Grand Days, p. 199. 34.  De Madariaga, quoted in Gorman, D. (2012), The Emergence of International Society, p. 184. 35. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, p. 7.

112  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. 36. Kelen, E. (1963), Peace in Their Time, p. 188. 37. Crowdy-Thornhill, R.E. (undated, post 1945), To Ourselves Unknown. 38. Crowdy-Thornhill, R.E. (undated, post 1945), To Ourselves Unknown; Cohen, A. (1997), Belle de Seigneur; Ritchie, A. (1928), The Peacemakers. 39. Moorhouse, F. (1993), Grand Days, p. 319. 40. Moorhouse, F. (1991), ‘A Short While Towards the Sun: Meetings with Mary Craig McGeachy, Surviving Member of the League of Nations from the Twenties,’ unpublished record, November 1991, p. 12, quoted in Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, p. 89. 41. Kinnear, M. (2004), Woman of the World, p. 71. 42. Kinnear, M. (2004), Woman of the World, pp. 68–73. 43. Dugonjic, L. (2014), ‘A Miniature League of Nations: Inquiring into the Social Origins of the International School, 1924–1930’. 44. Graf, M. (2002), The Graduate Institute of International Studies Geneva. 45. Kelen, E. (1963), Peace in Their Time, p. 124. 46. Rappard, W.E. (1929), Uniting Europe, p. 217. 47.  Howard-Ellis, C. (1929), The Origins, Structure and Working of the League, p. 201. 48. Kelen, E. (1963), Peace in Their Time, p. 130. 49. Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 192. 50.  De Gomez Orbaneja, J.M. (1966), ‘The International Civil Service’, p. 330, in Brugmans, H. and Martinez-Nadal, R. (eds). Salvador de Madariaga, Liber Amicorum. 51. Rovine, A.W. (1970), The First Fifty Years: The Secretary General in World Politics, p. 38. 52. De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, pp. 279–80. 53. Rappard, W.F. (1929), Uniting Europe, p. 218. 54. Martin, M.W. (1928), ‘The Role of the Secretariat’. 55.  Bailey, S.H. (1930), ‘The League of Nations: Permanent Diplomatic Representation at Geneva’, The Spectator, 18 January. 56. Rovine, A.W. (1970), The First Fifty Years, The Secretary General in World Politics, pp. 47–8. 57. TNA, JA500, C001/802, 2 May 1933, p. 2. 58. Whittaker, D.J. (1989), Fighter for Peace Philip Noel–Baker. 59. Marjoribanks, R. (1996), ‘Ishbel Marjoribanks’; Slater, M. (2014), ‘The Noble Patroness Lady Aberdeen’; Shackleton, D.F. (1988), Ishbel and the Empire. 60.  Howard-Ellis, C. (1929), The Origins, Structure and Working of the League, p. 202.

CHAPTER 6

La Haute Direction, Impartial and Partial Officials

The personalities and achievements of those serving in the Secretariat’s higher echelons during Drummond’s tenure are described in this and the following chapter. This chapter deals with La Haute Direction— the Deputy Secretary Generals (DSGs) and Under-Secretary Generals (USGs) who, like the top-level staff in today’s UN, were political appointees. The DSG and USGs, together with the Heads of Section, formed a ‘board’ of the Secretariat which, under Drummond’s leadership, managed its work in a well-structured system that included regular Directors’ meetings. People who occupied senior positions from 1919 to 1933 are shown in Table 6.1 and in a corresponding table in Chapter 7. Britain and France were in the driving seat. Their financial contributions to the budget were similar, being greater than other Member States, and it was their top League officials, Drummond and Monnet, who brought the Secretariat into being (assisted initially by Fosdick).1 Although widely different in character, Drummond and Monnet had each followed career paths that sought practical experience rather than academic learning. In 1919 their lives intersected and an enduring friendship was forged, one that extended through two generations. Text Box 6.1 is a verbatim depiction of Monnet by Drummond’s son who, in the 1930s, became Monnet’s business partner. It is often forgotten that Monnet was Drummond’s deputy, although he served in that role only until 1923 (Illustration 6.1). During these © The Author(s) 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0_6

113

114  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. Table 6.1  Deputy and Under-Secretaries-General appointed in the period 1919–1933 Position

Incumbents (with date in office)

Deputy SGs

Monnet 1919–1922

USG—US USG—Japan

Fosdick 1919–1920 Nitobe 1919–1926a

USG—Italy

Anzilotti 1920–1921

USG—Germany

–

USG—UK

–

Avenol 1923–1933

D’Azcaráte 1933–1936

Sugimura 1927–1933b Attolico 1922–1927c Dufour 1927–1932a –

– Paulucci 1927–1933 Trendelenburg 1932–1933 Walters 1933–1939

Pilotti 1933–1937a – –

aAlso

in charge of Intellectual Cooperation and International Bureaux in charge of Political Section cAlso in charge of the Disarmament Section bAlso

years of building the Secretariat, Drummond relied heavily on him and was fortunate to find a deputy who fully embraced his ideals of internationalism. As seen in Chapter 4, Monnet was a driving force behind the development of the League’s technical work. A measure of Drummond’s respect and admiration for Monnet is that, in 1932, when he was preparing for his departure from the League, and when Monnet was experiencing a setback in his finances, he tried to persuade him to return as Secretary-General (see Chapter 3). Monnet was succeeded by Joseph Avenol, who had joined his office in 1922. Even though, like other early Secretariat members, he had worked within the economic structure of the inter-allied committees during the War, Avenol was not at home in the Secretariat’s international atmosphere. Drummond employed him on the technical side—for instance on financial reconstruction in various European countries and through a mission to China to explore how the government could utilize the League in its huge reconstruction task.2 However, he never trusted him as he had Monnet because Avenol reported back on League activities to the Quai d’Orsay.3 Drummond turned instead to Pierre Comert, as his main link with the French government.

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Text Box 6.1  Jean Monnet (1888–1979) by David Drummonda ‘In his Memoirs Monnet did not, as is generally done, say what he had done or who he saw but rather gave the mental processes by which he acted over the years and which led to the formation of institutions. He deeply believed in institutions but the institutions must have a very specific purpose. They were not mortal, they had a life and momentum of their own which, if soundly based, would prosper long after the creators had died. What kind of a man was he? Short, of peasant build, a largish head, large dark brown eyes with humour in them. He dressed carefully. He had a presence, but without pretensions. He was always welcoming, wanted to know what you thought and wanted to test all opinion. He was careful of himself and his health and went for long walks either alone or with somebody else, always thinking, thinking, thinking about the future and how to achieve it. He was a hard task master and most meticulous in presentation of documents. When a problem arose of how to proceed he would become physically affected, almost unwell and quiet. Then three or four days later he was himself again. He had found the answer. What should be the next step to get around the difficulties? Monnet had the knack of knowing who to approach and again it was not the top men dealing with the problem, not a prime minister, but rather a civil servant or personal assistant to the top man whom he would persuade … this was clearly an advantageous thing, as it meant that the top man knew, if he could achieve what he was asked to achieve, that he would get the kudos. When World War I broke out Monnet had been in Canada. He was 27. Somehow he learned that France and Britain instead of acting jointly were competing in the markets of the world, above all for shipping. Luckily, and it isn’t always luck, it just happened that he had a friend who knew French Prime Minister Viviani. Monnet saw Viviani … and persuaded him of the value and importance of joint action by France and Britain. And [Viviani] told Monnet to go out and achieve it. The outcome was the combined Anglo-France [sic] boards on food, shipping, munitions and so forth—it was a precursor of much that was to follow. At the end of the war he was appointed by French and British Prime Ministers as Under-Secretary-General under my father. There he spent nearly 4 years mainly reconstructing devastated countries of Europe. Then the family business, the Monnet Brandy, got into difficulties and he had to go and save it, so he resigned …’ aStb8/3/13/21;

Extracted from Earl of Perth’s talk to Whiz Kids, 22 February 1989

The few accounts that exist indicate that Avenol was not well-liked. De Madariaga tells us a good brain he certainly had. But very little else. No grace, not even of that awkward, charmless kind Drummond managed to turn on when he wished; nor was he, in fact, lit up inwardly by any feu sacré. What on earth he was doing in that galère of the League, God only knows, for though he was correct and never trod on the toes of the Covenant, he was as hardboiled a Realpolitiker as one could find at the time. And one thing he did utterly lack – a sense of humour.4

Loveday, writing later, described Avenol as

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Illustration 6.1  Jean Monnet, 1922, © all rights reserved, Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe, Lausanne

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a man who has never thought a genuine thought or done a generous deed, who is ruthless in his egocentricity, shameful in his cowardice and shameless in his intrigues. He has no principles, no ideas, no beliefs: he has created nothing, inspired nothing and destroyed all he has come in touch with, the institution which he was appointed to serve, his colleagues appointed to serve him, the wife he married and the country that bred him. He is friendless, creedless and homeless. He is held in unusual contempt.5

When he became the second Secretary-General in 1933, Avenol had some successes internally; his review of the League’s operations headed by Stanley Bruce of Australia resulted in the suggestion, later adopted for the UN, for an Economic and Social Organization (see Chapter 12). He took a strong stance against the Soviet Union when it invaded Finland in 1939, pressing for its expulsion from the League and organizing relief for the Finns. But he had pro-Axis and pro-Vichy sentiments. As Europe collapsed into war, he became increasingly out of his depth, desperately attempting to hold onto his post and resisting the relocation of staff to the USA to continue the League’s economic and finance work. He was eventually forced from office in August 1940 (see Chapter 9). ‘It is a sad proof of the danger of an individual to an institution, however elevated its ideals’ (Illustration 6.2).6 * * *

6.1  Under-Secretaries-General Given the French hold on the DSG post, USG positions fell to the other Great Powers: Italy, Japan and eventually Germany. As in its successor, the UN, high positions in the Secretariat were reserved as political conduits between the international organization and important Member States. This was of particular significance given that, in the early days, governments did not have permanent representatives in Geneva. The persons selected to fill these posts generally kept in close touch with their governments, but it would be wrong to think that these same officials (at least in the early years) attempted to ensure the success of their own government’s point of view in the Secretariat.7 Drummond made good use

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Illustration 6.2  Joseph Avenol, 1933, detail from caricature by Aloïs Derso and Emery Kelen, United Nations Archives at Geneva

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of his senior staff in keeping in contact with events and issues in various countries, for example, Nitobe with Japan and Attolico with Italy. Japanese diplomats in Paris in 1919 demanded parity with Italy and pressed Drummond to select Nitobe as USG. Nitobe, who was an educator, international author and lecturer, viewed his appointment as bridging the ideas of the West with those of the East.8 He joined the Secretariat at Sunderland House and was concurrently Director of the Section of Intellectual Cooperation and International Bureaux, until he retired in 1926, a job that required liaising with around 500 international bureaux. Because of his publicity work and his scholarly reputation, Nitobe’s is the name most commonly associated with Japan in the League.9 According to Crowdy, ‘being himself a bit of a philosopher, he was very much at home as Secretary to the Committee on Intellectual Cooperation with its long list of internationally renowned thinkers’.10 He seems to have been loved and respected by all his colleagues. Nitobe internalized the spirit of Geneva quickly and as one commentator observes he was ‘a creature of goodwill … and [being] such an expressive communicator made it infectious to others. He was frequently asked by Drummond to address European audiences on behalf of the organization’.11 After Nitobe’s retirement, the Japanese slot was filled by Yotaro Sugimura a career diplomat who had served as chief of the League’s Office in Japan (Text Box 6.2). Simultaneously he directed the Political Section until Japan, much to his sorrow, withdrew from the League. A clear motive in Drummond’s selection of Sugimura was the desire to elevate a non-European who could mediate Franco-German rivalry which, because of German entry, was expected to be acted out within the League. Drummond had total trust in him.12 He certainly used him to the fullest extent during Japan’s conflict with China in Manchuria. Drummond complimented Sugimura’s spirit and endeavours to solve the crisis on the League’s behalf saying that ‘he was in every sense of the word, an international official’. This was especially true since he was working under the most trying conditions and had aroused against him the extremist elements in this own country.13 Drummond’s and Sugimura’s paths were to cross again in 1934 when both were representing their countries in Rome.14

120  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. Text Box 6.2  Inazo Nitobe (1862–1933)a and Yotaro Sugimura (1884–1939)b Inazo Nitobe belonged to the older generation of internationalists in modern Japan, who were brought up in relatively wealthy families during the days of the Meiji restoration when Western thoughts and technologies were introduced as state policy. Thus he had considerable exposure to Western civilization under the guidance of foreign teachers and Western-educated Japanese mentors. He attended Sapporo Agricultural College, where he converted to Christianity. Later he travelled to the United States to study economics and political science at John Hopkins University, Baltimore. There he became a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and met and married Mary Elkinton. On his return from America, Nitobe served briefly as a technical adviser to the Japanese colonial government in Taiwan, but was mainly an academic and writer. He was appointed professor of law at Kyoto Imperial University and published several books, the most famous of which was ‘Bushido – The Soul of Japan’ and then joined the League. After his retirement, he served briefly in the House of Peers of the Japanese Imperial Parliament. He held critical views on increasing Japanese militarism and was devastated when Japan withdrew from the League over the Manchurian crisis. Yotaro Sugimura was a colourful and beloved personality, devoted to judo and swimming. The New York Times described him as a ‘courtly mannered Japanese giant’ resembling Babe Ruth in build. When the Foreign Ministry refused him permission to swim the English Channel, he swam the Seine from one end of Paris to the other. Sugimura spent several years as a student in Paris and Grenoble, earning a doctorate of law. In his reflections on the League, published in 1930, he wrote that the purpose of the world organization was not to mould all nations into one but to effect a brocade in which each colour played an important role. Japan’s mission was ‘to inject its unique culture into the total world culture, to let Japan’s light shine while the flower of world civilization blooms’. Walters in his history singled him out as being ‘a sincere adherent of the League, who would have asked nothing better, had the circumstances allowed, than to devote the rest of his days to its service’. aPan, L. (2017), ‘National Internationalism in Japan and China’, p. 172; Suzuki, T. (1994), Bridge Across the Pacific: The Life of Inazo Nitobe; Benesch, O. (2014), Inventing the Way of the Samurai bBurkman, T.W. (2008), Japan and the League of Nations, p. 118; Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, p. 419

From the beginning, Japan’s diplomats presented the League with demands aimed at the furtherance of national self-interest. The longest surviving Japanese diplomat from the Peace Conference, Kensuke Horinouchi, later recalled that ‘Japan was totally absorbed in issues directly related to its own interests such as Shandong and the Pacific Islands. It devoted no attention at all to matters of universal concern such as a peace structure and the international labor problem. Indeed, its perspective was limited’.15 Given this prevailing attitude, Drummond was exceedingly lucky in his Japanese USGs—both of whom embraced internationalism and deviated from their own government’s total focus on Japanese interests. They were part of (and possibly contributors to) a trend during the 1920s of a growing number of Japanese who ‘believed that Japan could achieve its national aspiration to be a regional power without

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confrontation with other leading states, and that a global mechanism for the peaceful settlement of international disputes could succeed’.16 The permanent Japanese contingent in the Secretariat was small. In 1928, there were only five Japanese as opposed to 143 Britons, 100 French, 126 Swiss and 23 Italians. The few Japanese men who served in the League (there were no women) had outstanding qualities. For example, Tetsuro Furukaki, who held a doctorate from the University of Lyon with a thesis on the League and the Mandates Section, worked for the Information Section.17 He was singled out by Drummond at a Directors’ Meeting for his success during a visit to Japan in 1927 and for his useful report, circulated confidentially to Directors. Although Furukaki’s report included criticisms of the League, such as its euro-centricity and its failure to discuss issues of importance to Japan, Drummond welcomed such inputs as a way of better understanding a major Member State which he could not readily visit himself.18 The paper also referred to the bitter feeling caused by the rejection of Japan’s Peace Conference resolution on racial equality and the resentment caused by discriminatory immigration policies (see Chapter Note 1). Through such interchanges with Japanese staff, Drummond gained an understanding of a culture that few Western diplomats had, one that led him to pursue an enlightened policy aimed at strengthening the power of liberal forces within the country—an advocacy that was seen, quite wrongly, as being pro-Japanese. This policy lay behind Drummond’s major political failure as Secretary-General, his diplomatic intervention when Japan breached the Covenant and invaded another Member State of the League (Text Box 6.3). * * * Although one of the Great Powers, Italy had only 23 staff in the Secretariat in 1928. While one of these was always a USG, the Italian government complained from the beginning that the country, as a member of the victorious allied coalition, had not been sufficiently compensated for the contribution it had made to the war effort. In particular, Italy’s inability to acquire the territories it desired encouraged the thought that Drummond and the British government were biased against it. Throughout, Drummond’s task was to moderate Italy’s claims, especially in areas where Rome felt it had legitimate rights such as in the Balkans, Africa and Albania. The rise of the Fascist state under Mussolini only aggravated this relationship, for his regime was willing to use force internationally. As time progressed, rather than being biased

122  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. Text Box 6.3  The Manchurian crisis 1931–1933a When Japan invaded China in 1931, it led to a chain of events known as the Manchurian Crisis. Being one of the Great Powers, Japan’s actions, in direct contravention of the Covenant, had implications for the League and for a peaceful world. In a note to Avenol in November 1931, Drummond wrote that if the League failed to address the matter successfully, ‘not only is the value of the peace-keeping clauses of the Covenant destroyed … but also the Disarmament Conference … is certainly endangered. This is why I regard this matter as absolutely vital from the League’s point of view and for the general principles for which the League stands’. Drummond entrusted Colban with initial negotiations between Japan and the Council. This crisis occurred when, following the Wall Street Crash, there was a feeling in Japan that the only way in which its economic problems could be solved and that it could show itself to be a strong nation, was through expansion. The Chinese province of Manchuria was already the source of much of Japan’s imported raw materials and the Japanese owned the South Manchurian Railway. In September 1931, the railway was allegedly vandalized at the city of Mukden (now Shenyang). The damage was minimal but the Japanese responded by attacking the nearby Chinese garrison. This was followed by the occupation of other towns and cities. While clearly an act of war, none of those involved ever referred to it as such. The Japanese talked only of ‘unfortunate disturbed conditions in East Asia’, while at the League, when the Japanese delegate slipped up and used the word ‘war’, the official interpreter obligingly translated ‘incident’. To try to regain Manchuria, the Chinese appealed to the Council which called for a Japanese withdrawal while a Commission investigated the issue. Consequently, the Lytton Commission (named after its leader, British politician Lord Lytton) was established in December 1931, but delayed its departure until February 1932 taking a circuitous route via Tokyo, Shanghai and Nanking only arriving in Manchuria in April. In the meantime, the Japanese (having negotiated the right to remain in Manchuria while the Commission existed) were now in complete control of the province and had set up an independent puppet state—Manchukuo. Along with this fait accompli, the Commission met many obstacles in collecting information but eventually produced a comprehensive report which de Madariaga described as ‘an excellent paper … describing situations and events with both impartiality and moderation. It led the reader to conclude that the responsibility was on Japan although it did not actually say so’. The Report passed through the Council to the Assembly without comment. The recommendations, which included non-recognition of Manchukuo, were discussed by the Assembly in February 1933 where—despite support from the British delegation for Japan’s right to expansion (see Chapter Note 2)—a motion was passed (backed strongly by many smaller powers) condemning Japan’s action. The Japanese delegates walked out of the meeting and, on 27 March, rather than accepting the Assembly’s decision, Japan withdrew from the League. Nothing was to be the same again! aColban, E. (1953), Femti År, p. 108; Bendiner, E. (1975), A Time for Angels, pp. 245–6; CrowdyThornhill, R.E. (undated, post 1945), To Ourselves Unknown; Kelen, E. (1963), Peace in Their Time, p. 214; De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, p. 220

against Italy, Britain and France seemed to become more favourably inclined towards her—often against the League’s interests. Thus, while Japan became a major headache for Drummond only towards the end of his tenure, Italy was an ongoing problem for him. During the short but important period during which Drummond, Monnet and Fosdick were shaping the Secretariat, Anzilotti was

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appointed USG. He had participated in the Peace Conference but was not close to Drummond and seems to have played no significant role in establishing the Secretariat. In his capacity as USG in charge of Legal Affairs, however, he was among the drafters of the PCIJ’s Statute. He moved to the Court in 1921, where he served as a judge and became its President (see Chapter Note 3).19 Following Anzilotti, in 1921 the Italian slot was filled by Attolico, also a previous member of AMTE. He was recruited in 1919, originally as Director of the Communications and Transit Section, before being sent by Italy on a short posting as Italian General Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs in the United States. On his return, following a brief period as High Commissioner of Danzig, he was appointed USG with oversight of the Transit and Disarmament Sections. Attolico had a happy recollection of his years in Geneva with Drummond,20 and was a true internationalist. His relationship with the League changed once the Fascist regime became interested in the Geneva institutions. According to de Madariaga (Text Box 7.2), then Head of the Disarmament Section, ‘Attolico had to present himself as more Fascist than the Fascists’ and reportedly, when asked by the Italian Foreign Office whom he obeyed, he answered ‘when I am in Rome, the Duce; when I am in Geneva, Drummond’.21 To make way for Paulucci di Calboli, he was recalled in 1927 to become Italian Ambassador to Brazil. The appointment of Paulucci, although apparently welcomed by the British government, which put pressure on Drummond to approve it,22 raised a great deal of consternation among the Secretariat. Paulucci had little to commend him for the USG post and became one of the Secretariat’s most disruptive forces in his attempts to introduce Fascism. De Madariaga wrote ‘here began the downfall of the Secretariat. The Fascist USG’s room became a kind of Italian Embassy at the League linked directly with Mussolini and openly accepting orders and instructions from him. Paulucci … was zealous enough to go about even during official League gatherings sporting the Fascist badge on his lapel’.23 De Madariaga strongly expressed the opinion that Drummond should have held out against this appointment.24 The fictional Edith Campbell Berry commented that ‘Paulucci wore a Fascist party badge in the office and was not her style of man’,25 while ‘Tiger’ Howard related that ‘[Paulucci] I hear is quite intolerable and off his head. He told someone the other day he was indispensable for any government’.26 She describes how Paulucci and his long-suffering Personal Secretary Princess Cristina

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Guistiniani-Bandini had rows and behaved like children, after which Cristina would arrive in her office ‘in her green hat with half a parrot at the back all waving with excitement together’.27 Although he was undoubtedly a flamboyant character (as were others from the Italian aristocracy—see Chapter Note 4), he will be remembered mainly because his appointment was seen as a major turning point when Member States began seeking to have their ‘own’ people installed in the Secretariat. Drummond was so annoyed at Paulucci’s behaviour that he attempted unsuccessfully to secure his resignation, even travelling to Rome in 1931 to discuss this with Foreign Minister Grandi. Grandi agreed that Paulucci was a trouble-maker, who probably harmed Italy greatly in Geneva, and may have played a part in his eventual departure. On his return to Rome, he was temporarily retired from the diplomatic service.28 In 1932, Drummond replaced Paulucci with Massimo Pilotti, who was well qualified having served for a decade in governing bodies of the League. He was also placed in charge of the Intellectual Cooperation and International Bureaux Section. Pilotti played a key role in presenting the Italian case over Ethiopia and left in 1937, when Italy withdrew from the League.29 Despite having powerful positions in the Secretariat during Drummond’s time, Italian senior staff did not support him when it came to difficult situations between Italy and the League. During the Corfu incident of 1923 involving Italy and Greece—which according to Drummond, did ‘much to weaken both the moral authority of the Council and the general confidence that the precise obligation of the Covenant would be universally accepted’30—there seems to have been no support from Attolico. Yet, when the Greek government appealed to the League against the Italian occupation of the island, Italy’s representative, Antonio Salandra, informed the Council that he had no permission to discuss the crisis stating that ‘it was the heads of the Secretariat who determined international politics at the League’.31 * * * In the case of the German USGs, the story can be recounted rather briefly. On entering the League, Germany contributed to the budget at the same level as France, and therefore expected the same level of representation in the Secretariat. When Drummond visited Berlin to discuss Germany’s prospective membership, he was confronted with a request for a DSG, two directorships, four or five sections chiefs, and a ranking

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official in each of the secretariat’s sections. Ultimately, he achieved a compromise, namely a USG, ranking positions in eight sections, and suitable representation on standing commissions.32 Once Germany was in the League, Drummond showed Berlin the same deference and sensitivity to its interests as he had shown London, Paris and Rome. He dealt directly on the Secretariat posts with the German Foreign Office, which provided a short-list of five possible candidates for USG. Drummond fended off the more sinister ones, settling on the choice of Albert Dufour-Féronce who at the time was serving as Minister-Counsellor in the German Embassy in London. The exchange of letters between them was a model of diplomacy, Drummond expressing the belief that Dufour-Féronce’s ‘collaboration will … really advance the cause of the League, for which we are all working’, while DufourFéronce in response said that he was ‘looking forward to cooperation with [Drummond] and all others who wish to make of the League an instrument of peace and goodwill’.33 De Madariaga approved Drummond’s attempts to ensure that ‘his new German colleague should be confined to unimportant tasks, [by entrusting him] with Intellectual Cooperation’ and added ‘perhaps the German Government unwittingly helped Drummond by proposing a German ‘with a French name and the manners of an English gentleman, but by no means shrewd’.34 Dufour-Féronce seems to have caused few ruffles in an unremarkable Secretariat career. He served in Geneva from early 1927 until late 1932. His successor, Ernst Trendelenburg, was a jurist and head of the Ministry of the Economy for ten years before taking up his appointment in Geneva. He seems to have had a similarly unremarkable time as his predecessor and was there for a short time, tendering his resignation immediately Germany withdrew from the League in October 1933. As was the case with France and Italy, Germany used the League to pursue vital national aims and had little interest in its development.35 While in the Secretariat, German staff retained close touch with their Foreign Ministry and reported to Berlin almost daily. In turn, the Foreign Ministry kept them informed of its position on issues before the League and on occasion asked them to intervene informally with the Secretary-General or other officials.36 * * * In summary, the ethos of internationalism at the Secretariat’s topmost level began to weaken after Fosdick and Monnet departed. Only

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Drummond’s League-minded Japanese USGs maintained the ideal of the impartial official. French, German and the later Italian appointees at this level failed in this respect, putting the interests of their own countries to the fore. Drummond’s disappointment in the USGs was evident. In 1932, when planning his departure, he queried ‘whether the post of USG … should continue … (so) there would remain the S-G, D S-G and Directors’.37 It was among the Directors and Heads of Section that he found leadership and League-mindedness, notably in Mantoux, Colban, Rappard, Crowdy, Salter, Haas, Rajchman and Comert. Notes to Chapter 6 1. Japan proposed, unsuccessfully, a racial equality clause for inclusion in the Covenant that stated: ‘The equality of nations being a basic principle of the League of Nations, the High Contracting Parties agree to accord as soon as possible to all alien nationals of states, members of the League, equal and just treatment in every respect making no distinction, either in law or in fact, on account of their race or nationality’. 2. Lord Cecil who was an ardent supporter of the peace-keeping elements of the Covenant said of his successor as British delegate to the League—Sir John Simon—that he ‘was not prepared to take any step to compel Japan to leave China—not even to urge that a diplomatic protest be made by withdrawing the envoys of League powers from Tokyo’.38 3. Tollardo notes the predominance of law degrees in the Italian group at the Secretariat.39 4.  Tollardo records that there were five Italian aristocrats on the staff as some wealth and social standing was a bonus to becoming a staff member. Cristina Guistiniani-Bandini was from an aristocratic family and was a former President of the Italian Catholic Women’s Union.40

Endnotes

1. De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, pp. 9–10. 2. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, pp. 331–2. 3. Barros, J. (1969), Betrayal from Within, p. 178. 4. De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, p. 282. 5. NCA, MSS Loveday, Box 35, Diaries, Second notebook 1940, p. 27. 6. NCA, MSS Loveday, Box 35, Diaries, Second notebook 1940, p. 27. 7. Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 62. 8. Burkman, T. (2008), Japan and the League of Nations, p. 153. 9. Burkman, T. (2008), Japan and the League of Nations, p. 117.

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10. Crowdy Thornhill, R.E. (undated, post 1945), To Ourselves Unknown. 11. Burkman, T. (2008), Japan and the League of Nations, p. 117. 12. Burkman, T. (2008), Japan and the League of Nations, p. 118. 13. Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 338. 14.  Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures, National Diet Library, Tokyo, 2013 [accessed 9 December 2017]. 15. Burkman, T.W. (2008), Japan and the League of Nations, p. 63. 16. Burkman, T.W. (2008), Japan and the League of Nations, p. xi. 17. Burkman, T.W. (2008), Japan and the League of Nations, pp. 118–9. 18. LONA, Directors Meeting, Confidential Circular 13, 24 March 1927. Tetsuro Furukaki, ‘Rapport de mon sejour au Japon, Decembre 1926– Janvier 1927’. 19. Tollardo, E. (2016), Fascist Italy and the League of Nations, p. 95. 20.  Personal Communication to Michael Davies from Lady Hambleden (Attolico’s daughter), dated 18 January 2015. 21. De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, p. 20. 22. Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, pp. 287–91. 23. De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, p. 279. 24. De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, p. 101. 25. Moorhouse, F. (1993), Grand Days, p. 416. 26.  Carlisle Archives, DHW 4/3/19, Joan Howard to Esme Howard, 9 August. 27. Carlisle Archives, DHW 4/3/19, Joan Howard to Esme Howard, 9 August. 28. Tollardo E. (2016), Fascist Italy and the League of Nations, pp. 143–4. 29. Tollardo, E. (2016), Fascist Italy and the League of Nations, p. 56. 30. Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 254. 31. Salandra, A. (1951), Memoire Politiche (1916–1925), p. 85. 32. Kimmich, C. (1976), Germany and the League of Nations, p. 92. 33. LONA, Box S760bis, file 1056–1073. 34. De Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, p. 64. 35. Kimmich, C. (1976), Germany and the League of Nations, p. 100. 36. Kimmich, C. (1976), Germany and the League of Nations, p. 225. 37. Stb7/1/1/6 Personal and Confidential, Drummond to Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 7 January 1932, Note, p. 2. 38. Bendiner, E. (1975), A Time for Angels, p. 247. 39. Tollardo, E. (2016), Fascist Italy and the League of Nations, p. 95. 40. Tollardo, E. (2016), Fascist Italy and the League of Nations, pp. 69 and 92.

CHAPTER 7

The Directors and the Work of Their Sections

The Assembly met every year in September. As in today’s UN, preparing for, managing, servicing and following up the Assembly’s annual meetings engaged all levels of the Secretariat. However, it was a challenge to bring people from many countries to meetings in Geneva, when letters and telegrams were the main means of communication and boat and train the primary means of transport. Once in Geneva, there were more hurdles. As delegates travelled so far and spent so long in getting to meetings they had limited time available. Agendas, therefore, had to be covered as quickly as possible but had to allow for the new pressure of translating documents and consecutively interpreting speeches, which doubled the time needed for meetings. Additionally, there was a great deal of lobbying and manoeuvring, coaching of delegates, drafting of resolutions, and planning to get some detail through a Committee. A novel feature for the Secretariat was catering to the large press corps attracted by the League’s policy of open diplomacy, a task later added to by the need to supply them, and the array of voluntary organizations, with information. Producing and distributing documentation en masse was a daunting task. Until the League moved into the Palais des Nations in 1936, its temporary accommodation left much to be desired. People and papers had to be ferried between Assembly and Secretariat. How much more difficult the work was then! In spite of all these difficulties, the reputation of the Secretariat as an efficient international civil service took form early on; while the Assembly established itself as the most original, lively and enterprising of the new © The Author(s) 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0_7

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institutions.1 Soon after the Assembly’s first meeting, the League’s subsidiary organs were either at work, or in gestation.2 The first were the Economic and Financial Organisation (EFO), the Communications and Transit Organisation (CTO), and those dealing with social problems; a second group included the Health Organisation (LONHO) and the Permanent Mandates Commission (PMC). Slower progress was seen on the political front. ‘The great powers were not ready to refer to the Council their own disputes or those of other countries which they felt capable of handling, still less to discuss with the rest of the world their difficult relations with Germany, or to open the great debate on armaments’.3 Eventually, this reluctance on the part of the Great Powers to act through the League sealed its fate. Its end was in its beginning—impotent politically but a potent influence in economic and social fields right up to its dissolution. The reputation that the League achieved during Drummond’s tenure stemmed in large part from the Directors and Heads of Section that he appointed (Table 7.1). * * *

7.1  The Sections * * * 7.1.1   Political Section The Political Section was responsible for security questions and acted as Secretariat for the Assembly Committee that handled membership requests from States. While the Section had a series of outstanding Directors, it was one in which Drummond himself was very much involved, participating directly in most disputes referred to the League by aggrieved parties, spending inordinate amounts of time dealing with the entry of States and keeping existing Members content. His choice of Section Director made a great deal of sense in the context of the work to be done within a changing internal and external environment. Mantoux, who served from 1920 to 1927, had been the indispensable translator at the Peace Conference, making him privy to some of the most confidential discussions between heads of state (Text Box 7.1). Sugimura, the USG who served as Political Director from 1927 to 1931, was brought in by Drummond to mediate

Health Communications/ Transit Legal Press, Information Treasurer

Economic/Financial

Haas 1927–1931 (Head) – Sweetser 1933–1942 Jacklin 1927–1946

Van Hamel 1919–1926 Comert 1919–1932 Ames 1919–1926

Layton 1920 Nixon 1921–1922 (Acting)

Buero 1928–1935

Haas 1931–1935

Salter 1922–1931

Catastini 1925–1929 (Head) Catastini 1929–1935 Ekstrand 1931–1939

Rajchman 1921–1939 Attolico 1919–1920

Rappard 1920–1924 Crowdy 1919–1931 (Head) Salter 1919–1920

Aghnides 1919–1922 (Head) Colban 1919–1927

Disarmament

Minorities/ Administration Mandates Social Questions

Mantoux 1920–1927

Political

Sugimura 1927–1933 (USG) Walters 1931–1933 (Head) de Madariaga 1922–1927 Colban 1928–1930 (Head) De Cárcer 1928–1929 D’Azcaráte 1930–1933

Incumbents (Directors if not stated)

Sections

Table 7.1  Directors and Heads of Section appointed in the period 1919–1933

Finance and Economic Intelligence Loveday 1931–1939 Economic Relations Stoppani 1931–1939 (Head)

Aghnides 1930–1939

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between France and Germany. Finally, in 1931 he turned to his own Chef de Cabinet, Walters, who was a loyal and trusted colleague. There are numerous examples of Drummond’s involvement in this work alongside his Political Directors. In dealing with one of the earliest disputes to be brought to the League—that between Finland and Sweden over the Åland Islands—procedures for settlement were discussed around Drummond’s dinner table with Monnet and with the British and French representatives on the Council.4 In the case of the 1923 Corfu incident, Drummond seems to have handled negotiations with Mussolini without recourse even to his Italian USG. With the Manchurian crisis, on the other hand (see Text Box 6.3), he relied heavily in the early stages on Sugimura who clearly was devastated by the aggressive actions of his own government. * * * Text Box 7.1  Paul Mantoux (1877–1956)a Mantoux distinguished himself at an early age with his doctoral research on the British Industrial Revolution. Following an academic career in Paris, he was offered a Chair in Modern French History and Institutions at London University. His intellect and affinity with languages brought him to the attention of Clemenceau who facilitated his appointment as principal interpreter of the Conseil des Quatre at the Peace Conference. Later he produced the only written record of the momentous discussions held at these secret meetings. His reputation as a translator followed him at the League. Sir John Simon, a British delegate, is reported to have concluded his speech with a quotation from Shelley, just the sort of thing most interpreters dread. Mantoux, without a moment’s hesitation, ‘rendered the Shelley quotation in French verse, reaching a peak which will never be surpassed in the history of interpretation’. American Secretary of State Robert Lansing said of Mantoux, ‘No interpreter could have performed his onerous task with greater skill than he. Possessing an unusual memory for thought and phrase, he did not interpret sentence by sentence but, while an address or statement was being made, listened intently, occasionally jotting down a note with the stub of a lead pencil. … He seemed almost to take over the character of the individual whose words he translated’. Albert Thomas’ Chef de Cabinet summed him up as follows ‘his independent spirit made him wary of affiliations just as his lucidity led him to reject half baked concepts … By virtue of his opinions, his talent, his experience, his balanced judgement and character, Mantoux amply merited, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the positions he attained in Geneva’. In 1927 he became the first Director of the Institut de Hautes Études Internationales, Geneva. aMantoux, P. (1992), The Deliberations of the Council of Four: Notes of the Official Interpreter (described as ‘an indispensable’ source for the study of the Conference); Simon quotation is from Ranshofen-Wertheimer, E. (1925), The International Secretariat: A Great Experiment in International Administration, p. 141; Lansing quotation is from Roland, R.A. (1999), Interpreters as Diplomats: A Diplomatic History of the Role of Interpreters, p. 158; final quotation Graf, M.B., et al. (2002), The Graduate Institute of International Studies Geneva 1927–2002, p. 52

* * *

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7.1.2   Disarmament Section Despite French obstruction, a small Disarmament Section was established by the first Assembly and served as the Secretariat of the Permanent Advisory Commission on Military, Naval and Air Questions.5 Unfortunately, military personnel instinctively put national interests to the fore which stood in striking contrast to the ethos in other committees. One cynic remarked that ‘while the health officials had no vested interest in the maintenance of ill health, the same can hardly be said to apply to the military technician in relation to an army and navy’.6 The Section also monitored the observance of the peace treaties. The first and last Director of the Section was the gifted Greek barrister Thanassis Aghnides, who served from 1919 to 1922 and again from 1930 to 1939. Between 1922 and 1927, the Section Head (never Director) was the distinguished Spanish academic and author de Madariaga, who was replaced by the Norwegian diplomat Colban from 1928 to 1930 (Text Box 7.2). De Madariaga always thought of the Section as being a political one—even though it was officially a technical section—one of his areas of disagreement with Drummond. The Section, which even at its height in 1932 had only eight staff (many of them Americans), dwindled after the Disarmament Conference to four staff and eventually out of existence altogether. It was this Section, working within its many commissions and committees, that was at the heart of the League’s initiatives in tackling disarmament. Disarmament was an early issue that Drummond had brought up with his Directors in London.7 France, however, resisted moves by the League, under Article 8 of the Covenant, to seek reductions in ‘national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety’. Sweetser, replying to his own question on how far the League could really go with respect to disarmament, said: ‘The answer simply is that it has the power of inquiry, recommendations, and beyond that nothing but the moral force of world public opinion. That may be everything or nothing. Legally of course it is very little; actually it may be very great. Only the sincerity of the League itself and the governments composing it will supply the answer’.8 In other words, the League had no teeth when it came to disarmament and was reliant on agreements between Member States. The Section spent its entire life preparing for the 1932 Disarmament Conference for which it was the Secretariat. A Preparatory Commission for the Conference, established in 1926, focussed initially on strictly technical issues such as the definition of armaments, or the comparison between

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defensive and offensive weapons. The Conference was presided over by former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson. Both the US and the USSR participated. Drummond’s strategy of seeking the assistance of leading voluntary organizations to lobby for disarmament brought about the desired results with thousands of civil society supporters in attendance and Henderson beaming ‘from the dais throughout the … plenary session, reading scores of telegrams, all voicing an almost universal clamour for peace’.9 But this tremendous outpouring of public support was tinged with doubt from the start with the opening being postponed by an hour to allow the Council to discuss the Manchurian Crisis.10 It was doomed to fail—again in large measure because France never faltered from its stand on the letter of the Treaty of Versailles and the harsh conditions it imposed on Germany.11 * * * Text Box 7.2  Salvador de Madariaga, ‘Don Quijote de la Manchuria’ (1886–1978)a Though an engineer by training, de Madariaga was at heart a writer, journalist and scholar. Educated in Paris, he left a job in the Spanish Railways and travelled to London where he became a journalist for The Times and embarked on his literary career. Growing interested in international affairs through his journalism, he talked his way into becoming a member of the Spanish delegation to the League’s 1921 Transit Conference. There he became absorbed by the work of the League. Haas and Comert , whom he came to know well during the Conference, were so impressed with this articulate, French educated Spaniard that they had him working with them in Geneva in a matter of months. De Madariaga started as a member of the Information Section but, quickly, his French colleagues— working through Monnet—persuaded Drummond to appoint him as Head of the Disarmament Section. His technical background was one qualification in his favour, but more important was the fact that disarmament was a topic of such contention between Britain and France, it was useful to have a national from a smaller power in this post—not to mention one who was not only well connected with both countries but also fluent in both languages. Although he admired Drummond, they never had a satisfactory relationship. Following a number of disagreements, including over Drummond’s handling of the appointment of Paulucci, he left Geneva in 1927 to become Professor of Spanish at Oxford University. His interest in international affairs continued and at Oxford he published Disarmament. From 1931–1936 he was a permanent Spanish delegate to the League. During that time he was variously Ambassador to France, Spanish Minister for Education, and Minister for Justice. He was able to contribute much to the Disarmament Conference during its long drawn out deliberations, and his fervent support of the Chinese cause during the SinoJapanese conflict (during which time he was Chairman of the Council) earned him the nickname ‘Don Quijote de la Manchuria’. His outgoing personality, his close contact with the press corps, and his outpouring of publications make him one of the better known members of the Secretariat (even though his stay was a short one) and his memoirs give us one of the best and most personal accounts of life in the League in the 1920s. aDe

Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning without Noon, pp. 3–8, 23–24, 99–105, 187, 217

* * *

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7.1.3   Minorities Section The defeat of the Austro-Hungarian and German empires led to the creation of states not always drawn along strictly ethnic lines. Wilson had argued in Paris that nothing was more likely to disturb world peace than the treatment that might be meted out to minorities, and he felt that the new states should provide explicit guarantees to their minority populations.12 Fourteen newly created or expanded states of Eastern and Central Europe and the Balkans were required by specific treaties or other obligations to treat their minority populations fairly (see Chapter Note 1).13 The first treaty was signed in June 1919 by Poland, where pogroms against the Jews of the city of Pinsk (now in Belarus) raised concerns. The treaty stipulated that Polish nationals who belonged to ‘racial, religious, or linguistic minorities shall enjoy the same treatment and security in law and in fact as the other Polish nationals’, and included a right for them to appeal to the Council.14 In 1920 Colban (see Text Box 9.2) with the assistance of Helmer Rosting of Denmark and a Norwegian secretary instituted a petition system whereby minorities could send grievances to the League. Minority petitions were only accepted as information documents for the Council, to enable it to exercise its right and duty to take action in case of infraction of a clause of a minority treaty. He established a ‘Committee of Three’ to decide how the Council would investigate such petitions. Through this initiative he put in place, in a quiet and depoliticized way, an efficient structure to fulfil the obligation to ensure the rights of some 25 million people in racial, religious and linguistic minorities. He balanced ‘a wide array of competing interests on the part of the Great Powers, the minority states on whom the treaties were placed [and] the minorities themselves’.15 Colban also had to be sensitive to opinion in kin-states, such as Germany, since many ethnic Germans found themselves within new sovereign states. On Drummond’s suggestion, a list of petitions considered by the Council was published as an annex to its reports to the Assembly.16 Colban was strongly supported by Drummond who came to the conclusion that the only real experts available to address these complex questions were Secretariat staff.17 Britain and France were unenthusiastic about requiring the newly created states to observe the minorities’ provision that they had signed up to.18 In one instance, two Commissioners were despatched to Poland by the British Government with a view to

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establishing greater harmony between the Polish and Jewish populations. The mission revealed widespread anti-Semitism and the ‘terrible condition of apprehension and anxiety under which the Jews labour’.19 The FO sought Drummond’s advice on the Commissioners’ reports because of concerns about the damaging effect on the Polish Government. He told them firmly that ‘the proper course was for the British government to instruct the British representative on the Council to bring the substance of these reports as far as they contained infractions or danger of infractions of the Minority Treaty before the Council. Indeed not only was this expedient, but it seemed … to be the proper course, Great Britain being a signatory of the Minority Treaty’.20 Even Drummond struggled with the complexity of the problems faced by the Minorities Section. This is illustrated by the case of the Baltic Germans. In February 1925 Drummond held a meeting in Riga with Paul Schiemann, a member of the Latvian parliament, to discuss compensation awards to landowners whose property had been expropriated during Latvian land reforms and who were being denied citizenship. Schiemann belonged to an ethnic German minority that before the war had administered the Baltic Provinces on the Tsar’s behalf but which had now lost its influence and had its estates and other community assets expropriated. Drummond grasped the land reform issues, but not the difficulties with citizenship whereby ‘to become a Latvian national one had to show that one was inscribed in the old Russian Register … Drummond did not fully appreciate the difficulties confronting even someone as privileged and able as Schiemann when it came to finding a home as a member of a minority in an emerging nation state.’21 * * * 7.1.4   Mandates Section In the earliest days, Drummond did not always think with his League hat on; writing from Manchester Square in May 1919 he solicited Kerr’s help in finding a Briton to run the Mandates Section.22 Lord Milner was consulted and, more wisely, put forward the name of the American George Beer.23 Much of the Mandates system reflected Beer’s ideas but he died before he could take up the post. Rappard was appointed in his place. Both were from countries that were not European colonial powers. Rappard was followed by the Italian Vito Catastini whose contract

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was not renewed under staff rules limiting top positions to six years. Rappard (see Text Box 11.1) was an idealistic Wilsonian who saw the League as a vehicle for holding the imperial powers accountable in a democratizing world.24 The Section assisted the PMC. The Commission was composed mostly of retired diplomats or former colonial officers, all but one being from states with colonial empires. The one exception was the Scandinavian Anna Bugge Wicksell, the only female member (see Chapter Note 2). It reviewed the administration of indigenous populations in those African, Pacific and Middle Eastern territories seized from the German and the Ottoman Empires. It is difficult from today’s perspective to realize that, in Africa, only three states were League Members—the Dominion of South Africa, Liberia and Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). The peoples of this vast continent either lived within Belgian, British, French or Portuguese colonies or were governed under League oversight in ‘mandated’ territories: Belgium received a mandate to govern Rwanda/Burundi in the interests of indigenous peoples; Britain had similar responsibilities in the case of Tanganyika (now Tanzania); and South Africa held one for South West Africa (now Namibia). Britain and France each received mandates to govern Cameroon and Togo. In the Middle East, Britain received mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia, and France one for Syria (including Lebanon). The post-war carve-up extended to Pacific nations: a mandate for New Guinea went to Australia; for Nauru to the British Empire; for Western Samoa to New Zealand; and for various small islands in the Marianas to Japan. In a parallel system to that for minorities, the Mandates system also accepted petitions. However there was an important difference as those received by PMC had greater public visibility, often bringing scandals to the fore. The voice that Rappard’s petition system gave to indigenous populations of the mandated territories attracted the hostility of Drummond’s two major client states, France and Britain: over 80% of petitions received by the Secretariat originated in French-mandated Syria and British-mandated Palestine.25 The League’s responsibilities for the people within the mandated territories fell on the desks of the small Mandates Section. Its work has been extensively studied by Pedersen who has described the ‘quiet persistence of …a largely forgotten group of men … to turn programmes into practice, especially when the visionaries have left the stage or turned petulant,

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[which] demands a particular sort of character and capacity. In 1920, three men who cast their lot with the League [Drummond, Noel-Baker and Rappard] rescued the near expiring mandates regime’.26 She concludes that the mandates system was an element of global stabilization in the interwar years.27 The initial work was largely undertaken by Noel-Baker, aptly depicted by Pederson as ‘one of the Zeligs of international politics, the unidentified but vaguely familiar face just behind the minister in official photographs’. She found his initials on the drafts of every key document that Drummond issued in relation to the mandates. ‘The hand behind a sharply worded document that Drummond issued to Council members in 1920, to get them to act on the mandates issue, was Noel-Baker’s’. The outcome of this assertiveness was a framework for oversight of the mandated territories by the PMC.28 Over time tensions emerged with Drummond, who became irritated by Rappard’s contacts in Britain with non-governmental personalities and bodies, which no doubt created difficulties for him with the Government.29 The precept that Rappard followed in the Mandates Section was that staff should not be nationals of mandatory powers. He worked the staff and the PMC to exhaustion: PMC Chairman, Alberto Theodoli complained that they were not given a single day’s respite.30 In fairness, Rappard was proud of his staff and fiercely defended them at one point bringing Swiss Federal officials to observe the conditions of work of all locally recruited staff.31 As will be seen in Chapter 11, practices that the Mandates Section followed, coupled with those introduced by the Minorities Section, laid the groundwork for norms of human rights that were later established by the UN. * * * 7.1.5   Social Questions Section Crowdy, the Head of the Section (see Text Box 5.2) observed that ‘it was a broad division which includes a great many different kinds of work, these also varying somewhat according to the particular needs of the moment. Some of these tasks such as the traffic in women and children and in opium, [were] the responsibility of the League as laid down by the Covenant [Article 23]. Others have been taken up by the League either in general accordance with the spirit of the

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Covenant, or in response to the indication of public opinion’.32 The Section was underfunded and understaffed for most of its existence even though its work turned out to be much more than anticipated. The Section struggled to cope, as it had initially to deal with refugees and epidemics requiring intergovernmental action as well as with social questions. To compensate for the lack of resources, Crowdy resorted to the extensive use of the expertise and resources of voluntary­ organizations—mainly IWOs—thus being first in the Secretariat to find ways to bring civil society into the official world of intergovernmental organizations. Even before the Social Section was properly established, it became the centre of a whirlwind of activity resulting from the combined demographic, material and epidemiologic crises that befell Europe immediately after the war. The International Committee of the Red Cross sought assistance with the repatriation from Siberia of 400,000 ­prisoners-of-war from 27 nations, in addition to the resettlement of over one million Russian refugees. Responsibility fell initially to the Social Section as Crowdy oversaw liaison with the Red Cross. Almost immediately, Nansen was recruited to oversee these tasks in the field, and the Secretariat work passed to Noel-Baker.33 Next, an important issue at the first Assembly meeting in 1920 was the Russo–Polish war which started in February 1919 and lasted two years, exacerbating a perilous typhus epidemic in Russia and Poland. With her nursing background, Crowdy was the obvious choice to lead efforts on this front. Despite getting Balfour on her side, she failed to raise funds in direct support of the crisis, but did facilitate the establishment of an Epidemic Commission and, as the League’s Delegate on the Commission, visited Poland in April 1921.34 This is where she met Rajchman whom she recommended to Drummond to head the Secretariat of the new League of Nations Health Organisation. Finally, there was the plight of deported women and children held in the Middle East (in what many referred to as conditions of slavery) and who were not subject to the same assistance as male prisoners-of-war. The way in which the Social Section and its support groups were able to rally to the aid of these women and children is a good example of how the League worked with non-governmental partners. IWOs had alerted the League to the plight of deported Armenian women and children in 1920. Based on a letter from the British substitute delegate Helena Swanwick to Cecil, Crowdy pushed to have the issue placed on the

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League’s agenda. Swanwick (see Chapter Note 3) was supported by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), whose Vice-President Henni Forchhammer, a member of the Danish delegation, urged the League to appoint a commission of enquiry. In February 1921, a Commission on Deported Women and Children in the Near East (CDWC) was established consisting of one Canadian man and two women—Emma Cushman, an American relief worker who had served in Turkey during the war, and Karen Jeppe, a Dane with 20 years’ experience of working with children in Asia Minor. Although only created with a view to collecting information on the situation of deported women and children in Armenia, Asia Minor and Turkey and adjoining territories, the seriousness of what they found drew CDWC into work of a far more active nature involving tracing and rescue.35 Throughout the 1920s, a relay of women activists at the League, of whom Swanwick played a key role, kept up pressure on the Assembly to confer greater powers on CDWC. Their speeches were sufficiently emotional as to bring protests from the Turkish Embassy in Berne, but the League continued to support the Commission. CDWC set up Neutral Houses for the temporary reception of women and children in Constantinople (run by Cushman) and Aleppo (run by Jeppe). This led Crowdy to remark ‘it appears to me that the women on the Commission are the men of the party’.36 Her plea for increased financial support was unsuccessful, with Drummond commenting ‘I hate to see such work stop, but should the League financially support such measures?’37 Going behind his back, Crowdy unsuccessfully asked Noel-Baker, now back in London, to secure British funding. The League’s support to the Neutral House in Constantinople ended in 1926, but continued pressure from Crowdy and the IWOs obtained funding for one more year for Jeppe. Crowdy continued to support Jeppe’s work on a personal basis even after the League withdrew. Jeppe’s commitment to Armenian relief was total. To continue funding her work, she spent her savings and was bankrupt when she died of pneumonia in Aleppo in 1935. Work on trafficking, however, was a principal focus of the Section and was one of the League’s successful innovations. Delegates at the first Assembly asked the Council to prepare a report and convene a conference to review the findings. The Conference which took place in the summer of 1921 was the first to be held by the League in Geneva, and was run entirely by Crowdy and a staff of two. The Conference resulted in the Assembly’s ratification of the Convention for the Suppression of

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Traffic in Women and Children—the first interstate convention created under the League. Shortly thereafter, the Council set up the Advisory Commission on Trafficking in Women and Children (ACTWC) which had ten delegates (of whom two had to be women) accompanied by experts, plus five assessors from voluntary organizations. This was the first time the Council required female participation on a Committee and that advisers from non-governmental organizations were involved in official League business. One of the most significant achievements of ACTWC was the Report on the Inquiry into the Traffic in Women and Children (1927) which presented the results of several years of research by League agents working undercover in various European and South American countries, a dangerous undertaking.38 This fact-finding mission had been proposed by the American delegate on the Commission, Grace Abbott, and represented a first in the League’s history—the conducting of field research (see Chapter 5). Interestingly, the research was funded by a grant from the American Social Hygiene Association, an indication of how social welfare and less controversial issues kept the Americans involved in League activities. The report became an immediate bestseller—possibly for the wrong reasons.39 All of this helped to raise the profile of Crowdy and her Section, and brought praise from Drummond and others. In 1924, despite its success—or perhaps because of it—the Assembly requested the Council to reorganize ACTWC which then became the Advisory Commission for the Protection and Welfare of Children and Young People. It was divided into two committees, one dealing with traffic in women and children, and the other with child welfare. The Commission and both Committees had many powerful women participants. They included Abbott and Julia Lathrop from the US Children’s Bureau; and Eleanor Rathbone and Eglantyne Jebb from Great Britain (see Chapter Notes 4 and 5). Both Committees worked in close collaboration with ILO and LONHO,40 and the Child Welfare Committee created and operated a network of experts and transnational advocacy groups.41 Together they restructured the League’s work on social questions to become more closely associated with economic circumstances— shifting emphasis from trafficking to prostitution in general; and from concern with children in crisis to ‘normal’ children. Although these moves met with opposition, even among welfare supporters in Member States— many claiming these issues to be domestic rather than ­ international— the opponents were no match for the likes of Abbott and Jebb

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whose ideas live on today in the work of the UN Secretariat’s Commission on Social Development and in UNICEF (see Chapter 12). * * * 7.1.6   Economic and Finance Section Although the Covenant did not envisage a significant involvement in economic and financial matters, Drummond and Monnet agreed early on that an Economic Section would be needed. By July 1919, Salter was in place as Director (Text Box 7.3) and with the help of a young statistician, Alexander Loveday (see Text Box 12.1), began to put together reports for the Council on the state of world economies. For the first time an international institution was collecting world economic and financial statistics, placing the information at the disposal of Member States. In late 1919 and early 1920 economic conditions were worsening, instability was growing and it was clear to central bankers and others that urgent action was needed to shore up the global economy. An early example of transnational networking was the Amsterdam petition of November 1919, calling for financial cooperation among leading states and central banks. This was signed by over 150 eminent personalities led by such bankers and economists as Warburg, Morgan, Keynes, Pigou and Cassels.42 The Council responded by convening the world’s first International Financial Conference in Brussels, in September/October 1920. The Conference did not result in any substantial agreement on financial cooperation, but it did establish—against opposition and expectations— the League’s ‘entitlement to engage in economic diplomacy’,43 and it approved the League’s open and transparent way of working. In contrast to the closed doors and unaccountability practiced by central bankers, Salter sought a more open discussion of issues by experts from financial institutions working together with economists and politicians. The Conference accordingly agreed to establish in the League a ‘provisional committee of bankers and businessmen to give effect to [its] decisions’. This was not a formal intergovernmental committee, but rather ‘a body made up of independent experts’. In due course this would become permanent, becoming the EFO. Its Secretariat, Salter’s Section, became the second largest Secretariat entity after the Press and Information Section. Separate Financial and Economic Committees were established with expert members appointed by the Council in their own right, not as government representatives. Later, a Fiscal Committee was also established.

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Salter served as Director until 1932. When he was seconded to the post-war Reparations Committee from 1920 to 1922, two British economists Walter Layton, later Editor of the Economist, and Frank Nixon took his place. Under Salter’s direction, the EFO played a central role in helping to organize financial rescue packages for those Central and Eastern European countries suffering from hyperinflation plus economic and financial meltdown. The League appointed as CommissionerGeneral for Austrian Finances, Rudolph Zimmerman, who enjoyed extraordinary powers in controlling state expenditures and in authorizing the release of financial aid, a clear ‘subversion of the principle of national sovereignty that the League was supposed to hold so dear’. He was helped by a young Dutch member of the Information Section, Adriaan Pelt, who ‘established a “good news” strategy about Austria’s recovery to reassure the markets’.44 After Salter’s departure, the Section was split into a Finance and Economic Intelligence Section, directed by Loveday, and an Economic Relations Section, directed by Stoppani. The small statistical office in London, run in the early days by Loveday, with the help of the Swede Per Jacobsson and Irish statistician Dorothy Etlinger, continued with data collection. The Genoa International Economic and Financial Conference of April/May 1922 was convened by the British and French governments outside of the League structure, so as to enable Germany, Soviet Russia and the United States to participate. Genoa produced little in terms of agreed progress on financial coordination, but it did confirm the need for a framework for multilateral cooperation and the exchange of information and statistics. The EFO was to provide just that framework. Thus, in the first few years, EFO had set in place a three-pronged strategy that was to last throughout its life and beyond (see Chapter 12). The first was an efficient Secretariat that produced credible analytical reports, that collected statistics on economic, financial and social issues from around the world and that placed all this information at the disposal of Member States and the public at large. A Committee of Statistical Experts underpinned much of this work. The second was a network of academic experts on whom the League could rely for advice and influence and that constituted ‘some of the brightest talent in ­twentieth-century economics’. And the third was a system of intergovernmental committees that offered credibility, legitimacy and independence. * * *

144  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. Text Box 7.3  Arthur Salter (1881–1975)a Salter was described as being ‘short of stature, slender, quick, intensely nervous in manner and sharp [he] smoked incessantly … amazing endurance, initiative and skill in expressing after a controversial discussion a position on which all could agree … resilient in defeat, modest in success, never arrogant nor condescending under pressure, delightful at leisure’. Certainly not an athlete, he was reported to be the only Englishman never to have played golf in Geneva. He was a classics scholar at Oxford and received a postgraduate scholarship from Brasenose College for further studies in history, law and economics. He entered the Civil Service in 1904, serving in the Admiralty’s transport department where, at the outbreak of the First World War, he held a key position. When the United States entered the war, he and Monnet drew up plans for the AMTE. In 1919 he was one of the secretaries of the Supreme Economic Council in Paris. At the League he had a prominent role in the financial and economic reconstruction of Europe, notably in the stabilization of the currencies of Austria and Hungary, and in the resettlement of refugees in Greece and Bulgaria. He also provided policy advice to the governments of India and China. In 1930 he left the League and, in 1937, became Member of Parliament for Oxford. Thereafter, he pursued a political career. Briefly, in 1943–1944, he served as Deputy Director-General of UNRRA. When he left politics in 1953, he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Salter. In 1940 he married Ethel, widow of Arthur Bullard, who had been one of his colleagues in the League. aAster,

S. (2016), Power, Policy and Personality, the Life and Times of Lord Salter

* * * 7.1.7   Health Section The formation of the Health Organisation has been well-documented by Borowy, who remarked ‘on the extent to which it was a British creation’, the British influence being personified by Edward Steegmann (an official at the nascent British Ministry of Health), Crowdy and Drummond.45 Its establishment was delayed by the reluctance of a pre-existing international health body, the Paris-based Office International d’Hygiène Publique (OIHP), to adhere to the new world organization. In 1919, it refused overtures by the League—Crowdy and six members of a Temporary Health Committee waited in Paris like ‘wallflowers waiting for partners who failed to appear’.46 Great Power politics lay behind this, with French efforts to retain OIHP competing with British determination to create a new health structure.47 OIHP coexisted with LONHO until the World Health Organization (WHO) was established in 1946, as did a regional body, the International Sanitary Bureau (later the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau) formed in 1902 for health cooperation between states in the Americas. The League established an Epidemic Commission at the London International Health Conference of April 1920, which had been convened to consider the question of establishing an International Health

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Office. In 1921, Drummond opened the first session of a Provisional Health Committee. This was modelled on the Provisional Committee on Economic and Financial Questions, and its members were likewise ‘experts chosen for their personal qualifications, acting in their private capacity and not as representatives of states’.48 It was only in 1924 that a Permanent Health Committee (Drummond’s term for the LONHO governing body) was formally constituted. Drummond brought Rajchman to Geneva in 1921 (Text Box 7.4) to direct the Health Section after his return from Russia following his successful mission as an Epidemic Commissioner.49 Over the 1920s and 1930s, he and the Danish immunologist Thorvald Madsen (President of the Health Committee) provided a continuity of international leadership that was unique in that it eluded Anglo-French domination. It ‘was by general consent the most successful of the [League’s] auxiliary organizations’.50 The 1924 Permanent Health Committee approved a budget for LONHO for the ensuing year, 40% of which was provided by the Rockefeller Foundation, to provide states with epidemiological intelligence services. Six Rockefeller staff augmented the seven paid from regular funds.51 Following in the footsteps of Rajchman, LONHO staff undertook lengthy assignments away from Geneva and, while they were posted elsewhere, Rajchman’s Secretary Iris Heap kept their families informed and reassured. LONHO went far beyond containing the spread of infections, the focus of the Epidemic Commission’s work. It gathered and published comparative health statistics, pioneered biological standardization, supported expert-led initiatives to introduce advances in medical science, for example in nutrition, and pioneered technical cooperation to help countries establish health services for their populations, notably in Greece and China. Another aspect of the Health Section’s innovation was the establishment of operational centres in Singapore for epidemiological intelligence and in Rio de Janeiro for leprosy. Above all LONHO led the transformation of ‘sanitation’ and ‘hygiene’ to modern practices of social medicine, public health and rural health services. LONHO personnel proved markedly successful in building good relations between the League and its Member States and Drummond exploited this by assigning political tasks to Health Section staff, in China in Rajchman’s case and in Liberia in the case of Melville Mackenzie. * * *

146  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. Text Box 7.4  Ludwik Rajchman (1881–1965)a Rajchman was born into a Jewish family, part of the Warsaw bourgeoisie. While a medical student in Cracow, he joined the Polish Socialist Party. After graduating, he undertook bacteriological research both at the Paris Institut Pasteur and at the Royal Institute of Public Health in London, where he remained during the First World War to serve Polish exiles as an administrator of a National Committee advocating freedom for his country. On his return to Warsaw in 1919, he created the National Institute of Hygiene and was recruited for the League’s Epidemic Commission. He was obsessed by China, identified with her people and committed himself totally to advancing their well-being—a fascination that was motivated by his aspiration to achieve a better world at large. Consequently in 1928 when China attempted (but failed) to secure a seat in the Council, Drummond, influenced by ideas that Rajchman had put to him in 1925, offered technical cooperation in health as an inducement to save China’s face and ensure that it remained a member of the League. Rajchman made seven lengthy visits to China for the League between 1924 and 1937. Rajchman was sometimes likened to Trotsky, having the same inhuman energy and tenacity, the same organizing capacity and prodigious memory and the same capacity for making enemies. He endured racial prejudice at the hand of the anti-Semitic LONHO staff member and writer, Louis Destouches (Celine). His anti-colonialism, support for the Spanish Republicans and his opposition to appeasement also made him unpopular with Avenol who began to intrigue against Rajchman. The intrigue was successful in separating Rajchman from China after a decade of successful cooperation, which was deeply wounding to him. In his dignified resignation letter to Avenol, Rajchman described himself as ‘an isolated man’. He viewed himself as an emigré—a Pole always on international assignment. During the Second World War, he lobbied the Americans for aid to China and conceived the idea of establishing a special agency for children, now known as the United Nations Children’s Fund (see Chapter 12). His London Times Obituary describes him as: … a scientist of brilliant intelligence, imagination and administrative ability … The Health Organisation of the League of Nations … was to a large extent his creation. He fought for and won the support and collaboration of the chief health ministries … Thus firmly based, he was able by various means—such as special contributions, the generosity of the Rockefeller Foundation—to overcome the handicaps of official penuriousness and diplomatic indifference … his second major achievement was in building up a strong connexion between the League Secretariat and the Kuomintang Government in China … he saw how League institutions— disinterested and not painful to China’s amour propre—could help in the creation of other needed services. aBalińska, M. (1998), For the Good of Humanity, pp. 36–7, 44 and 106–10; concerning China see Borowy, I. (2008), ‘Thinking Big—League of Nations Efforts Towards a Reformed Health System in China’, pp. 207 and 219–20; Also FR AIP RAJ/A1, Handwritten note on the chronology of eight visits to China between 1924–1939 and Sprigings, Z. (2008), ‘Feed the People and Prevent Disease, and be Damned to Their Politics’, pp. 116–7; Balińska, M. (1998), For the Good of Humanity, pp. 112–3; Macfadyen, D. (2014), The Genealogy of WHO and UNICEF and the Intersecting Careers of Melville Mackenzie (1889–1972) and Ludwik Rajchman (1881–1965), p. 276; Balińska, M. (1998), For the Good of Humanity, pp. 218, 103, 241 and 245; Obituary, The Times 24 July 1965, p. 8

* * *

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7.1.8   Communications and Transit Section The Section acted as the Secretariat for the CTO which had an independent authority to conclude conventions with the prime objective of securing freedom of transit for international trade. The constitution of the CTO was drafted by the Secretariat, adopted at an inaugural conference in Barcelona in 1920, and approved by the Assembly. It had an autonomy that its sister organizations did not have and the Section’s Director, Haas, had ‘a constructive ability not inferior to that of Salter and of Rajchman’.52 Building upon seven existing agreements for international European rivers developed in the nineteenth century, the League turned its attention to consolidating the conventions on inland transport and developing new ones for railways and maritime trade as well as associated matters such as passport simplification and international power transmission. Two early conventions concerned the European rail network and an international maritime ports’ regime. The former was designed to speed international freight and passenger movements by means of a single waybill and a common, simplified approach to tariffs as well as providing through booking possibilities for passengers and interchange of rolling stock. The latter allowed all nations to use ports designated as international on an equal footing and paying equal costs. It created duty-free zones for transit of goods and provided a dispute settlement process.53 In August 1934, on the expiry of Rajchman’s year-long mission as Technical Agent in China, the Government asked the League to take measures to ensure the continuance and development of the work of collaboration by sending the Director of another Secretariat section. The task fell to Haas, who reported on his three-month visit to China in 1935, but died shortly after.54 At the outbreak of the War of Resistance to Japan in 1937, the Section had two staff serving in China, Dutch hydrologist Francois Bourdrez, plus a newly arrived French road and bridge engineer, Henri Maux.55 Both were drawn into perilous missions to help strengthen vital communications. In 1939 Bourdrez and his Chinese colleagues were drowned surveying navigation routes on the river Yangtze.56Maux, the Chinese staff and their international colleagues were deeply affected by the deaths and the League set out conditions

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to cover future missions of a dangerous character undertaken by staff.57 When the Economic and Financial Section was relocated to Princeton during the Second World War, the Communications and Transit Section integrated with it, and Yugoslav engineer Branko Lukač remained its Head until the League’s dissolution. * * * 7.1.9   The Non-technical Sections In support of the operational sections and technical organizations there were units that were essential to the functioning of the League, such as the Legal Section, the Library and the Interpretation/Translation Units. The large Press and Information Section with its cast of colourful characters is covered in Chapter 8 and the Treasury Section in Chapter 10. The Legal Section  was headed from 1919 to 1926 by the Dutch lawyer Joost van Hamel (see Text Box 11.3) and its work was largely to support the League’s political activities. The League also contributed to the progressive development of international law (see Chapter 11). It convened the 1930 Codification Conference at The Hague, which adopted agreements and resolutions on nationality. Experience with the Codification Conference also led the Assembly to adopt a resolution on the procedure for future codification, lessons that have since been instrumental in developing international law in recent times.58 An associated activity was the Treaty Registration Unit that recorded all bilateral and international treaties established between Member States, a League activity that still continues under UN auspices. The Library provided services that even in the age of the internet are the keystone of any organization that prides itself in presenting the world with ‘facts’. It developed out of small libraries attached to various sections and began operations in 1919 at 117 Piccadilly. Drummond appointed a 35-year old ‘League-minded’ American, Florence Wilson, a highly trained librarian to organize the library, an appointment supported by Fosdick. When the Secretariat moved to the Hotel National, the Library occupied the cellars and the old dining room overlooking Lake Geneva. Because it was surrounded by committee rooms, delegates would visit between speeches or continue discussions there.

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An initial library committee was chaired by Nitobe and the Librarian was advised by liaison officers in each section. However, the 1921 Committee of Enquiry on the Secretariat called for changes and asked the Assembly to appoint an expert committee to consider the library’s organization.59 Drummond was pressed by his senior staff to assert that all such matters relating to the Secretariat’s organization were matters for the Secretary-General and in January 1922, he established a new ‘internal’ Committee under the chairmanship of Attolico, the purpose of which was to support Wilson to operate the Library as a service to the various sections. 60 In 1924, when sections were seeing their budgets reduced, Drummond imposed a 25% cut in Library staff. He did so, however, in such a way that the staff might be absorbed elsewhere in the Secretariat, and by spreading the cuts over two years.61 Despite lack of funds and support Wilson built up the collection—receiving accolades for her ‘highly practical and thoroughly effective work’.62 In 1927 after a twoyear extension of her initial five-year assignment, her contract was terminated for reasons that have never been determined.63 Instead of appointing another female as called for by women’s organizations, the position was given to a Dutchman, Tietse Sevesma, who immediately secured a higher rank and salary. After leaving, Wilson published a documentary history of the drafting of the Covenant.64 Her legacy was an up-to-date Library and a tool of increasing value.65 In 1927, the League received a gift of $2 million from John D Rockefeller Jr. to endow a Library building for the Palais des Nations. One of the benefactor’s wishes was to make available to scholars and researchers the League’s collections, which now include the archives that provided source material for this book. Interpretation and Translation Services  were of vital importance. The first interpreter Drummond recruited was Henri Parodi, who had participated in the drafting of the Covenant. Parodi was ‘an affable ItaloEgyptian and a pharmacist by trade, a bon vivant, always dashing from one lunch to the next, and constantly surrounded by very pretty young girls who were rather too young’.66 Drummond, however, emphasized the need for interpreters to be of the best quality and trustworthiness (see Chapter Note 6). He rescinded the contract of one interpreter, Viscount Chazal, because his work was not up to the standard required by the Secretariat.67 At that time,

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interpretation was performed consecutively in the midst of delegates. Kelen describes a confrontation between Captain Russell, a Scottish interpreter and Hélene Vacarescu, a poet and Romanian delegate to the Assembly. In the middle of a speech that she was delivering in French, she halted and asked Russell to be removed, saying ‘every time I mention white slavery an ironical smile appears on his face’.68 Russell had returned from an expansive lunch with a Canadian delegate and when it was asserted in the debate that there was no prostitution in South Africa, he made an audible aside to his lunch companion saying ‘this is no country for us’. Russell received a four-week suspension.69 Although simultaneous interpretation was introduced by ILO after 1920 (see Chapter Note 7), it was considered an experiment and was never adopted by the League. Though clearly more effective, it required different equipment and interpretation booths. The Registry.  On 30 June 1919, while in London, Drummond established a central Registry modelled after the system in place in British ministries. The first head of the service was Daniel Leak, seconded from the FO. On 29 July 1919, Drummond issued instructions to the Secretariat on procedures for registration and circulation of official documents. These state ‘there need be no hesitation in sending the most confidential documents to the Registry’.70 In London, the Registry was processing 12,000 documents a year but in Geneva this had risen to 90,000 by 1937. The Registry’s function was not simply to retain copies of correspondence but to record all incoming correspondence, route it for action and to record and despatch outgoing communications. It had three sections: for classifying material, for indexing, and for archival deposits, the last mentioned also being responsible for ensuring that incoming correspondence received a reply. Without this early decision, there would not have been such a rich core resource to researchers as now exists in the Palais des Nations. This has been supplemented by many papers that bypassed the Registry and were in the possession of the individual sections and their Directors. Not all material was preserved however. Papers were lost when the League moved from London and again when it moved from the Hotel National to the Palais. Finally, at the time of the fall of France, when it was feared that Switzerland might be invaded, Walters instructed the

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Secretariat to destroy Drummond’s papers.71 After the war ended Séan Lester informed Drummond of this saying: I think it a great loss for anyone who may be writing of those great days when you began to build the first League of Nations. I wish we could have something of the confidence and hope that inspired the builders twenty-five years ago.72

Drummond would perhaps have received greater attention from historians if the League’s archive of his private papers had survived. The Registry system adopted by the League was carried forward to the UN in New York. * * *

7.2  Conclusion * * * Although the tasks of the various technical sections and organizations were initially viewed without enthusiasm by Drummond, they were launched—with support from Monnet—by creative Directors and Section Heads, such as Rajchman and Colban, who saw cooperation between sovereign states as a means of advancing the well-being of humanity. By the early 1920s, more than half the budget was allocated to ‘technical’ work. The technical sections and organizations had a greater ability to attract non-governmental funding and expertise and, as Drummond discovered, were an important way to attract the participation of states in the League’s work. It was in its technical spheres that the League was to achieve its greatest successes, as these initiatives took root at a time when problems were beginning to be viewed globally. Drummond and his senior colleagues sought to escape traditional interstate diplomacy and felt that the means to do so was by presenting states with ‘facts’ established by technical experts or by gathering evidence and comparative world-wide data. If Drummond had surrounded himself with officials who were less able or less committed to the League’s ideals there would have been no social, economic and political legacies. The high reputations of Salter and Rappard were partly due to the quality of the staff around them, and

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Crowdy’s achievements may be attributed partly to the talented outsiders that she brought within the League’s orbit. Colban, Rajchman and Haas too depended heavily on the competence of supporting staff since each spent long periods away from their desks on a mission, Colban spending as much as half a year away, and Rajchman making many lengthy missions the longest lasting a full year.73 In the end, the League’s successes in international collaboration were a source of pride to Drummond. In a rare press article, he summarized in 1928 what the League had accomplished in the protection of women, child welfare, the proper treatment of minority populations and of those in mandated territories, the supervision of treaties concerning traffic in dangerous drugs, questions relative to intellectual life and the codification of international law.74 So it was through the imagination of the Secretariat that the machinery of such collaboration was created and developed. Here, the League represented something new: in retrospect, it was a point of historical transition. Notes to Chapter 7 1. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria. In the Balkans, there was one new state, Yugoslavia, but Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania had undergone border changes. Turkey was bound to respect minority rights by the Treaty of Lausanne. 2. Norwegian lawyer Bugge Wicksell was a feminist and a high-level official in the international women’s movement. She was the only other serious contender for Crowdy’s post in 1919. Having become Swedish by marriage, she was a Swedish delegate at eight Assembly meetings. 3.  Swanwick, born in Munich in 1864 and educated at Girton College, Cambridge, was Chairwoman of WILPF and an authority on disarmament.75 4. Rathbone was an assessor on the Child Welfare Committee and was involved as Vice-President of the Committee on the Recruitment of Women. 5. Jebb, a founding member of the International Save the Children Union died in 1928 in Geneva, where she is buried. The title of her biography The Woman Who Saved the Children sums up her legacy.76 6. The serious consequence of bad interpretation was apparent in a speech by the Chancellor of the German Reich, interpreted not by League staff but by a personal interpreter, who rendered ‘the two-fold aspect’ of French policy as the ‘double-faced’ policy.77 7. The Bostonian haberdasher, Edward Filene, paid for the first experiments in simultaneous translation that were further developed by Thomas Watson of IBM.78

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Endnotes



1.  Walters, F.P. (1971), ‘League of Nations’, in Roberts, J.M. (1971), Europe in the 20th Century, Vol. 2 1914–25, p. 256. 2. Walters, F.P. (1971), ‘League of Nations’, p. 256. 3. Walters, F.P. (1971), ‘League of Nations’, p. 256. 4. Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 110. 5. Webster, A. (2005), ‘The Transnational Dream’, p. 499. 6. Webster, A. (2005), ‘The Transnational Dream’, p. 511. 7. LONA, Directors’ Meeting, Sunderland House, 3 December 1919. 8. Sweetser, A. (1920), The League of Nations at Work, p. 99. 9. Bediner, E. (1975), A Time for Angels, pp. 271 and 272. 10. de Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, p. 249. 11. de Madariaga, S. (1973), Morning Without Noon, p. 249. 12. Wilson, W. (1919), ‘Speech at the Plenary Session’, 31 May 1919. 13. Fink, C. (1995), ‘The League of Nations and the Minorities Question’, pp. 197–205. 14. Smejkal, T. (2010), Protection in Practice: The Minorities Section of the League of Nations Secretariat, pp. 13 and 18; Woolsey, T. (1920), ‘The Rights of Minorities under the Treaty with Poland’, p. 394. 15. Smejkal, T. (2010), Protection in Practice, p. 4. 16. LONA, Directors’ Meeting, M242, 16 January 1929, p. 5. 17. LONA, Directors’ Meeting, M242, 16 January 1929, p. 5. 18.  Mazower, M. (2012), Governing the World: The History of an Idea, loc2698. 19. Stb7/1/1/3 Stuart Samuel to Lord Curzon March 1920. 20.  Stb7/1/1/3 1919–31, Drummond Minute [interview with Mr. Gregory of the FO re report of Commissioners on Jews in Poland], 27 April 1920; Poland, Capt. Wright’s Report, 3 January 1920; Samuel to Curzon, March 1920. 21.  Housden, M. (2016), ‘Inhabiting Different Worlds: The League of Nations and the Protection of National Minorities, 1920–30’, p. 121. 22. NRS, GD40/17/75, Drummond to Kerr, Manchester Square, 20 May 1919. 23. NRS, GD40/17/75, Curtis to Kerr, 23 May 1919. 24. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, p. 52. 25. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, p. 87. 26. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, p. 46. 27. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, p. 405. 28. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, pp. 48–9. 29. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, pp. 53–4. 30. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, pp. 57 and 59.

154  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. 31. LONA, Directors’ Meetings, M105, 13 February 1924 (and correction 22 February 1924). 32. Crowdy, R. (1928), ‘The League of Nations: Its Social and Humanitarian Work’, pp. 350–2. 33. Crowdy-Thornhill, R.E. (undated, 1920s), Work at the League of Nations; for Nansen see Chapter 2. 34. Gorman, D. (2011), The Emergence of International Society in the 1920s, pp. 67–8. 35. Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, p. 120. 36. Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, p. 137. 37. Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, p. 143. 38. See also Chaumont, J.-M., Rodriguez Garcia, M., and Servais, P. (2017), Trafficking in Women, 1924–1926, The Paul Kinsie Reports for the League of Nations. 39. Gorman, D. (2011), The Emergence of International Society, pp. 69–81. 40.  Sun Jang, G. (2009), The Sexual Politics of the Interwar Era Global Governance, p. 146. 41. Marshall, D. (2015), ‘The Rise of Coordinated Action for Children in War and Peace’, pp. 82–3. 42. Decorzant, Y. (2011), ‘La Société des Nations et l’apparition d’un nouveau réseau d’expertise économique et financière (1914–1923)’, pp. 35–50. 43. The work of EFO is the subject of Clavin, P. (2015), Securing the World Economy, all quotations are from pages 19–39. 44. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, p. 28. 45. Borowy, I. (2009), Coming to Terms with World Health, p. 61. 46. Howard-Jones, N. (1978), International Public Health Between the World Wars, p. 27. 47. Borowy, I. (2009), Coming to Terms with World Health, p. 61. 48. Borowy, I. (2009), Coming to Terms with World Health, p. 61. 49. Balińska, M. (1998), For the Good of Humanity, pp. 49–50. 50. Walters, F. (1952), History of the League of Nations, p. 180. 51. Howard-Jones, N. (1978), International Public Health Between the World Wars, p. 60. 52. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, pp. 178–9. 53. LON. (1921), Barcelona Conference. Verbatim Records and Texts of the Recommendations. 54.  Quan Lau-King. (1939), China’s relations with the League of Nations, 1919–1936, pp. 172–4. 55. LONA, 50/30817/30817, China Liaison, Financial Liabilities in 1938, 5 October 1937, p. 2; Maux-Robert, A. (1999), Le Dragon de l’Est, pp. 25–31. 56. Maux-Robert, A. (1999), Le Dragon de l’Est, p. 191.

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57. LONA, R5790, 30/37503/30817, Mackenzie to Dorolle, 21 June 1939. 58.  Tams, C. (2006), ‘League of Nations’, Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Public International Law, para 38, www.mpepil.com. 59. LONA, ‘Directors’ Meeting, no 24, 20 August 1921. 60. Cruger, D. (1972), ‘An American in Geneva: Florence Wilson and the League of Nations Library’, p. 117. 61. LONA, Directors’ Meeting, 15 May 1924, M115. 62.  Wilson, F. (1928), The Origins of the League Covenant: Documentary History of Its Drafting. 63. Cruger, D. (1972), ‘An American in Geneva’, p. 125. 64. Wilson, F. (1928), The Origins of the League Covenant. 65. Cruger, D. (1972), ‘An American in Geneva’, p. 125. 66.  Baigorri-Jalón, J. (2014), From Paris to Nuremberg: The Birth of Conference Interpreting, p. 80. 67. Baigorri-Jalón, J. (2014), From Paris to Nuremberg, pp. 128–9. 68. Kelen, E. (1963), Peace in Their Time, p. 135. 69. Baigorri-Jalón, J. (2014), From Paris to Nuremberg, p. 127. 70. Habermann-Box, S. (2014), ‘From the League of Nations to the United Nations: The Continuing Preservation and Development of the Geneva Archives’, p. 17. 71. LONA: Yves Pérotin, Copie d’une lettre par Mr. Frank Walters a Mr. Norman Field, Genève, le 6 mai 1969. 72. Stb7/1/3/2, Lester to Perth, 28 September 1945. 73. Smejkal, T. (2010), Protection in Practice, p. 35; Macfadyen, D. (2014), The Genealogy of WHO and UNICEF, p. 122. 74. Drummond, E. (1928), The Spectator, 3 November, p. 639. 75. Simkin, J. (2014), ‘Helena Swanwick’. 76. Harrison, B. (2004), ‘Jebb, Eglantyne (1876–1928)’; Mulley, C. (2009), The Woman Who Saved the Children. 77. Derso, A. and Kelen, E. (1937), The League at Lunch. 78. Murphy, C. (2008), ‘Private Sector’.

CHAPTER 8

Drummond’s Commitment to Universality

When Woodrow Wilson spoke about the need for equal treatment of large and small states, for democracy and self-determination, his words fell on fertile ground. There was widespread belief in the need to organize cooperation among the nation states of the world. There was also a recognition that populations needed to be viewed in a universal global sense, albeit within the civilizational and racial limitations of the era.1 Imperceptible at the time, but now evident to historians of the interwar period, the first stirrings of internationalist thinking profoundly influenced the League’s work.2 Its responsibilities for the indigenous populations of mandated territories led to aspirations among colonial peoples. Drummond and his senior staff were credited with diffusing the League’s ‘internationalist ideas to various corners of the world’.3 In March 1921 he set out his views to Cecil, saying: ‘As I see it the League is steadily growing to fulfil the purpose of its founder, though like all big things, its development takes time’.4 A 1922 clipping retained by Drummond succinctly captured his approach: the League of Nations is in the making. You cannot make these things in a written constitution. You must create confidence, and confidence can only be created by achievement and every failure … is like the fall of an infant; it may give it a broken spine and it would simply limp for the rest of its life.5

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In later years, after he had left the League, he revealed his idealism to Cecil, saying that he favoured ultimate world government but felt it must develop gradually.6 From the outset, Drummond had three objectives. First and foremost, he sought to make entry to the League as international as possible by facilitating at all times the process of accession. This process was controlled by Member States. As such, it was subject to political and other factors outside the Secretary-General’s immediate influence. Here his record was mixed. Second, he was attracted to Wilson’s notion that the League’s power would stem from world public opinion, or least public opinion in the major powers. Opening up the process of international discourse by bringing inside and onside the press and media would give reality to the expression ‘public diplomacy’. His record on openness, transparency and participation was impressive for the epoch. The large international press and the many advocacy groups drawn to Geneva attested to this. And third, after taking advice, he pursued the participation of voluntary associations with expert knowledge of issues that the League would be addressing. He did this through approaching the economic and technical issues of the day more globally and, for the first time, by securing the participation of civil society in the work of an intergovernmental body. This chapter explores how he approached each of these objectives and assesses his overall record in so doing. * * *

8.1  The Drive Towards Universality * * * From the earliest days, Drummond himself was committed to a fully universal League: in his founding memorandum of 31 May 1919 setting out the structure of the international Secretariat, he made it clear that ‘the head of the political section will probably find it desirable to divide his Section into geographical groups. A convenient arrangement to start with might be to have eight of such groups, namely: Western Europe, Central Europe, Near East, Middle East, Far East, North and Central America, South America and Africa’.7

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Alas, his wishes for a fully universal body were torpedoed by the realities of great power politics and the League never achieved universality in the sense of membership of all countries of the world. An effective universal order could not exist without coherence ‘built on the awareness of common aims and values’.8 Furthermore, the principle of self-­ determination did not extend to those under colonial subjugation. Universality did not mean universal. By the end of his term in office, Drummond was the first to acknowledge that ‘the one weakness of the League… is due to its lack of complete universality caused by the absence from its councils of a few of the most important countries of the world’.9 It was with weakened authority, therefore, that the League began its life, the major states of Germany, Russia and the United States being absent. It was far from plain sailing towards universalism, a society of all nations. From the moment of his appointment in 1919, the Secretary-General employed his diplomatic skills to try to widen the League’s membership. Many of his immediate problems, the Saar Basin, Danzig and minority populations, related to Germany and he felt confident that the Weimar Republic would be only too willing to enter the League. He received no support, however, from the British or French Governments. He was hostile to Russia before assuming office, believing the Bolshevik state was ‘not good, but evil, and brings not happiness but misery; not prosperity, but want’.10 These uncharacteristic strongly expressed views were formed shortly after Tsar Nicholas II and his family were executed. This affected him deeply, since, in 1917, he had been involved in exchanges with Hankey concerning various possibilities for the Russian Emperor to go into exile, expressly favouring the South of France.11 Drummond’s profound distaste of Bolshevism and the regime’s discourtesy towards the League did not intrude, however, on his wish to see Russia enter the League. Once de jure recognition was granted, he expected Russia to join.12 The difficulties over universality were vividly illustrated at the time of the first Assembly, in late 1920. There Argentina proposed a dramatic opening up of the accession process by means of a simple unilateral statement of intent to join from the state concerned. The Argentine proposal was too radical for the Great Powers and, when its proposal was rejected, Argentina withdrew from the League in protest—the first state to so do.

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In effect, the first Assembly was unwilling to admit some of the border states of Russia, and France was determined to keep Germany out of the League. There was a perception that Drummond had a pro-American bias, at least in his social circle. It is true that from his earliest days in office he did employ his social and political skills to encourage the USA to enter the League. By 1922, however, Drummond had concluded that the US was unlikely to join until European political affairs were more settled.13 All these efforts of persuasion and advocacy with respect to Germany, Russia and the United States took place behind the scenes with policymakers or with opinion formers, such as Philip Kerr. The 1922 Genoa Conference presented opportunities and difficulties for Drummond and his colleagues. Organized outside of the League’s formal framework, the Conference was intended to promote Europe’s economic and financial recovery. Monnet was worried that the Conference might assign minor questions to the League and ‘the great matters might still remain outside [its] purview’ in the hands of the Great Powers.14 Drummond, on the other hand, felt that Genoa would be a ‘victory of sorts’ for the League: the Conference received technical support from the Secretariat, and he hoped that the presence at the Conference of Germany and Russia might serve to ease their accession to the League.15 It is within this context that the League operated with an ever-fluctuating membership. Drummond adopted a hands-on approach to issues of accession, paying attention to the slightest detail, especially in the early years of his tenure, in order to ensure that as many countries acceded as quickly as possible. The original League Members were intended to be the 32 victorious powers and 13 neutral states named in the Annex to the Versailles Treaty. Listed in the Annex were all independent countries in north, central and south America save Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Mexico (of which more later), together with the handful of independent countries from Africa and Asia that were present in Paris in 1919. The successor states to the former Austria-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires were not included. The original intent was one thing; what happened subsequently was something else, as shown in Text Box 8.1. * * *

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Text Box 8.1  League Membership, 1920–1946 • The League came into formal existence on 10 January 1920, with 42 of the original 45 Members. Two never joined (the United States and the Hejaz), the third—Ecuador— finally joined in September 1934. • Of the 42 members, 17 were from the Americas, 16 from Europe, 5 from Asia, 2 from Africa and 2 from Oceania. • 20 states joined subsequently, of whom 14 acceded in the earlier years of the League (1920–1926). • Throughout its 26 years, a total of 16 countries withdrew permanently from the League. 6 members ceased to exist as independent countries. The USSR was expelled. • Peak membership reached 58 between September 1934 and February 1935. 24 countries remained members throughout. • Of the 44 members of the League at the time of its dissolution in April 1946, 32 had earlier become members of the UN. Of the 12 other states, 3 acceded to the UN later in 1946; 5 in 1955; 3 in 1991; and 1 in 2002. • By comparison, the UN came into being in October 1945 with 51 original Members. Of the 19 non-League countries, 11 had withdrawn from the League (all from Latin America); I had been expelled; 2 had been League–mandated territories; 3 had never been members of the League; and 2 were not fully independent countries.

Article 1 of the Covenant enjoined the neutral states named in the Covenant’s Annex to accede ‘without reservation’. Inevitably the nature of what could constitute a reservation preoccupied the Secretariat’s legal staff. Drummond took an expansive rather than a restrictive interpretation, always trying to find the approach that would ease rather than complicate the admission for the acceding state. He kept senior staff fully informed of problems in the accession process by meticulously recording his meetings with ambassadors and other senior government officials. He listened to van Hamel, his Legal Adviser, but did not always follow his advice. When differences arose, Drummond erred on the side of finding a solution, as illustrated in the case of Switzerland. Although listed in the Annex, Switzerland’s membership was by no means assured. Swiss Germans preferred that Switzerland should enter when Germany was a member. Some Swiss felt that Switzerland should pronounce itself when the US decision on membership was known. Others argued that Swiss neutrality was incompatible with membership. In any event, a referendum would be required in accordance with Swiss practice which raised

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the question, would this constitute a reservation? Drummond endorsed the view that Swiss neutrality was compatible with League membership and facilitated a Council decision, in February 1920, that recognized Switzerland’s perpetual neutrality. He also proposed that, in informing the League of the Federal Council’s decision to accede, Switzerland would state the need for a referendum without mentioning that accession was subject to its result. Swiss membership was necessary to enable the League to establish itself in Geneva. Drummond asked the FO to state clearly that if Switzerland voted to accede, the UK Government would withdraw its support of Brussels as the League’s headquarters.16 * * * 8.1.1   The Great Powers The US Senate’s decision not to ratify the Treaty of Versailles dealt a huge blow to the League’s credibility and Drummond’s response was instructive. Despite criticisms, and State Department obstruction, he retained Americans in the Secretariat and, indeed, continued to recruit them. Though it is a common perception that the United States had little to do with the League, in fact, it maintained an informal engagement over the League’s entire life. Drummond was instrumental in maintaining this link and the ‘manner in which that was discharged was generally believed by the Secretariat to be one of its greatest successes’.17 Drummond was closely advised by Arthur Sweetser on how to handle US-League relations and he adopted a policy of giving US nationals the opportunity to participate in League conferences and committees, and of welcoming the support of private US institutions, for example the Rockefeller Foundation. Drummond endorsed later suggestions from Salter to develop US-League collaboration based on an American share of the technical budget.18 Drummond had every reason to be satisfied with what he had patiently set in motion. Almost two decades later, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull pledged the United States’ willingness to consider making its collaboration with the League more effective.19 Sweetser commented that this represented the ‘first general opinion on the League expressed by the United States since 1920’.20 Cordell Hull’s letter to the Secretary-General paved the way towards the Bruce Report of

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August 1939, and thus to the proposals in San Francisco in 1945 for an Economic and Social Council as part of the UN (see Chapter 12). The participation of Germany raised a different set of considerations. Drummond recognized the importance of securing Germany’s admission as quickly as possible.21 On 12 September 1919, an internal memorandum from van Hamel explained how Germany could be admitted and, a week later, Drummond was again expressing his hope for early admission.22 Over the early post-war years, when the victorious nations treated Germany as a pariah, he continued to press for entry. To idealists, the case for entry23 was one of principle—that the League should be a community of all nations. To Drummond, the argument was simple and practical: he put it to Lloyd George in 1922 that ‘if Germany became a Member of the League, she would subscribe to Article 10 of the Covenant, thereby giving a guarantee for a peaceful policy in the future’.24 He wrote to Monnet at the same time, saying: ‘I rather fear, therefore, that it will be very difficult to get the [British] Government to move in the direction that I hoped viz., to put pressure on Germany to apply for admission to the League’. He pointed out the great advantages that a French initiative would have in the matter although he could not judge whether ‘such initiative is within the realm of practical politics’.25 The French remained adamantly opposed. The League for them was a source of security against Germany; if Germany was a member, the League would lose all sense of purpose for France. Drummond had to await the more favourable climate generated by the Franco-German understandings of the Briand-Stresemann period, the Locarno treaties of October 1925 and the September 1926 private luncheon conversation between Briand and Stresemann in the small French village of Thoiry across the border from Geneva, which sealed post-war Franco-German reconciliation. Briand was a loyal friend of the League, who was behind the Locarno agreement, whereby Germany’s entry into the League was made possible.26 In 1926, Drummond brought the question of German entry to the League to the fore and, in response to a request from Stresemann, placed the issue of Germany’s admission on the Assembly’s agenda.27 Germany formally became a member on 8 September 1926, and Drummond’s ‘deference and sensitivity to [Berlin was] … a recognition that Germany was a world power with vast industrial and human potential’ (Illustration 8.1).28 When Ludwig Kastl took up his seat on the Mandates Commission the following year, the Commission’s Belgian member, Pierre Orts, told

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Illustration 8.1  Gustav Stresemann’s lunch for the League of Nations, 1927. Stresemann (standing) between Briand (l) and Drummond (r), caricature by Aloïs Derso and Emery Kelen, courtesy of Lord Strathallan

him ‘that he was the first German he had spoken with since 1914’.29 Even before Germany joined the League, Drummond had recruited its nationals to the Secretariat. Otto Olsen was invited to join the Health Organisation in 1925 and, by thus securing German participation in the Secretariat, Drummond was taking a small step towards establishing reconciliation.30 Olsen identified with the international spirit that Drummond expected: in 1930 during a mission to Latin America, he refused to call on German embassies, insisting that he travelled as an international officer.31 After Germany left the League in 1933, Olsen remained with the Secretariat. The case of Russia—the third significant country that was not a member—is different in nature from either the USA or Germany. The Bolshevik state was not in Paris and remained without de jure recognition for many years. Thanks in part to Nansen’s work in favour first of prisoners-of-war trapped in Russia, and subsequently of Russians affected by famine, contacts were built up between the League and Russian officials. Rajchman and Norman White (both

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Commissioners) persuaded Russia to cooperate with the League’s Epidemic Commission. By 1925, the Soviets were informally sounding out the possibilities of membership. Following the steps towards German admission, the League could no longer be presented as a den of ‘capitalist wolves’ bent on destroying the losers of the Great War. Drummond was no naïve idealist and he well knew that other far more powerful factors were at play in the League’s relationship with Russia (which in 1922 became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—USSR). His personal commitment to Russian involvement demonstrates once again his strong belief in universalism as the bedrock of international cooperation. He quietly let it be known that the League was open to a Soviet observer, as had been done previously for Germany. However, he also told Mantoux, ‘frankly … I should prefer to wait a year or two so as to allow the absorption of Germany by the ‘Geneva atmosphere’ before attempting to assimilate Russia’.32 The USSR eventually joined in 1934, after Drummond’s departure and for reasons largely unrelated to the ensuing mutual benefits, but was expelled in late 1939 when it invaded Finland. The withdrawal of Japan in March 1933, towards the end of Drummond’s tenure, deeply affected the League’s authority (see Text Box 6.3). In the absence of Great Power commitment, the League had a weak hand. Drummond, who was directly involved in secret negotiations, shares in the League’s failure to respond to Japanese aggression. Reflecting many years later, Drummond felt that the Manchurian crisis was one occasion on which he ‘supported a policy which on second thoughts and from results, proved to be wrong’.33 The Council ‘never fully recovered the respect and authority which it had lost through its weakness and uncertainty in the early days of the conflict’.34 As with Abyssinia in 1935 and in the UN today, Secretaries-General have few viable options when great powers are intent on aggression and war. * * * 8.1.2   Smaller States From an early stage, Drummond had requests to join the League from smaller states, who saw membership as an expression of independence and a defence against more powerful neighbours. On becoming

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members, they asserted their right to be treated on the same footing as other states and Drummond, like the Secretaries-General who followed, had to show that he had no biases and no favourites. In late 1920, admissions of the three Baltic States—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—were held up, in part because of the unstable situation in Russia and in part because the states had received few de jure recognitions. On the latter point, Drummond took the view that the Covenant required states to be self-governing, and not necessarily to enjoy de jure recognition. During the first few months of 1921, a number of the League’s European Members recognized the independence of the three states and, in September 1921, they joined. Before they formally did so—and this was another Drummond initiative—the three countries were enabled to benefit from the League’s technical programmes and from ILO. The same arrangements were put in place for the Caucasian countries seeking to join. The Assembly had determined with regards to their membership that ‘circumstances were such as to preclude [it] from reaching a definite decision,’35 a feat of the English language that could only have come from a British pen. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were thus not able to enter the League, a possibility permanently lost in 1921 following the Soviet takeover of the three countries. Drummond was being cautious in 1920 in not encouraging their application, knowing full well that the League could not sustain their membership in the light of possible Soviet military intervention. Turkey also came up against Drummond’s innate caution and was told, firmly, that it would first have to agree on the Peace Treaties before League Members could consider its application. Membership application by the Irish Free State, which could have placed Drummond in a difficult situation given Anglo-Irish sensitivities, was smooth though drawn-out. Following the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921, the Free State began enquiring about membership and about arrangements for non-members to attend League conferences. In January 1922, Drummond advised on the former that it would be preferable for the Free State to be formally constituted and on the latter that the British Government should confirm its Dominion status. By December, Drummond was advising the Free State to make an immediate application for membership, to demonstrate to the world that it was fully self-governing. In fact, it was not until April 1923 that the Free State requested membership. Appeals from Irish Republicans in Ireland and the USA that such a request had no validity, as Ireland was

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not fully independent were ignored and the Assembly admitted Ireland on 10 September 1923.36 Early in the life of the League, several very small states expressed interest in membership. Luxembourg, in spite of concerns about whether it would be able to meet its League’s obligations, was admitted in December 1920. The Assembly told Lichtenstein that it ‘was not able to consider favourably [its] request to be admitted’, largely on grounds of exiguïté (A French term meaning smallness). It went on to declare that it ‘would be useful to examine whether and how countries that cannot be admitted as ordinary members could be attached to the League’, an allusion to the possible participation of small states in the League’s technical work.37 * * * 8.1.3   Latin America Latin America was far from the League’s alleged Euro-centricity. All Latin American countries were at one time or another Members, but membership was rarely stable as withdrawal was not uncommon. A contemporaneous account said that ‘the relations of the great majority of the Latin American countries with the League of Nations have been characterized by vacillation ranging all the way from enthusiastic devotion to complete indifference’.38 The United States was unnecessarily suspicious of League attempts to develop close relations with Latin American countries; even so, they created a Latin American Liaison Bureau in Geneva to act as a bloc in their relations with the League. Drummond took measures to facilitate Latin American membership. The League recognized Argentinian membership, even though its parliament had not ratified the terms of its accession. Chile maintained its position as an original Member even though it stated in late 1919 that eventual non-US participation would constitute a reservation on its accession. Colombia was irritated that Panama was a signatory country and thus automatically a Member, whereas it was invited to accede. The country was enabled to enter a reservation saying that it did not recognize Panama as an independent country. This led to a debate among the lawyers in the Secretariat. Some said that each acceding country was required to have recognised all League Members. Drummond maintained that the absence of such recognition was not a barrier to accession.

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Mexico, annoyed that allied powers had ignored its existence (it was not listed in the Covenant as a founder Member) declined to apply for membership. Eventually, in 1931 the League formally recognized the error committed in 1919 and invited Mexico to join. Both Costa Rica and Dominican Republic were able to accede in the early 1920s when, following domestic elections, the constitutionality of their governments was deemed acceptable. Drummond travelled widely in Europe during his tenure but made only one trip outside the continent, to South America in 1931–1932. He took advantage of an invitation to celebrate 100 years of Uruguayan independence to visit—in addition to Montevideo—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba and Peru. The intention was to seek increased cooperation between the League and those countries, so as to forestall any further possible Latin American defections. There had also been complaints from some Latin American countries about the lack of staffing opportunities in the League and Drummond wanted to demonstrate his openness in recruiting more staff from the region. The visit was useful in shoring up League relations with the countries he visited. From Santiago, the British Ambassador reported to London: ‘I am confident that the mission has done much to check the inclination of the Chilean government to secede from the League’, while his counterpart in Uruguay, telegraphed ‘The United States must greatly resent the intrusion on their preserves of a representative of the League of Nations’.39 In Buenos Aires, his hosts took much pleasure in receiving from Drummond the original of the Note sent by the Argentine junta of 1810 to Lord Strangford, then the only British representative in South America, requesting British recognition of independence.40 How Drummond had possession of the original Note is not known. * * * 8.1.4  Asia The extended trip to Latin America must have confirmed to Drummond the political advantages the League gained from its technical work. Drummond did not visit Asia, but if he had gone to Thailand—or Siam, as it was known in the League—he would have seen much the same thing. Siam, which was present in Paris, had joined partly for reasons of collective security. Of great importance to Siam was the League’s

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role in its modernization. There was extensive collaboration on public health development, opium control and the modernization of the port of Bangkok. When Prince Charoon, the Siamese representative at the League, died in 1928 at the early age of 53, Drummond sent a message to the Government to say that he ‘looked upon him as a personal friend … his wise judgement, his complete uprightness and disinterested impartiality’; these were of course exactly those attributes which helped the League in its work.41 Drummond’s wish for as large a membership as possible and the ideological commitment of Rajchman to serve all of humanity came together when the League started its programmes of technical cooperation with China. Drummond himself did not encourage such programmes, but he did not impede such initiatives by key staff. In time, he saw how technical activities could demonstrate the League’s usefulness as an instrument for promoting cooperation among states which might lead them to bring interstate political problems before the League. In most cases, this began with Member States asking for the League’s cooperation, for example in dealing with national health issues, in seeking the wherewithal to reform financial institutions, or for land settlement schemes. Rajchman’s association with China began in 1925 when on visiting the country he was most stunned by the inadequacy of the quarantine regulations.42 This led to a whole series of visits in close cooperation with the Chinese authorities which, by all accounts, had a significantly beneficial impact in China. Other examples include work on social issues—for example as regards the control of cannabis in the mandatory French territories of Syria and Lebanon that preoccupied the Opium Advisory Committee, or the national application of child welfare policies promoted by the eponymous Committee. * * *

8.2  Opening Up the League to World Public Opinion * * * Wilson, in introducing the Covenant at the Peace Conference, said that ‘throughout this instrument, we are dependent primarily and chiefly on one great force, and that is the oral force of the public opinion of the world—the cleansing and clarifying and compelling influences of

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publicity’.43 There was considerable public insistence for a new approach to the conduct of international relations, one which eliminated the secrecy of the past by being open and transparent. ‘The seed planted in the Covenant needed time to grow in the people’s minds, however, and to penetrate the people’s conscience’.44 The contrast between the secretive five powers Council in Paris in 1919, and the Assembly of some 40 countries in Geneva in 1920 is instructive: the Council of Five was a superlatively secret body. No secretaries were admitted to its gatherings and no official minutes of its proceedings were recorded. Communications were never issued to the press. It resembled a gang of benevolent conspirators, whose debates and resolutions were swallowed up by darkness and mystery.45

By comparison, Drummond moved quickly to ensure League meetings were open to the public and the press. As early as July 1919, Hankey wrote to Drummond arguing against admitting press delegates to future meetings. Drummond responded by saying that ‘the value to various members of the Council of full publicity, and therefore public support, would obviously be very great’.46 At the Council’s second session the press was admitted and the ‘session began and ended in public’. Over time, all debates and deliberations were opened up.47 Eighteen months later, in late 1920, the precedent was set of a general debate in the first week of the Assembly, whereby any member could raise any subject of international concern: ‘it was an extraordinary and unprecedented inrush of democracy and publicity into the world of international affairs’.48 At the first Assembly Cecil, a prominent defender of the importance of public opinion, said that the new diplomacy is ‘between people and people’ and that ‘publicity is the lifeblood of the Assembly’s existence’.49 He reflected in his autobiography that ‘One of the great merits of the League was its publicity, that it was possible to say things openly in the Assembly … which could not have been said under old diplomatic conditions’.50 The arrangements put in place at the first Assembly, just a few weeks after the Secretariat arrived from London, demonstrate a degree of foresight and preparedness that is striking. The Information Section issued a daily ‘Press Opinions on the Assembly’ that attested to the presence and the interest of the international press. Sessions were open to all and

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the Secretariat published a daily Journal of Assembly Proceedings— sometimes twice a day. The provisional verbatim record of proceedings, issued shortly after the end of each session, provided the press with all necessary detail. The Secretariat also issued an Official Guide to the Assembly. All these documents were available in French and English. The documents, at least in English, were drafted with scarcely a comma out of place.51 The Directors Meetings discussed the importance of maintaining the quality of the writing. What is extraordinary is that the model established by an untested Secretariat is now taken widely for granted in all UN meetings today. The only real difference is that these various documents are now available online and in six languages rather than two in the League. By February 1921, Drummond had the necessary political clearance to open up proceedings. He told Monnet that ‘Balfour was in agreement with the proposal that we should give out to the Press as soon as possible the Procès–verbal relating to any subject, with regard to which discussions in the Council have been definitely terminated’.52 Three years later, Drummond responded to a letter of thanks from the SecretaryGeneral of the Association of Journalists accredited to the League for the League’s support, saying ‘it is scarcely necessary to emphasise how important to the League is the cooperation of journalists and the Secretariat is resolved as always to do what it can to make that cooperation as close as possible’.53 In the course of the 1920s, permanent arrangements for the press were put in place: ‘numbered tickets were prepared for collection at the start of the Assembly … the tickets also gave admittance to the various Commissions. Assigned pigeon holes were provided in which were placed the daily agenda, verbatim reports in either English or French along with delegates’ documents. Special facilities were made available for typing reports, telegraphic communication, dictation and for phoning editors at home. Photographs of proceedings were also available for purchase and throughout the session Information Section staff were on hand to help’.54 Drummond had to reassure Cecil constantly that things were in order: in late 1921, Cecil (as President of the League of Nations Union) asked Drummond to ensure that members of the public anxious to attend an Assembly session would be able to secure tickets.55 In those days, entry was secured by simply showing a passport. Derso and Kelen illustrations show the closeness of the press to visiting ministers, diplomats and the

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Secretariat. The League’s meeting rooms, the social events, the drinking places in town were all used by them as background to their almost invariably positive caricatures of the League’s activities. To accommodate these arrangements, the Information Section grew quickly. By 1932 the Section had 21 posts, the largest number of any in the organization. Always the most vociferous in the Secretariat, the Information Section was responsible for organizing the publicity of all League meetings and activities, particularly as regards the press, but also keeping the public and organizations interested in the League in touch with events. The section edited a periodical (The Monthly Summary) giving an account in five languages of all activities, as well as a series of pamphlets describing the League, and provided photos, slides and films, illustrated albums, postcards and schoolroom exhibits. When meetings or conferences were being held, it turned out daily communiqués. It also looked after the 80 odd correspondents stationed permanently in Geneva and made arrangements for the 400 correspondents who descended there for Assembly meetings. In the Hotel National, to the right of the porter’s desk and alongside the League of Nations Post Office, the Press Room provided space for journalists to write and read, to find the latest bulletins and sit and exchange their experiences and their news. The Section kept in touch with leading newspapers, having a staff member with responsibility for each of the major countries. The most senior staff in the Information Section came from journalistic backgrounds. Pierre Comert had been a journalist for Le Temps in Vienna and Berlin. He was followed as Director by Arthur Sweetser. Both were favoured by Drummond as channels of communication between the Secretariat and their national governments and League­ supporters in their own countries. Further down the ranks in this lively section, Koni Zilliacus (a British journalist), Gabrielle Radziwill (Lithuanian) and Mary McGeachy (Canadian) were extremely well known and popular among the press corps and beyond (Text Box 8.2). Zilliacus while working for the League wrote numerous books, articles and pamphlets explaining the League’s work. Howard Ellis was one of the pseudonyms attributed to Zilliacus, but there was also a real person by this name, an Australian journalist who covered the League in the 1920s.56 As his biographer explains, ‘Zilliacus was knowingly breaking the League’s rules. He justified it on the grounds that the public had a right to be informed … he held that secret diplomacy had been a major cause of the First World War and that he would do anything in his power to prevent this happening again. He also believed that he had a duty to [advocate]

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on behalf of the League, to explain to people what it stood for, and what it was trying to achieve’.57 Drummond, who knew of course what Zilliacus was up to, did nothing to discourage him. Mary McGeachy was recruited at a clerical grade. She is the only woman in the Secretariat about whom a biography has been written. * * * Text Box 8.2  A Dynamic Duo—Koni Zilliacus (1894–1967) and Mary McGeachy (1901–1991)a Konni Zilliacus (‘Zilli’) was born in Japan. His father was a Finnish-Swedish journalist and businessman, his mother Scottish-American. He was educated at a progressive English co-educational boarding school, Bedales, and Yale University. He served in the First World War and married a Pole whom he first met on the tennis courts in Vladivostok. Exotic, ebullient, cosmopolitan, he had a magnetic personality. He had come to the League quite by chance. Serving in Siberia as a British military intelligence officer after the First World War, he read in a month-old newspaper about the formation of the League. He wrote to some influential people there and mentioned his wide knowledge of several languages, including Russian. At first he was on probation, but turned out to be the most versatile member of the Secretariat, ‘equally at home in discussing questions of the administration of the interior of China as he is in putting forward most clearly the more complicated issues of the Treaty of Versailles’. Very left wing, once back in the UK he became Labour MP for Gateshead. His daughter Stella wrote a memoir, Six People and Love, which included memories of a childhood in Geneva. Mary McGeachy was born in rural Ontario to Scottish-Canadian parents. Following a year of touring in Europe in 1927, she talked her way into the position of Senior Assistant in the Information Section which she held until 1940. In addition to her formal responsibilities to cover both the British and Canadian press, she later became the liaison with the IWOs. She organized several speaking tours in Canada entirely on her own initiative, and represented the League at conferences in America and Canada. She only managed to get into the First Division when in the tumult of 1940 she briefly ended up as acting Head of Section. When she left the League in 1940, she joined the British Ministry of Economic Warfare’s public relations department. In 1942, she was made First Secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, the first woman to be given British diplomatic rank, a rise in status promoted in part by connections with high-level British representatives made in Geneva. In 1944, she was appointed Director of Welfare in the new United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), responsible for the needs of women, children, and old people in the displaced persons camps of Europe. She was the only woman in an executive position in the new international organization. When this came to an end in 1946, she turned to voluntary work and continued to promote international cooperation through the International Council of Women (ICW) in close liaison with the UN. She served as ICW President from 1963 to 1973. aFor

Zilliacus: see Potts, A. (2002), Zilliacus, p. 88; Kinnear, M. (2004), Woman of the World: Mary McGeachy and International Cooperation, pp. 73–4 and for McGeachy, see Kinnear, pp. 3–7, 12, and 50–77

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The presence of the world’s press increased steadily. Altogether 167 newspapers and 20 news agencies were accredited to the first Assembly. By the 10th Assembly in 1930, 358 newspapers and 45 news agencies were accredited. Epstein and Murray, writing in 1929, ascribed the expansion to two events, the Association of Journalists accreditation to the League and the series of League conferences involving the press, the first in 1926, and a follow-up conference in 1927 (presided over by the owner of the British Daily Telegraph). Two further conferences were held in 1928 and 1932. An important part of the Information Section’s work was to arrange visits to the League. Some staff members were concerned as to how the visits could best be organized to minimize interruptions to their work, and there were complaints from the League’s US supporters that Americans could not get enough tickets to observe Assembly sessions. By 1926 Drummond was expressing concern that ‘since the League is now so prominent, public speaking engagements needed to be treated with care’. He encouraged the Information Section and senior staff to work with and speak to voluntary organizations as well as to contribute to their conferences, reports and documents. Staff were authorized to speak ‘but only on the responsibilities and work of [their] sections’,58 a policy from which Crowdy, McGeachy and Radziwill notoriously strayed. Some staff saw merit in expanding centres around the world to provide information on the League and distribute official publications. Drummond’s view at the time of the Manchurian crisis was that ‘while publicity where European and American countries are concerned is probably the strongest weapon of the League, it may well be a boomerang in the Far East’.59 An Indian staff member of the Information Section, after a mission to New Delhi and other cities, recommended the setting up of an Information Office in India. Drummond was apparently not keen on the idea, worried that the results would not justify the expenses. He may have been right since Indian nationalists were sceptical of the value of Indian membership, especially when the ‘[Indian] delegation is led by an Englishman’.60 The national League of Nations Unions (LNU) were exceptionally active in propagating the work of the League, in explaining the difficulties and highlighting the opportunities offered by this new and untried form of multilateral cooperation. In turn, the Secretariat was supportive of LNUs which worked hard to explain the pros and cons of the League. A private letter, written in the mid-1920s by an Oxfordshire farmer

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illustrates the uphill struggle they had against entrenched national sovereignty and prejudices: League of Na. business seems getting into troubled waters. The Rector said we could have the Hall for a meeting but he w’ take no part in it. He objects to our giving a heterogeneous mass of foreigner’s power to arbitrate on our affairs – said, if they all profess to be Christians, it would be different.61

The national branches of the major IWOs were also drawn into encouraging support for the League’s work—especially in respect of peace and disarmament. * * *

8.3  The Greater League of Nations62 The League showed almost a century ago that the agenda of multilateral organizations is advanced by working with an interested and knowledgeable public and through networks of competent experts. On this, Drummond and the Secretariat were ahead of their time. The Covenant provided sufficient basis for them to proceed and by February 1920, Noel-Baker was confident that general principles for cooperation with voluntary associations would gradually emerge from the conclusions which colleagues would reach from dealing ‘with individual problems one by one’.63 Arrangements advanced quickly, so that by November 1920 Drummond was assuring the heads of the voluntary associations that places for the representatives of their associations would be available at the Assembly’s inaugural session and that League documents would be widely distributed. In addition, the Secretariat arranged for communications from and resolutions of the voluntary associations to be made available to delegates through publication in the daily Journal. The League also facilitated the work of certain voluntary associations through access, documentation, seating privileges and use of the Library. The Secretariat soon established the routine of a half-yearly bulletin describing the activities of the voluntary associations and a much-appreciated Handbook of International Organisations. * * *

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The first post-war organization to be involved with the League was the League of Red Cross Societies (LRCS), formed under the leadership of Henry Davison of the American Red Cross. Incidentally, LRCS was the first body explicitly to promote internationalism as one of its goals. While the Peace Conference was taking place, Davison convened a conference that drew up articles of association for the LRCS that included the objective of promoting the welfare of humanity by bringing the benefits of science and medical knowledge ‘within the reach of all peoples’.64 During this Conference, he unexpectedly announced that he had received a telegram from Drummond informing him that under Article 25 of the Covenant, the League of Nations was required to cooperate with national Red Cross organizations as their purpose was ‘the mitigation of suffering throughout the world’. The first LRCS DirectorGeneral was Sir David Henderson, a distinguished military intelligence officer, and the Secretary was Rappard. In March 1920, the League of Nations sent delegates to an LRCS meeting for the first time and the League’s interest in the meeting was much appreciated.65 LRCS had meagre resources and fell far short of pursuing the high purposes defined at its founding Conference, at least in its early years. One positive outcome of the cooperation between LRCS and the League was the nomination of Nansen, the League’s High Commissioner for Russian Refugees, as head of the International Russian Relief Committee which was formed on 15 August 1921 at a Conference convened by the LRCS and the much older International Committee of the Red Cross. * * * IWOs were powerful because of the role they had played in lobbying to bring a League of Nations into existence (some calling them ‘Mothers of the League’) and because of their size and strength (membership amounted to 45 million in the 1920s and 1930s).66 Leaders at the 1918 International Congress of Women in The Hague, spearheaded by Jane Addams (who founded the social work profession in the United States and was the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize),67 played a particularly important role in presenting Wilson with their plans. Wilson reportedly told Addams that they were the best proposed by anybody. 68 His famous 14 points bore a striking resemblance to their work.69 The largest and best known IWOs were the ICW, the International Alliance of Women (IAW), and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). These organizations had their differences, such as on the issue of independence versus mainstreaming of women’s

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issues. They were, however, firmly together on the need for peace and held International Congresses to recommend paths towards maintaining peace. Their value in advocacy was well recognized by Drummond. As was seen in Chapter 7, they exerted sufficient force to secure places for women in bodies that the League created and, through their global headquarters in Geneva, were able to influence the work of such bodies.70 The women involved in League activities tended to be from aristocratic and well-connected families, parliamentarians or celebrated academics. Many, but not all, were ranking officials in the IWOs. Some, such as Marie Curie, Grace Abbott, Eglantyne Jebb and Eleanor Rathbone remain household names. Others such as Anna Bugge Wicksell and Helena Swanwick have faded into history, but were nonetheless influential. In total, 67 women served as delegates or substitute delegates with another 23 serving as experts or assessors on Advisory Committees.71 Although they covered a range of qualifications, skills and experience— from disarmament to scientific innovation—they tended to be confined to Committees that dealt with social and humanitarian affairs and, out of at least 100 committees, women appear to have been represented on only 13. Female Assembly delegates were mainly confined to the Fifth Committee dealing with social and humanitarian affairs.72 Swanwick was scathing on this matter referring to the League’s Fifth Committee as ‘a sort of rag-bag of miseries and forlorn hopes’.73 She and others however enthusiastically entered the bustle and whirl of Geneva during Assemblies when, as Swanwick comments ‘the League provided a rare glimpse into a world of masculine political privilege, a fleeting moment in which she felt what it was to be on the inside looking out’.74 Those women who persevered contributed a great deal to the League—not just in terms of dealing with social and humanitarian issues and increasing the level of their importance, but also in terms of changing how the League went about its business. One of their ground-­breaking achievements was acquiring the right of access to meetings and to official documents, and the right to distribute their statements and interact with official delegates—literally to lobby. They were granted these rights at the World Disarmament Conference (WDC) in 1932 (see Chapter 7) and later at other meetings.75 Other achievements came about by working with senior male contacts in the Secretariat and national governments to bring about resolutions and actions of benefit to women, their families and communities.

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By the time of the WDC, the international voluntary associations began to feel fully integrated into the League’s work. A large part of this success was due to the energy and lobbying of the IWOs. The League’s experience would eventually provide the justification for voluntary organizations to have a special relationship with the UN (see Chapter 12). The involvement of women experts from voluntary organizations, such as the International Save the Children Union, or of assessors serving on League Committees greatly increased the credibility, resources and efficacy of the League. Assessors had no voting rights, but by their presence ‘they were in a position to play a decisive role … . This was a momentous step in the evolution of international institutional structures’.76 * * * The involvement of the business world in the League’s work is best illustrated by the collaboration established with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), a practice that carried on into the UN. The ICC contributed significantly to the preparatory work for the 1923 International Conference on the Simplification of Customs Formalities, an exercise League economists had earlier identified as crucial in any attempt to revive international trade after the Great War. At the Conference, several ICC recommendations were included in the Convention and ‘in a notable departure from diplomatic practice … [it] was permitted to sign the Final Act of the Conference’.77 The 1927 World Economic Conference also involved extensive collaboration between the EFO and business and trade associations. Many experts from the fields of agriculture, finance, industry, international trade and the social sciences were involved and subsequently participated in the Conference. Industrial and agricultural lobbyists were active and the main work of the Conference was undertaken in special commissions where business and trade delegates dominated the discussions about the role of cartels, the place for quotas and level of tariffs in national recovery and the expansion of international trade. The United States and the Soviet Union participated actively in spite of their non-membership, and the Conference established the League’s authority in the field. It can be claimed to be the first global economic conference in history.78 It was to be the high watershed of the post-war recovery: Wall Street crashed two years later. * * *

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As striking as these examples are, the voluntary associations were by no means representative of all the Members. Although the associations claimed to represent world public opinion, they represented only the liberal democratic and mainly Anglo-Saxon societies. There were also concerns that the voluntary associations were not truly representative of their societies as a whole, an issue that is still relevant in the modern era. For these reasons, E. H. Carr, writing in the interwar era, was dismissive of international public opinion divorced from national power.79 In contrast, Alfred Zimmern writing at the same time, saw the long-term advantages of such endeavours: ‘if we want to have really efficient international government we must build it up from international voluntary societies, so that at every step voluntary associations watch over the work of governments in those subjects in which they are dealing’.80 In Paris, there had been talk of having—as well as the League of Governments with its Assembly and Council—a third kind of body, namely a ‘League of Peoples’. This was regarded as ‘highly practicable’, in the words of the legal advisor to the US delegation in Paris.81 Wilson and others hoped that national delegations would include parliamentarians, a practice that some members sometimes followed. Others suggested closer collaboration between the League and the InterParliamentary Union, which had been established in 1889, as a way of overcoming the deficiency of formal intergovernmental structures disassociated from public opinion. Some saw the annual meetings of the International Federation of League of Nations Societies as constituting a ‘Third Chamber’.82 The idea of a third body, comprising public delegates in one form or another, started with the League and has carried over into modern times. While the expression voluntary organizations used in this section are those of the League, they are now best known as international non-­ governmental organizations,83 a group of organizations whose interaction with the existing international governance structure has grown immeasurably since League days and which is now recognized as an essential partner for intergovernmental action.

Endnotes

1. Mazower, M. (2012), Governing the World—The History of an Idea, p. 116. 2.  Sluga, G., and Clavin, P. (2017), Internationalisms—A Twentieth– Century History; Sluga, G. (2013), Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism.

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3. Pan, L. (2016), in Sluga, G., and Clavin, P. (2017), Internationalisms, p. 173. 4. Stb7/1/2/4, 24 March 1921. 5. Stb7/1/2/4, 1922 Foreign Office—Undated and Unattributed Clipping of Speech. 6. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51111, 1 November 1943, f184–5. 7. YUA, Auchincloss Papers BS 580, III, Box 10, Folder 259, Drummond memorandum 31 May 1919. 8. Kwieciesi, R. (2015), ‘Universality and Coherence Under the Experiences of the League of Nations’. 9. Eric Drummond, Lancashire Daily Post, 10 March 1932 and Yorkshire Evening News, 4 April 1932. 10.  TNA FO800_329, pp. 97, 100–1, Drummond memorandum, 20 October 1918. 11. TNA FO800_383, p. 32, Drummond to Hankey, 7 April 1917. 12. NRS, GD40/17/82, Drummond to Kerr, 18 January 1922, enclosure on US, Germany, Russia. 13. NRS, GD40/17/82, Drummond to Kerr, 18 January 1922. 14. Monnet to Bourgeois, Geneva, 7 April 1922, FMAE B93, quoted in Fink, C. (1993), The Genoa Conference, p. 118. 15. LONA Directors’ Meeting, LONA, 13 March 1922. 16. LONA Box R1455, Section 28, Document 2248, Dossier 44. 17. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, pp. 348–9. 18. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51112, 3 January 1930, ff1 and 2–15, Drummond to Cecil. 19. Dubin, M. (1980), ‘Toward the Bruce Report: the Economic and Social Programmes of the League of Nations in the Avenol Era’, pp. 55–6. 20. Dubin, M. (1980), ‘Toward the Bruce Report’, p. 56. 21. Stb7/1/2/1, Drummond to Cecil, 18 August 1919. 22. LONA Box R1448, Section 28, Document 1131, Dossier 1032. 23.  Stb7/1/1/4, Drummond to Monnet, 26 May 1922; Stb7/1/2/6, Confidential, Baker to Drummond, 24 April 1924. 24. NRS, GD40/17/82, Drummond to Kerr, 18 January 1922 enclosure on US, Germany, Russia, p. 3. 25. Stb7/1/1/4, Drummond to Monnet, 26 May 1922. 26. Colban, E., Tr. Halvorsen, D. (1952), Femti År, p. 50. 27. LONA 28/49395/1032, Stresemann to Secretary-General, 8 February 1926. 28. Barros, J. (1979), Office Without Power, p. 191. 29. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, p. 203. 30. Rotramel, S. (2010), ‘International Health, European Reconciliation, and German Foreign Policy After the First World War’, pp. iii–iv. 31. Borowy, I. (2009), Coming to Terms with World Health, p. 292 [Source quoted; Ministre de France au Peru to Foreign Ministry, 22 July 1930, AMAE, Serie SDN II – Hygiene, No. 1587].

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32. Bendiner, E. (1975), A Time for Angels—The Tragicomic History of the League of Nations, pp. 223–4. Bendiner quotes the phrase ‘capitalist wolves’ from an Izvestia editorial of 11 September 1926. 33. Stb7/1/3/1, Lord Perth, Handwritten Note, 20 November 1951. 34. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League, p. 499. 35. LONA Box R1451, Section 28, Document 9521, Dossier 4395. 36. LONA Box R1454, Documents 28/25316/18439, 28/18439/18439. 37. LONA Box R1448, Section 28, Document 9460, Dossier 1017. 38. Duggan, S. (1934), ‘Latin America, the League and the United States’, p. 287. 39. Beck, P. (1995), British Documents on Foreign Affairs Part II, Series J, vol. 2 The League of Nations and its Members, Doc 140 [W1423/372/98] Memo 7 January 1931 from Chiltern (Chile) to Henderson (FO) and Doc 134 [W824/372/98] Memo from Mitchell (Uruguay) to Henderson 28 December 1930. 40. Journal of the Bank of London and South America, December 1931. 41.  Hell, S. (2010), Siam, Modernisation, Sovereignty and Multilateral Diplomacy, 1920–1940. 42. Borowy, I. (2009), Coming to Terms with World Health, p. 305. 43.  Hinsley, F. (1963), Power and the Pursuit of Peace, pp. 147–8. See Chapter 2 regarding the role played by pressure groups in France, UK and the US in establishing the League. 44. Colban, E., Tr. Halvorsen, D. (1952), Femti År, p. 65. 45. Dillon, E. (1920), The Inside Story of the Peace Conference, p. 26. http:// www.gutenberg.org/files/14477/14477–h/14477–html.CHAPTER_IV [Accessed 13 November 2017]. 46. Stb7/1/2/1, Drummond to Hankey, 28 July 1919. 47. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League, pp. 87–8. 48. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League, p. 119. The practice of the general debate has continued into the UN, see Chapter 10. 49. LONA, Records of the First Assembly, Plenary Meetings, p. 277, Cecil’s speech on 6 December 1920. 50. Cecil, R. (1941), A Great Experiment: An Autobiography, p. 93. 51. Pedersen, S. (Unpublished), ‘Turning to Geneva’, p. 2. 52. Stb7/1/1/14, Drummond to Monnet, 7 February 1921. 53.  LONA, Box R1338, 22/23696/23696, Letter Drummond to Andre Glarner, Secretary-General of Association of Journalists, 27 September 1922. 54. Epstein, J. and Murray, G. (1929), Ten Years in the Life of the League of Nations, pp. 71–3. 55.  LONA, Box R1360, 26/18144/8362, Cecil to Drummond 16 December 1921, Drummond to Cecil, 9 January 1922.

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56. Cain, F. (1996), ‘Ellis, Charles Howard (Dick) (1895–1975)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography. 57. Potts, A. (2002), Zilliacus: A life for Peace and Socialism, p. 16. 58. LONA, R1347, 22/51532/51532, Note by Drummond. 59. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51112, ff1 30–1, 29 December 1931, Drummond to Cecil. 60. LONA, R1343, 22/53411/45701, 22/52827/45701, 22/45701/45701. 61. Ralph Mann Archive, Kingham, Letter from George Phillips to his son, 9 March 1926. 62. Pickard, B. (1936), ‘The Greater League of Nations: A Brief Survey of the Nature and Development of Unofficial International Organisations’, cited in Davies, T. (2012), ‘A Great Experiment of the League of Nations Era’, p. 415. 63.  Quoted in Davies, T. (2012), ‘A Great Experiment’, p. 408. LONA Box 1067, Note by Noel-Baker, 13 February 1920. 64.  Davison, H. (1919), The American Red Cross in the Great War, Chapter 21.  http://www.ourstory.info/library/2–ww1/Davison/rc8. html. 65. LONA Directors’ Meeting, 25 March 1920. 66. Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, p. iii. 67.  Murrin, J.M. et al. (2008), Liberty, Equality, Power, p. 538; Naveh, E.J. (1992), Crown of Thorns, p. 122; and Cullen-DuPont, K. (2000), Encyclopaedia of Women’s History in America, pp. 4–5, Addams also presided over The Hague International Congress of Women, when she was elected President of the International Committee of Women for a Permanent Peace (later WILPF). 68. Stienstra, D. (1994), Women’s Movements and International Organizations, p. 54. 69. Stienstra, D. (1994), Women’s Movements and International Organizations, p. 54. 70. Sluga, G., and Clavin, P. (2017), Internationalisms, pp. 61–84. 71. Sluga, G., and Clavin, P. (2017), Internationalisms, p. 102. 72. Sluga, G., and Clavin, P. (2017), Internationalisms, p. 118 and Table 7, p. 129. 73. Sluga, G., and Clavin, P. (2017), Internationalisms, p. 112. 74.  McCarthy, H. (2004), Women of the World: The Rise of the Female Diplomat, p. 124. 75. Pietilä, H. (2007), The Unfinished Story of Women and the United Nations, pp. 6–7. 76. Droux, J. (2015), ‘A League of Its Own? The League of Nations Child Welfare Committee (1919–1936) and International Monitoring of Child Welfare Policies’, pp. 94–6.

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77. Davies, T. (2012), ‘A Great Experiment’, pp. 409–10. 78. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, pp. 41–3. 79. Carr, E. (1995), The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939, p. 126. 80. Davies, T. (2012), ‘A Great Experiment’, p. 415, citing Zimmern, A. (1931), Public Opinion and International Affairs. 81. David Huntley Miller, quoted in Davies, T. (2012), ‘A Great Experiment’, p. 413. 82. Davies, T. (2012), ‘A Great Experiment’, quoting Morley, F. (1932), The Society of Nations, p. 116. 83.  The term non-governmental organization (NGO) did not come into widespread use until the 1940s. See Charnovitz, S. (2006), ‘Accountability of NGOs’.

PART III

Legacies of the League

CHAPTER 9

Transition to the New International Order

Members (and non-Members) of the League failed to prevent the march to war in the late 1930s—Japan invaded Manchuria, Germany withdrew from the League, the Disarmament Conference came to nothing, and Italy occupied Abyssinia. In addition, the socioeconomic devastation of the Great Depression was a major factor in igniting nationalistic tendencies. The task of promoting cooperation, peace and justice between nations was not helped by having at the helm of the League a SecretaryGeneral manifestly unsuited to the task, because Avenol betrayed the notions of neutrality and independence that Drummond had instilled. Given the League’s failing political role, it is striking that its technical and humanitarian functions continued to grow. Such activities were less visible and, inevitably, the League became identified in the minds of the public with its political failures. As a consequence, those planning a new international order during the dark days of the Second World War could not simply advocate a revival of the League. Something different was to emerge, in name but not necessarily in form. This chapter looks at what happened to the League, its programmes and its staff following the outbreak of war. * * *

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9.1  The League During the War * * * Although the outbreak of war in September 1939 had no immediate effect on the staff, it came at a difficult period for them. Avenol had been purging allegedly ‘disloyal’ staff, including Rajchman who, on departing in 1939, quoted Shelley ‘If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?’1 An inevitable consequence of the League’s financial problems (see Table 10.2) was a reduction in programmes and thus staff. Over 300 had been let go by late 1939. Over this time the staff’s ability to travel on official duty also became severely restricted. Next there was a threat that Switzerland’s neutrality would be ignored and that it would be overrun. Walters, now in London, telegrammed Geneva on 14 June 1940 telling Emily Johnston, his former Secretary, that they had ‘Better destroy Eric’s old files’.2 There were more departures in the spring of 1940 around the time of the Nazi offensive in the ‘Low Countries’. Several made the hazardous journey across France to the Channel and subsequently to Britain. James Meade and his family, including a two-month old daughter, left in late April 1940, followed in May by Melville Mackenzie, his wife and their sixteen-month old son. The Mackenzies left their personal effects in Geneva with their maid, whom they had taken in as a refugee from Nazi Germany in 1935 using their diplomatic immunity. Also on board the ship that transported the family from St Malo were two League secretaries.3 McGeachy repeatedly packed League families into her car and made the journey from Geneva to Bordeaux or Lisbon. At the Atlantic coast, she would put them on a ship for Britain or America, and would then drive back for another group. On 4 August 1940 she herself flew from Lisbon to London to work for the British Ministry of Economic Warfare.4 Avenol’s behaviour and pro-Vichy sentiments created concern. He was eventually forced to resign on 31 August 1940 and Séan Lester, the Irish DSG, was appointed Acting Secretary-General, a position he occupied throughout the war (Text Box 9.1).5 * * *

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Text Box 9.1  Séan Lester (1888–1959) Séan Lester was born in County Antrim and his early career was as a journalist. A strong supporter of Irish independence he was eventually recruited into the new Department of External Affairs of the Irish Free State. He rose through the ranks to become, in 1929, Permanent Delegate to the League. In 1933 he was recruited by the League as its High Commissioner in the Free City of Danzig where he resisted Nazi persecution of the Jewish population. As war approached in 1937 he was recalled to Geneva and made DSG. Having forced out Avenol, Council Chairman Costa du Rels of Bolivia appointed Lester as Acting SG in which capacity he oversaw arrangements to continue some of the League’s activities. At its final meeting in April 1946, Lester was retroactively appointed the third Secretary-General. Following his work to wind up the League and transfer its assets to the UN he retired to Ireland and, like Drummond, found his relaxation in fishing. His diaries covering the years 1935–1947 provide a personal record of his League service. In 1945, he received the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for his wartime work for the League when he was isolated in Geneva.

Lester, with a skeleton staff, remained at the Palais des Nations to ensure that the League could respond to Member’s concerns and to provide a caretaking service. During this time and after the war, Lester reported fully to Member States on the League’s activities. Concerned that the Swiss Government might try to close the Secretariat completely if no substantive work was undertaken, he requested some LONHO staff to remain with him in Geneva, the only League technical organization to so do.6 During the war this group published the Weekly Epidemiological Record without interruption, a Handbook of Infectious Diseases (which sold out) and twelve editions of the Bulletin of the Health Organisation. The Library and Treaty Registration Section also continued their work, the latter completing ten additional volumes containing 300 treaties. The record of these sections, along with others which were relocated, was impressive and contributed to the planning for the post-war multilateralism that began in 1943.7 Surrounded by Axis powers, Geneva was an impractical location from which to operate and decisions were made to move key functions. The most important relocation was of selected members of EFO to Princeton University supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, which did not give the same priority to moving LONHO

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despite the fact that it had heavily aided its earlier work.8 Arthur Felkin and some colleagues were transferred to the USA, to continue the Opium Board’s work.9 A similar situation was faced by ILO which moved some 40 staff to Montreal in May 1940 leaving a core group of mostly French and Swiss staff in Geneva. Seymour Jacklin, the Treasurer, moved to London as the British Government continued to provide financial support throughout the war, in the belief that the League should be a building block for post-war reconstruction of the international order. Both Jacklin and Lester (when he could travel from Geneva) were to participate in the work of a group set up under the responsibility of the Foreign Office’s Legal Adviser to consult on how the League could with dignity be wound up and its assets, liabilities and non-political functions transferred to the proposed United Nations Organization.10 Also in London were some staff of the Refugee Section, who published six reports on the refugee situation during the war.11 In 1942, they were joined for a while by Raymond Gautier of LONHO who was helping the Allies to prepare medical contingency plans for occupied Europe when the war ended.12 Gautier then moved to Washington temporarily, continuing the work started in London, and he and Yves Biraud, who remained in Geneva, drafted a proposed constitution for a post-war international health organization. The determination of these small, disparate, groups to preserve something worthwhile from the League’s technical activities was reinforced by the ILO group in Montreal. The concern of all was to ensure that the international dimension of the League’s ground-breaking technical work would not be lost. Surprisingly, the US government offered solid support, although League staff were careful to avoid the pitfall of defending the League from a political perspective.13 Despite the ILO’s activism, it was the Princeton group whose quiet voice was most listened to. Its 1941 agenda for post-war reconstruction was ‘the most comprehensive … available anywhere at this stage of the war’.14 The Hot Springs Conference of May 1943 was held to discuss postwar food supplies and emergency relief. This was the brainchild of the Australian Frank McDougall who, along with André Mayer, Frank Boudreau and John Boyd Orr (who had all served as League staff or consultants for its nutritional work), developed ideas for the conference,

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which led directly to the creation of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.15 Loveday did not attend, and was upset at being sidelined, his fellow economist Lionel Robbins recording that16 In the afternoon Loveday appeared. He is naturally cut up that he has not been asked to be at Hot Springs, even as an observer, and he is extremely apprehensive of the setting up of a new statistical institution. His show [the Economic Intelligence Service of the EFO] was the only non-bogus enterprise of that kind in the inter-war period and it will be a sinful waste if … we duplicate its activities. … I feel really sorry for Loveday, whose devotion to the League in its days of misfortune has been truly admirable.

A second conference (which has been extensively studied17) was held in July 1944, at Bretton Woods. This time the development of a new international financial structure was discussed. It was attended by Sweetser, as Special Assistant to US Treasury Secretary Morgenthau,18 and members of Loveday’s team including Jacques Polak, Ragnar Nurkse and Louis Rasminsky were heavily involved in preparing papers and supporting the conference. The League’s legacy in the economic and financial sphere is described in Chapter 12. The conference was the first major opportunity for the Princeton group to ensure its work would be continued. At a technical level their influence was important in establishing the International Monetary Fund. Political and security matters leading to the creation of the United Nations (UN) were the subject of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference of August 1944. Leo Pasvolsky a principal figure involved in drafting what would become the UN Charter (see Text Box 11.1) had briefly worked with EFO. In the lead-up to the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, former League staff such as Fosdick, Noel-Baker and Colban had influential, if indirect, inputs. Benjamin Gerig, who was a significant member of the US delegation, had worked for the League in Geneva and New York from 1930 to 1940 and he sought informal advice from Loveday’s group, particularly covering the work of the Secretariat, which ‘made a contribution … to the overall direction and evolution of a new commitment to internationalism and international organization’.19 * * *

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9.2  Lessons Learnt: Drummond’s Views on the New International Order * * * Drummond was the one person with the most extensive and a unique experience of how to build multilateral organizations. In his usual modest and discreet manner, he made two significant contributions to the British process of post-war planning. From 1943 onwards the Allies were in a position to give serious thought to designing a new international order. Many, especially in the USA and those who wanted to ensure US participation, felt that a clean break was needed from the past with a new ‘United Nations’ with different rules and processes. Towards the end of the war Drummond chaired a group of former colleagues (Aghnides, Colban, Pelt, Walters and Wilson, a former Chief of Central Administration) to prepare a ‘lessons learnt’ study at the invitation of the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA) drawing on their League experience. Their report avoided political aspects of the new system and concentrated on the role and composition of a Secretariat.20 It contains both sound guidelines (some of which took many years before they were adopted) and a sense of the frustrations they experienced at the League which in some instances continue to be felt. It is worth dwelling on and quoting some of these reflections as both a testament to the group’s influence and in particular, as an insight into Drummond’s own opinions. * * * 9.2.1   On the Secretariat and International Service [Future planners can] ‘take it for granted that an efficient international civil service can be set up … provided they on their side are prepared to create and maintain the necessary conditions [for it to operate effectively]21 … The first Secretary-General when framing the scheme for the organization of the League Secretariat, decided that strict international loyalty should be demanded of the staff, thus discarding the principle of national loyalty which underlay the existing secretariats of the Peace Conference and the Inter-Allied organizations. The experiment worked well until the League became the direct object first of subtle, then of open, sabotage.22 … A system [of appointment] which depends on the cooperation of member States cannot ignore the factor of national prestige and interest. … Governments which could produce excellent candidates

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are not incapable of trying to foist embarrassing incompetents in their own administrations off into safe positions in the international organization. … An important principle is that everybody in the service should have constructive work to do [i.e. not be pushed into dead-end jobs]’.23

* * * 9.2.2   On the Senior Management and the Executive Head It is essential that the secretariat’s higher directorate should contain nationals of the major powers, on whom the main responsibility for supporting the organization will fall. Their presence is also necessary … to explain the action or attitude of the secretariat to their Governments’ representatives and vice versa, with that lack of reserve which is only possible between compatriots.24 … The head of the service will need a deputy, and his freedom of choice should not be hampered in making the appointment … the best solution in the long run might be that one of the two chief officials should be the national of a major, the other of a smaller Power. In any case, the personal qualities of the men concerned must be the chief consideration.25 … The head of the service should be young, political or diplomatic experience an advantage, ability for administration, knowledge of when to be dynamic, to take the initiative or force an issue, when to be a moderator or a catalyst in negotiation. … It may be that the only qualifications which must under all circumstances be demanded are those of common sense, courage, integrity and tact.26

* * * 9.2.3   On Finances In the early days of the League, Lord Balfour remarked that “if the League breaks down it will be because of money”. Opponents of the League were of the same opinion. Press campaigns over petty amounts were calculated to strangle the organization by the purse strings. … The League’s finances were, throughout its existence, held in a framework of economy which grew in rigidity as it grew in age.27 … A vicious circle was thus completed … A notable example of missed opportunity was the Assembly’s failure to pay the travelling expenses of delegates.28 [see Chapter 10] … The value to its members of any future international organization will depend to an appreciable degree on the attitude which they adopt in regard to the budgetary problems. It is not a question of parsimony or extravagance. It is a question of restrictive economy which prevents waste but encourages full activity, vitality and initiative.29

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These comments on three aspects of a future international Secretariat are still relevant and some were reflected in establishing the UN. Budgetary constraints are a continual management worry as governments frequently ask the system to act in difficult and unexpected situations, especially emergencies for which funding is not always available. The soundness of the commentary on the senior management of international organizations, although now mainstream, took longer than it should have done to be accepted as good practice. It was some 50 years before a UN Deputy SG was appointed and if the requirement expressed for executive heads had been followed, many poor executive heads of UN agencies might never have been appointed. What is most significant about these remarks, however, is that they contain one of the few affirmations that the idea of strict international loyalty was Drummond’s idea and his alone. Two months before Drummond’s RIIA study was published, in January 1944, Drummond, along with Cecil and Lytton, met with Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Eden and Gladwyn Jebb (who had served under Drummond in Rome) to discuss the new organization, following which Jebb minuted ‘it is our intention to retain all that is good in the League’.30 In late 1944 Drummond chaired another committee, this time one convened by the Liberal Party. Sir William Beveridge was associated with the Committee which also included Lady Violet Bonham Carter and Professor Gilbert Murray. The committee looked at the future world organization and examined the Dumbarton Oaks proposals.31 The report was uncontroversial, supporting peaceful resolution of disputes and the rejection of the use of force, which reflected Drummond’s experiences and views. For example, it starts by opining that ‘only­ when the world is safe for small nations will it be safe for all nations’ and later emphasizes the importance of publicity. It came down heavily in favour of an Economic and Social Council within the UN, recognizing the potential for greater social, economic and humanitarian work. The group was supportive of voting in the General Assembly, noting that ‘the experience of the League has shown that the smaller powers are eminently reasonable, and that it is, as a rule, only when the Great Powers disagree that their differences are reflected among the smaller Powers’. The report concludes by ‘strongly supporting’ the proposal to give the Secretary-General power to bring to the attention of the Security Council any issue that may threaten international peace and security as this could result in ‘troublesome issues being raised at an early stage’. Thus it required a Secretary-General of ‘high integrity and great courage

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and devoted to the Organization’. As with Drummond’s earlier report, this too was the subject of a discussion with Eden. Present as a British delegate to the San Francisco conference, Jebb was appointed Secretary to the UN Preparatory Commission responsible for establishing the organization’s ground-rules in August 1945. Upon ratification of the Charter, Jebb was then made Acting SG until the appointment of Trygve Lie in February 1946. The RIIA report remained under active consideration as Jebb made it available to delegates attending the Preparatory Commission. Colban (Text Box 9.2, Illustration 9.1), a member of the study group, who subsequently represented Norway at the Preparatory Commission, records in his memoirs, his ‘sense of satisfaction … [on seeing] our document before all the delegates who should work further on the Secretariat’s set up’.32 Furthermore, the study group’s members were individually influential. Aghnides became a member of the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions; Pelt supervised Libya’s independence as the SG’s Representative before becoming the Director of the UN office in Geneva and an ASG; while Colban was Norwegian delegate to the first UN General Assembly and worked for a while in Kashmir as Trygve Lie’s personal representative. Walters wrote the official history of the League of Nations. Drummond’s achievements ensured that the statesmen at San Francisco ‘were certainly more knowledgeable and confident about the nature of the Secretaryship-General because of [his] careful and methodical development of the office’.33 A decade later, Dag Hammarskjöld reflecting on the way in which Drummond had built up the international civil service, said: In the whole field of international politics, one of the most radical innovations was the creation … of the notion of an international secretariat as something lifted above all national contexts. That was a creation by Sir Eric Drummond. I admire the way in which he gave it body and weight. We have had to repeat the experiment. In doing so, I personally learnt very much from both the difficulties and the principles of the first experiment.34

This sentiment has been expressed by other SGs both before and after. Hammarskjöld was also guided by Drummond in other respects. In a conversation with Loveday, Hammarskjöld said that ‘I do not believe that the SG should be asked to act by [Member States], if no guidance

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for his action is to be found in the Charter or in the decisions of the main organs of the UN’ and that ‘after reflection he had decided to base his policy on Drummond’).35 * * * Text Box 9.2  Erik Colban (1876–1956)a Colban, a Norwegian, having graduated in law, worked briefly on maritime law at the Ministry of Trade, Maritime and Industry, and then embarked on a 14-year career in the Foreign Service, serving in Paris, Le Havre and Rio de Janeiro. In May 1919, in London, he was introduced to Drummond who invited him to join the new secretariat, an opportunity he embraced as it would, in his words, enable him to ‘serve my own country’ as well as wider humanity. One of the first to be recruited, he started work in June 1919 in Sunderland House and recalls, in his memoirs, the excitement he felt in his new responsibilities. Despite the rigours of being Director of the Minorities Section, which involved frequent travel away from Geneva, Colban played a major part in the setting up of an entirely new international secretariat when Drummond entrusted important administrative roles to him. Colban drafted the provisional staff statutes and was a member of a small committee dealing with all important personnel questions which made proposals to Drummond and, thereafter, developed ‘offers of contract’. From 1927 to 1930 he served as the Director of the Disarmament Section at a time when the League was facing increasing resistance from the Great Powers (notably Britain and France). Though he returned to the Norwegian diplomatic service in 1930, and served as ambassador in Paris, Brussels, and Luxembourg, he maintained contact with the League— attending several Assembly and Council meetings as the Norwegian delegate, as well as being his country’s delegate at the Disarmament Conference. In 1934 he was appointed envoy in London, becoming Ambassador in 1942. Here he joined Drummond and other old colleagues in a retrospective review of the Secretariat’s work. At the end of the war, Colban was the Norwegian delegate to the UN Preparatory Commission and to the first UN General Assembly, and was a member of the committee that worked on the creation of the International Court of Justice. From 1948 to 1950, he was UN SG’s Special Representative in Kashmir. He published his memoirs—Fifty Years— in 1952, and in 1954 wrote an article ‘The UN as a Permanent World Organization’ in which he reflected on his experiences at the League and the way in which the League’s experiences impacted on the UN Charter. He felt that ‘the UN should be both political and non-political, meaning it should secure peace, but at the same time work towards solving economic, social and humanitarian issues. Every nation should secure peace, but at the same time work towards solving economic, social and humanitarian issues. Every nation should be a member and no one should be allowed to withdraw’. aThowsen, A. (2009), ‘Erik Colban’ in Norsk Biografisk Leksikon (Norwegian Biographical Encyclopaedia); McKercher, B. (2014), Transition of Power: Britain’s Loss of Global Pre–eminence to the US 1930–1945; Colban, E., Tr. Halvorsen, D. (1952), Femti År

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Illustration 9.1  Erik Colban (undated), United Nations Archives at Geneva

* * *

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9.3  Launching the United Nations * * * The United Nations Charter was signed on 26 June 1945 in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the two-month long conference. On 24 October the UN was established following ratification of the Charter by the required number of states. In between, the world had changed utterly. With Hiroshima, the ominous threat of nuclear annihilation cast its shadow over the world in which the League’s successor organization was about to operate. The UN was, initially, an alliance of victorious powers. It was based on agreements between the USA, which had never joined the League, and the Soviet Union, which the League had expelled. So perhaps it was not surprising that the drafters of the UN Charter, learning a lesson from the USAs’ failure to ratify the Covenant, were at pains to distance themselves from the League, primarily so that US political support and commitment could be ensured. The League was barely invited to San Francisco. League representatives, who included Lester, Loveday and Jacklin had difficulty in registering their presence. They found accommodation in a third-rate hotel and were seated, surrounded by schoolchildren, in the third tier of the Opera House where the Conference met. Their advice was neither sought nor proffered. This was not an oversight: Edward Stettinius US Secretary of State in his opening remarks to the Conference made no reference to the League. Lester never commented publically on the way the League had been treated. Notwithstanding the reluctance to involve former League officials in the UN’s formation, many of their ideas did indeed become accepted practice. As Webster remarked in 1947: [w]e pretended we had a tabula rasa, and were receiving direct inspiration; the new organization bore a most embarrassing resemblance to its predecessor. Again and again, without any direct reference to what had transpired during twenty years at Geneva, we arrived, surprisingly, at results that might seem to have been modelled on the earlier organization.36

A prominent historian, Leland Goodrich, had his own contemporaneous account:

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The student of international organisation must recognise the United Nations for what it quite properly is, a revised League, no doubt improved in some respects, possibly weaker in others, but nonetheless a League, a voluntary association of nations, carrying on largely in the League tradition and by the League methods.37

Consequently, the reality was very different as there are many long-lasting legacies. Unconsciously and consciously, the best aspects of the League’s operations became the model for the UN. Comparing the League with the UN, said Sweetser, was akin to a man being asked to speak of his first wife—in fact the second wife looked uncannily like the first.38 As Sweetser put it: It was only natural, therefore, that when the UN Conference in San Francisco adopted the Charter and the [Preparatory Commission] in London elaborated the details, they should follow [for] the new agency in New York the precedent which had been set by the first agency in Geneva. The commendation was silent, almost ungraciously so in those days of ‘fresh start’, but it was perhaps all the more eloquent for this reason.39

Colban recalled in his memoirs his pleasure at seeing how the UN Secretariat as well as the UN as a whole, ‘organizationally and administratively, [had] inherited so many values from the League’. He went on to record that several League officials were ultimately employed in the UN in very high positions (see Annex 3).40 The following chapters explain the League’s legacies and what the UN and its agencies acquired from the League. Chapter 10 highlights the essence of the multilateral system, namely the international civil service which has now enjoyed an unbroken continuity of 100 years. It describes how the structures, functioning and management of the ICS has borrowed much from the early days of the 1920s. Chapter 11 outlines the many continuities in the area of political and humanitarian work, including the humanitarian legacies, the protection of refugees and the trusteeship function, while Chapter 12 explains how many technical functions migrated to the new agencies and the UN itself. Chapter 13 highlights those League staff who carried their international experience to the new organizations, compares the life of an international civil servant then and now, and describes the continued evolution of Geneva as a centre for multilateralism.

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Endnotes



1. LONA, R 6187, 8D/38230/204, C.H./Bureau Réunion 6/PV, Avril 1939, p. 35. 2. Stb7/1/3/2, Lester to Walters, 18 October 1945. 3. Haswell, C.J. (unpublished, undated), The Doctor Who Stopped a War: The Adventures and Achievements of Dr. Melville Mackenzie CMG, pp. 279–86; Wellcome Library, PP/MDM/B/10, Mackenzie to Emma and Kenneth Mackenzie, 26 October 1935. 4. Kinnear, M. (2004), Woman of the World, p. 8. 5. Fosse, M., and Fox, J. (2016), Sean Lester—The Guardian of a Small Flickering Light, Chapters 15 and 16. 6. Borowy, I. (2008), ‘Manoeuvring for Space: International Health Work of the League of Nations During World War II’, pp. 93–4. 7. Edwards, E.M. (2013), The Wartime Experience of The League of Nations, PhD thesis, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, pp. 236–40. 8. Borowy, I. (2008), ‘Manoeuvring for Space’, pp. 93–4. 9.  Collins, J. (2015), Regulations and Prohibitions: Anglo-American Relations and International Drug Control, 1939–1964, p. 41. 10.  Ghébali, V.-Y. (2013), Organisation international et guerre mondiale, p. 664. 11. Walters, F. (1952), History of the League of Nations, p. 809. 12. Borowy, I. (2008), ‘Manoeuvring for Space’, pp. 93–4. 13. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, p. 270. 14. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, p. 277. 15.  Marchisio, S., and Di Blasé, A. (1991), The Food and Agriculture Organization, p. 9. 16. Robbins, L. (1990), The Wartime Diaries of Lionel Robbins and James Meade 1943–45, pp. 15 and 21. 17. See in particular, Clavin. P. (2013), Securing the World Economy; Conway, E. (2014), The Summit; and Skidelsky, R. (2000), John Maynard Keynes, Vol 3 Fighting for Freedom. 18.  Ekbladh, D. (2014), ‘American Asylum: The United States and the Campaign to Transplant the Technical League 1939–1940’, p. 659. 19. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, p. 355. 20. Perth, Earl of, et al. (1944), The International Secretariat of the Future. Lessons from experience by a group of former officials of the League of Nations. 21. Perth, Earl of. (1944), The International Secretariat, p. 10. 22. Perth, Earl of. (1944), The International Secretariat, p. 19. 23. Perth, Earl of. (1944), The International Secretariat, p. 22. 24. Perth, Earl of. (1944), The International Secretariat, p. 28.

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25. Perth, Earl of. (1944), The International Secretariat, p. 29. 26. Perth, Earl of. (1944), The International Secretariat, p. 31. 27. Perth, Earl of. (1944), The International Secretariat, p. 50. 28. Perth, Earl of. (1944), The International Secretariat, p. 52. 29. Perth, Earl of. (1944), The International Secretariat, pp. 54–5. 30. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51112, letter 4 March 1944 Perth to Cecil, f191–2 and TNA, UN/44/1 and 2, notes from Jebb to Secretary of State 13 January 1944. 31.  Perth, Earl of, et al. (1945), The Organization of Peace and the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals. 32. Colban, E., Tr. Halvorsen, D. (1952), Femti År, pp. 216–8. 33. Rovine, A. (1970), The First Fifty Years, The Secretary General in World Politics, p. 26. 34. Hammarskjöld, Press Conference 14 February 1956, Canberra, Australia, quoted in Lipsey, R. (2013), Hammarskjold: A Life. 35. NCA, MSS Loveday, Box 34, letter 56/14 undated. 36. Webster, C. (1947), ‘The Making of the Charter of the United Nations’, p. 17 quoted in Armstrong, D., et al. (1996), From Versailles to Maastricht, International Organization in the Twentieth Century. 37. Goodrich, L. (1947), ‘From League of Nations to United Nations’. 38. Mazower, M. (2012), Governing the World: The History of an Idea, location 3465. 39. Stb7/3/3/2, 16 December 1951. Personal note from Sweetser. 40. Colban, E., Tr. Halvorsen, D. (1952), Femti År, pp. 72 and 216–8.

CHAPTER 10

The Structural and Practical Legacy of an International Civil Service

10.1  Structures, Governance and Functions * * * Commentators have observed the structural and governance similarities between the UN and the League. In essence the UN mirrors the League from annual [General] Assembly meetings with more frequent [Security] Council sessions to a series of equivalent committees or commissions such as the Legal Committee, a Disarmament Committee and the Trusteeship Council. The League’s Assembly pioneered the practice that almost all of the UN system follows, of opening a general assembly with a series of state-of-the-nation speeches from heads of delegation before moving to the detailed agenda. The euro-centric League Assembly used to meet in September/October. The UN General Assembly (GA), despite its global membership, also meets at this time. The author of the League’s governance structure was Colban, to whom Drummond had assigned the task of establishing committees to deal with the Assembly’s work. Colban initially suggested establishing Committees comprised of those members of delegations with appropriate expertise, but Monnet believed that each delegation should be involved in all the committees; each of which could establish smaller sub-committees with delegates chosen for their subject-matter knowledge. This avoided ‘the rather complicated task of having to choose © The Author(s) 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0_10

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among all delegations those who could be seen as particularly qualified …’1 and was the genesis of ‘committees of the whole’, open to all Members, as opposed to specialized committees which had restricted membership. Furthermore, Walters credits the Secretariat with devising a ‘bureau’ of the chairs of the six Assembly committees to assist the President and the six Vice-presidents elected by the Assembly.2 The ‘bureau’ concept transferred across to the UN GA which originally had 13 Vice-presidents plus the six committee chairpersons and which is known as the General Committee. There is little functional difference between the final committee structure of the League and of the UN, they differ only in name and designated number. The sole ‘new’ UN organ was the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) which emerged from reforms suggested by the 1939 Bruce Committee (see Chapter 12). Other UN constituent parts also replicated those of the League, most notably the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions which mirrors the League’s Supervisory Committee, and a further committee to determine the scale of members’ contributions. The UN Military Staff Committee which is staffed by the permanent members of the Security Council (SC) is similar to the League’s Permanent Advisory Commission which was run by the Great Powers. The League Council when considering a particularly complex issue appointed one member as a Rapporteur whose function was to consider all positions and to draft a balanced report. This practice, introduced in 1920 by the French statesman Léon Bourgeois,3 has transferred across to the SC where a resolution is often developed by a ‘pen holder’ (usually a Permanent Member). The League’s legacies also spilled over into the Specialized Agencies. Almost all have the same governance structure of a periodic Assembly of all members plus an executive Council of selected members meeting more frequently. However, the international financial institutions (IBRD and IMF) have quite different governance arrangements. American predominance in their formation resulted in an over-arching intergovernmental assembly and a permanent Executive Board chaired by the executive head which approves day-to-day policies and operations. Early Public International Unions (PIU), such as the International Institute for Agriculture (IIA), had an information-gathering role. From the start, the League’s Secretariat understood that continuing this work

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was an important part of its responsibilities and almost every major conference was preceded by data collation and dissemination. For this to be effective, statistical methods had to be standardized and as early as 1919, a meeting of statistical experts was convened which led to the creation in 1920 of a Committee of Statistical Experts, a body that still exists within the UN structure (see Chapter 12). One of the major developments in international administration introduced by the League Secretariat was the concept of ‘expert committees’, whose members were selected not simply to ensure a balance between governments’ interests, but for the expertise that individuals could bring to discussions. To some extent, this was derived from the wartime inter-allied committee structure. Salter credits Monnet for bringing this into being4 by proposing that policies be created ‘by direct communication of expert with expert’ and which are ‘subject to real international consultation while still in the actual process of formulation’.5 As is the case today, League committees were advisory to the governing bodies. Walters considered that the ‘Financial and Economic Committees were pre-eminent in the ability and authority of their members … Under their auspices the experts of the Secretariat established a world-wide economic intelligence service and thereby placed at the disposal of the smallest states … a mass of information far superior to that which even the greatest could have acquired for itself’.6 About half the members of the Finance Committee were bankers and its procedures foreshadowed the working practices of the Bank for International Settlements.7 Even the Americans came to appreciate the League’s effective committee structure stating that ‘the United States Government is keenly aware of the value of this type of general interchange and desires to see it extended’.8 The present balance in responsibilities between governing bodies, their committees and the Secretariats also derives from League practices. Howard Ellis noted that the League Secretariat functioned as an ‘intermediary’ at meetings and briefed or lobbied for draft resolutions and other outcomes.9 While this exposes Secretariats to criticism, this is now accepted practice and today most technical committees depend on their Secretariats for report writing and drafting resolutions. This was not early UN practice and Loveday, when asked to make proposals for the UN Statistical Commission, wrote that:

206  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. … the secretariat cannot possibly get the influence and position it ought to have unless it first prepares the document or documents basic to the discussions which are to take place, secondly steers the committee through the points it raises in those documents, and thirdly drafts the committee’s report. This drafting of the report seems to me [to be] of quite vital importance for a number of reasons. First it prevents irresponsible recommendations … secondly it relates the recommendations to solid preparatory work; thirdly it avoids [the] risk of a quite incompetent rapporteur; fourthly it renders a logical sequence in the reports possible. … Certainly … we generally drafted the resolutions. As time passed this became increasingly necessary because the resolutions had to fit into the previous resolutions and action taken, about which the delegates were necessarily less familiar than the secretariat.10

The preparation of annotated agendas and subject-specific reports for meetings of governing bodies is another function of present day Secretariats that derives directly from League practice. Walters recalled that: ‘At the First Council the Secretariat presented a document on the single agenda item to delimit the Saar/German frontier’ and that it had ‘toiled for many hours over the preparation of this simple act’. He went on to state that A printed document set forth the circumstances … in language of which every comma had been carefully considered. No one knew what the attitude of its members would be towards this unknown phenomenon; and there were, in fact, some among them who seemed surprised and doubtful when Bourgeois [the presiding Chairman] motioned the Secretary-General to take a seat, not among the experts and secretaries, but at the Council table itself. Then at the Second Council session it was agreed that every question on the agenda should be considered in the light of a Secretariat note setting out the facts and reproducing relevant documents but without expressing any opinion.11

When advising UNESCO, Loveday again repeated the advice that the best plan was to have a brief printed report written and organized with an eye to the general plan of the agenda and for special branches of work to have an annotated agenda prepared in advance.12 * * *

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10.2  Evolution of the International Civil Service (ICS) * * * The genesis of international organizations and their Secretariats has been traced back to the PIU and specifically IIA. These organizations had some internationally recruited staff but in the main they were employed as national civil servants. Although IIA paid and managed its staff as Italian nationals, the institution (unlike earlier PIUs) was independent of the host state. At the 1919 Peace Conference the thinking behind PIUs was still in evidence in Hankey’s proposal for an organization staffed by delegations seconded from national administrations. Grey, hoped that, under his protégé, the Secretariat would ‘develop in a short time into nothing less than a great international civil service’.13 The ‘Round Table’, a British association of advocates of Empire and the Dominions had similar views. Their magazine, The Round Table, edited for the first few years by Philip Kerr, published lead articles on behalf of the group.14 Drummond was not a member but was in contact with several of them during the period 1914–1919, and their ideas supported his position. The March 1919 issue of The Round Table15 contained a lead article ‘Practical Organization of Peace’ in which Kerr promoted an International Secretariat which, as quoted in Chapter 4, was envisaged as an assembly of public servants of various countries, not national ambassadors, but rather civil servants under the sole direction of a non-national leader, the aim of the whole organization being to evolve a practical international sense and common purpose. What Kerr advocated was reflected in the Secretariat that Drummond established. When commenting on its origins in 1924, Drummond stated that the concept was of ‘an international civil service, in which men and women of various nationalities might unite in preparing and presenting to the members of the League an objective and common basis of discussion’.16 His 1924 article continued: International conferences in the past had often suffered from the lack of any organized international preparatory work, and we felt that it was exactly in this domain that a new system was required … It seemed to us that it would be of great value if an expert and impartial organization existed which, before discussion by the national representatives took place,

208  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. could draw up objective statements of the problems to be discussed, and indicate those points on which it seemed that the Governments were generally in accord. If this could be done, we held that discussion by the government representatives would be automatically limited to matters where divergence of view really existed – and all who have had experience of international affairs know how much this increases the chances of reaching a definite and successful result. Further, we maintained that the execution of decisions should be entrusted to people who, being the servants of all the States Members of the League, could be relied upon to carry them out with complete freedom from national bias.

Drummond was consistent in his explanation, which he repeated in 1931 when speaking to the Institute of Public Administration. At that time he also indicated that he had felt strongly about the principle and made no secret of his conviction that adoption of the plan for a Secretariat independent of national governments was essential if the League was to develop in the way its founders hoped.17 His civil service background must also have played a role in his wish for an impartial Secretariat. When speaking in the House of Lords in 1942 he said that: When I first entered the Civil Service, the principle which was instilled into my mind … was that we owed allegiance to the responsible Minister of the Crown, and that it was our duty to serve him to the utmost of our capacity. It did not matter what was the political persuasion of the Government; … what we had to do was to work out, to the best of our ability, the policy laid down by the Minister. I believe that these ought still to be the guiding principles of the Civil Service.18

The ICS quickly established an efficient and reliable way of working. In 1922, the British delegation to the Third Assembly, which included Balfour and Cecil Hurst, one of the Covenant’s drafters, reported to the Foreign Office that: ‘Before closing this despatch we desire to pay a tribute to the excellence of the organization of the Secretariat General of the League at Geneva, the efficiency of which is beyond all praise. … We feel confident that so long as the League has at its disposal the services of so distinguished and so devoted a body of employees, it will never fail to accomplish rapidly and efficiently every task, however difficult, which may be entrusted to it by its members’.19 Drummond, through his own example and his encouragement of others, created a new concept from scratch and nurtured it to such an

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extent that it survived both the weak leadership of Avenol and the political and economic catastrophes of the 1930s and the Second World War. He set standards of behaviour, recruited as broadly as the membership would allow, and saw the Secretariat’s competence become recognized by Member States. However, as in all international bureaucracies, he made trade-offs between selection by nationality and seeking the best qualified persons for specific tasks, a shortcoming that succeeding generations have failed to overcome and possibly never will. As has been seen in the previous chapter, the concept’s endurance was facilitated by the recognition that certain League and ILO functions were of sufficient importance that they were continued during the course of the war and these remnants of the Secretariat provided the springboard for a revitalized service. Suzanne Bastid’s definition of an international civil servant is still valid, being ‘a person to whom the representatives of several states, or an organ acting on their behalf, have entrusted, by virtue of an inter-State agreement and under their supervision, the continuous and exclusive exercise of functions in the common interests of the States in question subject to special legal rules’.20 Dag Hammarskjöld, who along with Drummond is credited with the codification of the ICS, was quite clear about Drummond’s contribution, citing the classic statement of the principles found in the report drafted by Drummond and submitted to the Council by Balfour:21 By the terms of the Treaty, the duty of selecting the staff falls upon the Secretary-General, just as the duty of approving [the selection] falls upon the Council. In making his appointments, he had primarily to secure the best available men and women for the particular duties which had to be performed; but in doing so, it was necessary to have regard to the great importance of selecting the officials from various nations. Evidently no one nation or group of nations ought to have a monopoly in providing the material for this international institution. I emphasise the word ‘international’ because the members of the Secretariat once appointed are no longer the servants of the country of which they are citizens, but become for the time being the servants only of the League of Nations. Their duties are not national but international.22

Even in today’s much more complex and inter-related world, the typical international civil servant subsumes his or her nationalistic inclinations into the needs of an organization and, in most cases, attempts by their own states to influence their work are controllable and minimal.

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That this is so is, in the main, due to the impartial role of the League Secretariat which was carried over by the UN system’s founders, despite any negative perceptions they may have had of the League itself. There are, however, two caveats. The first is that there are certain countries (notably those of the Soviet bloc during the Cold War) which retain close control over those of their nationals seconded to work in international organizations. Fortunately, their attempts to oversee the work of their nationals have been of little consequence as other international civil servants have been well aware of the problems. The second is that just as in the League, the appointments of USGs, ASGs or Directors-Generals are political. In many cases these senior appointees adopt an independent stance (such as the position taken by the British UN USG Kieran Prendergast who opposed the 2003 Anglo-American intervention in Iraq) but there are some who are less committed to working disinterestedly. One notable feature of the Secretariat’s work was the facility with which even relatively junior staff had access to a wide range of senior government figures when compared to today. By 1925, Loveday considered that: A wide and ever growing network of personal acquaintances and experience connected the organizations of Geneva … not only with the Foreign Offices but also with the Ministries of Commerce, Health, Transport and other departments with which the League’s activities were concerned. … experience showed that such cooperation was a plant of quick and natural growth … politicians, officials and experts of all nationalities found it easy and even agreeable to work together …’23

The rise of Fascism in Italy and of the Nazi Party in Germany changed everything. Even though Drummond insisted on his right to appoint staff, the pressures he faced changed the nature of senior management. No longer was there the open and trusting camaraderie of the early years. Broadly, the ICS has a management structure that derives from both the League under Drummond and ILO under Thomas. Drummond with his British Civil Service background encouraged a degree of delegation to lower management levels and a general openness, leading to a fairly devolved structure; Thomas on the other hand followed the French system of centralized control where, for example, all major documents passed through a Cabinet before and after being actioned at lower levels.

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In ILO the French suspicion of a British-style central registry was overcome by giving the Chef de Cabinet the right to extract items from the incoming mail.24 When Drummond resigned, which coincided with Thomas’ death, the leaderships switched, with the Frenchman Avenol taking over at the League and the Englishman Harold Butler at ILO. The result was that the League moved somewhat closer to the French dirigiste system while ILO moved away. These Franco-British influences resulted in the management structures of both organizations converging into a British system of delegated responsibilities with an overlay imposed by a small Cabinet which dealt with and oversaw sensitive matters. Despite numerous management reforms, this particular facet of the management structure of many international organizations has generally stood the test of time. The League’s Covenant was relatively silent about the Secretariat’s role and work because its nature had still to be established and the initiative’s newness left many questions to be defined by practice. In contrast the UN Charter has more specifics about the Secretariat. These, in part, are based on the League’s experience, but also fill gaps in the Covenant. Table 10.1 compares the relevant paragraphs of the two documents to show where they are similar and where they differ. For this purpose, the Articles of the Charter are taken out of order to indicate how they relate to the Covenant. Hammarskjöld attributed the adoption of Article 100 in the Charter directly to Drummond’s equivalent decision concerning the League’s Secretariat. The ethos of an independent ICS, owing loyalty exclusively to the organization, has spread far beyond the UN system into other global and regional organizations such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). It is now an accepted element of most new international regimes, although those in which the USSR had a substantial influence in their formation tend to reflect the alternative model where secondment is the norm (for example the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). Drummond’s great contribution to multilateralism is the creation of the ICS. It endures and shows no sign of significant weakening especially in the more technical disciplines, despite attempts to change its nature (such as the Soviet ‘Troika’ proposal of the 1960s). The first UN Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, was clear about Drummond’s contribution, saying ‘His decision to create the first truly International Secretariat

Article 97 The Secretariat shall comprise a Secretary-General and such staff as the Organization may require. The Secretary-General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. He shall be the chief administrative officer of the Organization The Secretary-General shall act in that capacity in all meetings of the General Assembly, of the Security Council, of the Economic and Social Council, and of the Trusteeship Council, and shall perform such other functions as are entrusted to him by these organs. The Secretary-General shall make an annual report to the General Assembly on the work of the Organization. [Codifies the League’s practice of an Annual Report] The expenses of the Organization shall be borne by the Members as apportioned by the General Assembly [No equivalent in the UN Charter]

Article 6 The permanent Secretariat shall be established at the Seat of the League. The Secretariat shall comprise a Secretary-General and such secretaries and staff as may be required The first Secretary– General shall be the person named in the Annex; thereafter the Secretary-General shall be appointed by the Council with the approval of the majority of the Assembly The secretaries and staff of the Secretariat shall be appointed by the Secretary-General with the approval of the Council The Secretary-General shall act in that capacity at all meetings of the Assembly and of the Council The expenses of the Secretariat shall be borne by the Members of the League in accordance with the apportionment of the expenses of the International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union

Article 7 The Seat of the League is established at Geneva The Council may at any time decide that the Seat of the League shall be established elsewhere All positions under or in connection with the League, including the Secretariat, shall be open equally to men and women. Representatives of the Members of the League and officials of the League when engaged on the business of the League shall enjoy diplomatic privileges and immunities. [Separate Convention developed for the UN] The buildings and other property occupied by the League or its officials or by Representatives attending its meetings shall be inviolable. [Part of the separate Convention]

(continued)

Article 8 The United Nations shall place no restriction on the eligibility of men and women to participate in any capacity and under conditions of equality in its principal and subsidiary

UN Charter [compared to the Covenant]

The Covenant

Table 10.1  Comparison of the Covenant and the Charter (selected articles)

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Article 99 The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security [Expanded powers for the Secretary-General allowing for more proactive interventions at the Security Council and the General Assembly compared to Article 15]

Article 102 Every treaty and every international agreement entered into by any Member of the United Nations after the present Charter comes into force shall as soon as possible be registered with the Secretariat and published by it. Article 101 1. The staff shall be appointed by the Secretary-General under regulations established by the General Assembly. [A new provision reflecting League practice] 2. Appropriate staff shall be permanently assigned to the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, and, as required, to other organs of the United Nations. These staffs shall form a part of the Secretariat 3. The paramount consideration in the employment of the staff and in the determination of the conditions of service shall be the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity. Due regard shall be paid to the importance of recruiting the staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible. [A new provision reflecting League practice]

Article 15 If there should arise between Members of the League any dispute likely to lead to a rupture, which is not submitted to arbitration as above, the Members of the League agree that they will submit the matter to the Council. Any party to the dispute may effect such submission by giving notice of the existence of the dispute to the Secretary-General, who will make all necessary arrangements for a full investigation and consideration thereof

Article 18 Every treaty or international engagement entered into hereafter by any Member of the League shall be forthwith registered with the Secretariat and shall as soon as possible be published by it. No such treaty or international engagement shall be binding until so registered.

Article 24 There shall be placed under the direction of the League all international bureaux already established by general treaties if the parties to such treaties consent. All such international bureaux and all commissions for the regulation of matters of international interest hereafter constituted shall be placed under the direction of the League … The Council may include as part of the expenses of the Secretariat the expenses of any bureau or commission which is placed under the direction of the League. [The UN Specialized Agencies have separate arrangements]

(continued)

UN Charter [compared to the Covenant]

The Covenant

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Staff Regulations 1933, Article 1 The officials of the Secretariat of the League of Nations are exclusively international officials and their duties are not national, but international. By accepting appointment, they pledge themselves to discharge their functions and regulate their conduct with the interests of the League alone in view. They are subject to the authority of the Secretary General and are responsible to him in the exercise of their functions … They may not seek or receive instructions from any Government or other authority than the Secretariat of the League of Nations

Table 10.1  (continued) Article 100 In the performance of their duties the Secretary-General and the staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any government or from any authority external to the Organization. They shall refrain from any action which might reflect on their position as international officials responsible only to the organization. [A new provision based on League practice as reflected in the oath of office and in Article 1 of the 1933 Staff Regulations]

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was a decision of profound significance—surely one of the most important and promising political developments of the twentieth century. His place in history is secure’.25 * * *

10.3  Staff Rules and Regulations * * * Colban prepared the League’s first staff regulations which were redrafted in 1922, following the Council’s examination of conditions of service by a committee chaired by the Frenchman Georges Noblemaire. In 1928 the Assembly appointed a Committee of Thirteen to re-examine them which led to a further revision in 1933. At Dumbarton Oaks, in 1944, American participants decided not to complicate an already complex agenda with a proposed overhaul of the ICS but supported a straightforward continuation of League practices until the new organization was established. Thus, for example, the concept of a biennial home leave for internationally recruited staff and their families derives directly from a practice the League adopted,26 as was the need for a pension fund. The Executive Committee of the UN Preparatory Commission also accepted the League’s rules as the basis for its work. The result is that the explicit duties and obligations that apply to UN staff today correspond closely to those of the League. As far as was possible, staff were involved in decisions that impacted on their work. The Staff Regulations ensured that committees were established to advise on work-related issues. The Secretary-General and senior staff were free to call for the opinion of any staff member they felt could contribute to a decision and, according to Loveday, this was a major factor contributing to excellent morale.27 Drummond set up such committees so that the equity of any decision could not be open to doubt.28 The more important ICS practices which derive from the League are of two types, those concerned with the need to ensure that the League recruited and protected a loyal staff of diverse nationality working outside their own country and those that related to the staff’s working conditions and environment.

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The League, like many international organizations today, needed to select staff of the highest levels of competence but simultaneously had to respect the need for geographical balance representative of the membership. This has always been difficult to achieve if the effectiveness of a Secretariat is the paramount consideration. As seen above, Drummond drafted the Balfour proposals which put this into effect.29 He was the main driver in ensuring balance in the Secretariat and his approach has been replicated. He pronounced that the real difficulty lay in the clash of the two needs, and that ‘It is only possible to treat each case on its merits … No hard and fast rule can be laid down’.30 Today, in the UN System there is a system of quotas for filling posts and this too, has its origins in the League. When Jan Smuts, Prime Minister of South Africa, wrote about the scarcity of South Africans on the staff, he was told ‘that the British representation on the staff was already in excess of their proportion’.31 As seen in Chapters 4 and 5, Realpolitik forced Drummond to recognize the importance of the Great Powers. This is mirrored today in the selection of senior UN officials who are nationals of the SC’s five Permanent Members. Governments still try to press the case for their own nominees. Drummond informed the FO that he had: offered Paulucci Attolico’s place on the Secretariat … I had, for reasons of principle, to show that the initiative for such appointments must rest with me. Perhaps you know that the first candidate proposed by the German Government was not such as I wanted and I negotiated on this question some considerable time before securing Dufour. However, as soon as I mentioned Dufour’s name, the Germans put [it] forward as their own candidate.32

At the time, Nicolson at the FO observed that ‘it was regrettable Drummond should have purchased the support of M. Mussolini for the principles of the League (which he could never comprehend) at the price of posts for Italians’.33 At lower levels, just as today, there was more flexibility but Drummond required any professional appointment to be cleared with him so that he could be sure that his Directors were selecting staff on as wide a basis as possible. Loveday recorded that Drummond’s ‘ruling might give complete freedom regarding nationality, or might be a request to seek first in one or another group of countries … if after an

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exhaustive and genuine search no suitable candidate could be found the permitted area might be extended’.34 Drummond established a Committee on Appointments and Promotions to ensure that candidates matched the requirements of the post. However, in trying to recruit from certain countries there existed examples of stereotyping that, in today’s context, are objectionable.35 Fosdick recalled that an interviewee for a librarian’s job, when asked how he would classify books, he replied ‘I put the big books on the big shelves and the little books on the little shelves’. 36 He did not get the job! The loyalty of staff was reinforced by the requirement that they take an oath of office. The identical oath is used by the UN System to this day (adapted slightly to include the larger number of autonomous UN organizations). They read: The League I solemnly undertake in all loyalty, discretion, and conscience the functions that have been entrusted to me as […] of the League of Nations to discharge my functions and to regulate my conduct with the interests of the League alone in view and not to seek or receive instructions from any Government or other external authority.

The UN I solemnly swear (undertake, promise) to exercise in all loyalty, discretion and conscience the functions entrusted to me as an international civil servant of […], to discharge these functions and regulate my conduct with the interests of the […] only in view, and not to seek or accept instructions in regard to the performance of my duties from any government or other authority external to the Organization.

To complement this, both League and UN staff have been forbidden from receiving honours from governments.37 Drummond’s efforts to develop an impartial International Secretariat have been described in Chapter 5. In 1925 Rappard expressed doubts about the role of the Secretariat’s topmost officials, stating that ‘the chief members of British, French and Italian nationality in the Secretariat had a duty to put to the fore the views of their respective governments’.38 This comment upset Drummond and undermined the impartial example that he presented to the Secretariat. In a Directors meeting he responded that:

218  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. It was true that the chief nationals of the great powers on the Secretariat had to keep in close touch with their Governments because it was a fact that these governments exercised a great influence in international politics. It was incorrect to say that these officials should or did attempt to ensure the vision or the point of view of their own Government in the Secretariat.39

Rappard was clearly in two minds. By 1931 he was writing that Drummond had created ‘a reputation of international impartiality … which is as valuable to the League as it is creditable to those responsible for establishing and maintaining it’.40 However, not all contemporary observers were fully convinced of the staff’s impartiality. By 1928, The Spectator’s Geneva correspondent was writing that ‘the League has come to count for so much in the world that Great Powers think it worthwhile to insist that their nominees, very often now professional diplomats, shall be given high places in the Secretariat’.41 Max Beer, the Austrian-born Marxist journalist, wrote: The internationalization of the League’s officials as formulated by Lord Balfour and the League regulations would seem to be a sham. Fortunately everything is explained by the one word liaison. … It means that, in the interest of the Secretariat, the Lithuanian officials establish liaison with Lithuania, the Germans with Germany and the French with France. … If the Secretary-General, who theoretically has ceased to be British goes to London before every important meeting, and the Italian … goes to Rome, this is supposed to be liaison. Where does it begin, where does it end, and what cause does it serve?42

Despite the desire for a fully independent ICS, there were lapses. Albert Thomas was a member of the French Chamber of Deputies for a time43 and, as has been described, many senior staff had easy access to the corridors of power in their own countries and in some cases drafted positions for their governments. Salter prepared a memorandum for Ramsay MacDonald44 covering the questions of German admission to the League, security and disarmament, which informed UK policy. Another difference from the standards that were later adopted for the UN was that staff were allowed to earn outside income as long as doing so did not interfere with their duties. Thus Loveday was paid fees for BBC broadcasts and for writing articles for Encyclopaedia Britannica.45

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Drummond was the proximate cause of a new rule adopted by the UN. As seen in Chapter 3, his acceptance of the ambassadorship to Italy was viewed unfavourably. As a consequence, in 1946 the UN GA adopted Resolution 11(1) which states: Because a Secretary-General is a confidant of many governments, it is desirable that no Member should offer him, at any rate immediately on retirement, any governmental position in which his confidential information might be a source of embarrassment to other Members, and on his part a Secretary-General should refrain from accepting any such position.

One of Drummond’s first tasks on arriving in Geneva was to negotiate the legal status of the staff with the Swiss Government. Immunity from national and cantonal taxes, fiscal requirements and some customs levies was agreed for all staff. The Secretary-General assigned staff into two categories defining their rights, with additional privileges for the topmost positions (which still survive in Geneva today).46 Although for most purposes this agreement applied to staff based in Geneva, he recognized that there were lacunae for those posted elsewhere for whom country-specific agreements had to be negotiated. It took some time, for example, for immunities to be negotiated for PCIJ staff at The Hague. The lesson was, however, learnt when the UN started up: In the light of the experience of twenty-five years of League history the United Nations, when drawing up their constitution, felt that an attempt should be made to formulate a definitive body of doctrine and the charter accordingly charged the new General Assembly with the task of determining the details of the privileges and immunities to be granted. As a result of this instruction a General Convention was developed and approved by the Assembly in the spring of 1946.47

Another legal protection for the staff was provided by the Council’s creation of an Administrative Tribunal in 1927 (Text Box 10.1). Examples such as this reinforce Clavin’s perspective that the League provided the UN with: ‘essential scaffolding in intellectual and practical terms. The Princeton Mission told the Americans how to recruit, manage and sustain the bureaucracy of the new institutions’48 (see Chapter 13). * * *

220  D. MACFADYEN ET AL.

International salaries have always been a point of dispute particularly with the major budget contributor. There are distinct similarities between the British stance over salaries at the League and that of the US over those of the UN System. The work of the 1921 ‘Noblemaire Committee’, inevitably involved a study of salaries. The Committee proposed paying salaries ‘based on those of the highest-paid Civil Service in the world, i.e. those of the British Empire’. It concluded that: ‘we do not see how any other course could have been followed, since, if lower salaries had been offered, it would be impossible to obtain the services of Britishers of the required standing, or, if the United States join the League, of any North Americans. … It would be difficult … to pay lower salaries for the same work to members of other nationalities’. Within the UN, this definition is now known as the Noblemaire Principle.49 The League examined salaries twice more in 1929 and 1932 but found no better solution. In 1945 the UN Preparatory Commission also adopted the formulation used by the League by stating that the employment in the Secretariat should be such as will attract qualified candidates from any part of the world i.e. ‘the most highly paid home and foreign services’.50 However, following the economic upheavals of the Second World War, it was no longer the British Civil Service that offered the best salaries but that of the USA. Over a number of years the early decisions concerning UN System salaries have been reviewed many times but pay is still governed by the Noblemaire Principle. The Principle has been best stated by the 1972 Special Committee for the Review of the United Nations Salary System, namely that: ‘since there should be no difference in salary on the grounds of nationality, the conditions of service of the international staff must be such as to attract citizens of the country with the highest pay levels’.51 The structure of the UN salary scale is similar to the League’s although from the start the number of annual or biennial pay ‘steps’ per defined grade in the UN was greater than at the League where the concept of career service had not been fully developed. Although the pay of international officials was based on the British Foreign Service, in reality League salaries were higher in nominal terms as a cost-of-living adjustment was applied to equate pay between London and Geneva and this created some of the discontent expressed by Member States. Cost-ofliving comparison and adjustment introduced for Geneva has led directly to the UN System’s ‘Post Adjustment’ which equates the salaries of international staff over many different locations.

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When the League established its provisional headquarters in London the British Government, mindful that this was to be a temporary situation exempted staff from income tax. On moving to Geneva and in negotiating privileges and immunities for the staff, Drummond secured a similar exemption, arguing that taxes would introduce inequities both for governments and staff, an argument that remains valid. In calculating salary scales the after-tax levels of comparator civil services are used. The League also introduced various elements of remuneration (which continue today) to recognize the specific needs of staff working in an international environment; these included, home leave, health insurance and a contributory pension system in which the staff accrued pension benefits based on a formula which was similar to the initial provisions adopted for the UN pension system. By 1940 there were enough League and ILO retirees that an association was established in Geneva to look after the interests of pensioners. In 1970 a similar association was replicated by UN retirees, but during the 1970s the relations between the two groups were uneasy. Difficulties were eventually resolved in the esprit de Genève when the two associations were both led by Swiss nationals, Paul Blanc in Geneva and Henri Reymond, a former League and ILO staff member, in New York.52 * * * Text Box 10.1  The Administrative Tribunala At the Assembly’s First Session members of the Secretariat and of the ILO, who were appointed for five years or more, were granted the right to appeal to the Council or the ILO Governing Body if dismissed. The first case was brought by François Monod in 1925. The Council, needing to develop a new procedure, first requested the Supervisory Commission to look into the matter then, on its recommendation, appointed a panel of three jurists to examine the legal issues involved. By agreeing to accept the panel’s decision in advance, it ensured that due process was respected. Monod was eventually awarded £750 compensation. Following this, concern was expressed at the cumbersome nature of the Council’s involvement and that a proper judicial system should be established, rather than leaving the final decision to government representatives. Accordingly, in 1927, the Assembly established an Administrative Tribunal. Over the next few years the Tribunal heard 21 complaints and, in two of them, awarded compensation. It was reconvened after the war to consider the situation of officials whose contracts had been terminated in 1939 as part of the wartime cut-back of staff. However, the final League Assembly decided not to give effect to those Tribunal decisions. (continued)

222  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. Text Box 10.1 (continued) The UN created its own US-based tribunal. However in Europe, in April 1946, there was a seamless changeover, as the ILO Tribunal (ILO/AT) continued and became the Tribunal for UN Specialized Agencies based in Europe. In October 1948 WHO aligned itself to the ILO/AT as did UNESCO, ITU, WMO and FAO in 1953. Both tribunals were given greater powers to adjudicate over contractual issues and two other changes were instituted: the possibility of further appeal to the International Court of Justice was introduced; and the requirement of the appellant to pay a fee of 1/50th of his/her annual income was abolished. The application of case law means that, to this day, the League Tribunal’s judgements continue to be recognized. For example, its decision that, in the absence of specific rules, it could refer to general principles of law and of equality (equité). The two tribunals continue to provide judicial assurance to staff who are otherwise disenfranchised from national processes. aCour

Internationale de Justice. (1954), Memoires, Plaidoiries et Documents

10.4  Finance and Budgets * * * From its inception the League faced budget constraints, particularly in respect of its technical programmes and it had to respond to external events as and when they arose, placing great strain on its finances. From the repatriation of prisoners-of-war from Russia in 1920 through to the relocation of staff to the USA in 1940, the management continually had to beg for donations from governments and from independent sources of finance. Despite the US not joining the League, American contributions to its activities were substantial. In the League’s first eight years alone it was the second largest contributor counting both public and private funding.53 Regular funding was always a concern. In 1919, Drummond’s personal contacts and the ability of Treasurer Herbert Ames (Text Box 10.2) to convince British officials in 1919 that money would be well managed, ensured that the League and ILO could start operations before contributions were received from Member States. Arrears of contributions were a recurrent worry (as they have been for the UN system throughout its existence).

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Text Box 10.2  Herbert Ames (1863–1954)a Herbert Ames, before he joined the League, had been a Canadian Member of Parliament from 1904 and had a number of business interests in Montreal. He was recruited for the post of Treasurer (and was effectively in charge of all administration) and worked for the League until 1926. Because the League’s administration is of secondary importance to historians his role has been overlooked. His job was one of the more difficult of the senior posts because of a general resistance to giving the League sufficient funds to operate effectively. He was clearly a very competent Treasurer and was wide-ranging in his efforts to establish a sound financial structure for the League. His success is reflected in the fact that the League was never charged with any financial mismanagement. The Financial Regulations were based on the Dutch financial system, the budget procedure was a combination of French and British approaches, and the audit was grounded on Italian practice. With the assistance of Loveday, Ames came up with the concept of a scale of Member States’ financial contributions to the budget based on ‘ability to pay’ as defined by economic indicators. Starting with a tabula rasa he developed systems for recording and reimbursing staff travel costs, required expenditures to be approved (committed) in advance, and developed a separation of responsibilities in financial control, so that those approving expenditures were separated from those making the payments. One of his policies carried through to successor organizations was that, if a Member State offered to host a meeting, then costs over-and-above those that would have been incurred in Geneva were to be paid by the host country. For paragraph 2, see Jacklin, S. (1934), ‘The Finances of the League’, p. 695

* * * Unlike Article 17 of the UN Charter the Covenant had no provisions for authorizing a budget but it did specify that the costs of membership should be apportioned in accordance with the method used by the Universal Postal Union (Table 10.1). This, however, was a stop-gap decision which did not reflect the League’s very different objectives and in 1920 the Assembly requested a committee to re-consider the formula. The result was a formula, using internationally accepted indicators, which took into account the economic capacity of members to pay and which in an updated form is still the concept used for UN assessments. The Noblemaire Committee proposed creating a ‘Supervisory Commission’ a body to which the League and ILO draft budgets were submitted before being passed on to the Assembly for approval. There is a direct equivalence between this Commission and the work of the UN’s Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions which not only reviews the UN’s budget but also those of the Specialized Agencies and advises the GA of its findings.

224  D. MACFADYEN ET AL.

Drummond was required to spend inordinate amounts of time in the Fourth Committee defending his budgets to the detriment of his participation on other issues (Illustration 10.1).54 The UK as the largest contributor, was continually exercised by the budget but there was a degree of schizophrenia in the UK’s position. It offered firm (although not unwavering) support to the League yet, equally, was parsimonious with its contribution and critical of its programmes. Sir Hilton Young a delegate to the 1927 Assembly felt that there was: a growing conviction on the part of the British delegates that the energies of the League are being squandered by diverting [the technical activities] to tasks that concern national interests only, and for that reason are unsuitable for the League or the tasks that are too trivial, or not of sufficient urgency to deserve attention. It is evident indeed that the technical activities of the League must be limited if they are not to become increasingly inefficient for lack of concentration, or positively mischievous by clashing with national interests. The attempt to impose a limitation by means of a definition of function failed … [this] we may achieve with more ease and certainty by another method, the limitation of expenditure.55

Young went on to suggest that resolutions with financial implications should be submitted by the Secretary-General one month before the Assembly and that such proposals should be costed, concluding that this would be a beneficial process if it caused the Secretariat and others to think of the consequences of their proposals in advance. Yet earlier, delegates had felt: that some arrangement should be made another year whereby the Secretary-General of the League should not be called upon to justify in person to [the Fourth] Committee the various items of proposed expenditure. It seems intolerable that this official in the busiest month of the year should be required to be present at this Committee at all, except on the rarest occasions.56

A 1932 debate in the House of Lords questioned the British share of the budget, the degree to which British firms were obtaining contracts for the construction of the Palais des Nations and wasteful expenditure.57 In fact the UK contribution was not excessive, being around 10%, compared to the next highest contributors, France and Germany, at almost 8%. These sorts of complaint will be familiar to anyone in the UN

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Illustration 10.1  Drummond, seated on chest, defending the budget, 1932, detail from caricature by Aloïs Derso and Emery Kelen, United Nations Archives at Geneva

System who has had to deal with the United States’ representatives at their governing bodies; like the UK at the League, the US also blows hot and cold in its relationship with the UN. When the US joined ILO in 1934, the question arose as to how it should be assessed, given that ILO’s budget was approved

226  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. Table 10.2  Budgets and Staffing 1921–1939

League of Nations, Budget and Staffing 800

20

600

Staff

500

15

400 10

300 200

5

100 0

1921

1923

1925

1927

1929 1931 Year

Budget

1933

1935 1937

1939

Budget, Sw Francs (m)

25

700

0

Staff

by the Assembly and that, by then, the US was the world’s dominant economy. While there was no cap on League contributions, the British Empire and Dominions as a whole paid 25% of its costs. With this in mind, an ad hoc decision was made to cap the US contribution to ILO at 25%.58 When the UN came into being, in 1946, the US contribution was again capped, at 40% of total costs, although this was less than its contribution should have been under the ‘ability to pay’ concept. This was because all other major economies were struggling to recover from the impact of the war. Over the next 20 years, as other economies improved and UN membership increased, the US contribution was gradually reduced to 32%. However the idea of a cap remained in the minds of the US government and, in 1974, it eventually succeeded in having one set at 25% (further reduced to 22% in 2001). Compared to the League, therefore, the UN is far more reliant on a single contributor. As can be seen from Table 10.2 the League’s budget did not explode uncontrollably. Drummond’s reaction to continued attacks on the budget mirrored the approach taken in some organizations in later years. In a letter to Cecil he commented: ‘Up to now I have absolutely played the game, both with the Supervisory Commission and with the

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Assembly, but one becomes much tempted to over-budget grossly in order that the Supervisory Commission and the Assembly, in its turn, may have the satisfaction of feeling that they have been successful in largely reducing expenditure. I cannot really reconcile myself to such a course, but it seems clear that it would pay as matters are conducted at present’.59 In 1944, looking back on the League’s financial problems Drummond wrote: ‘The League’s finances were, throughout its existence, held in a framework of economy which grew in rigidity as it grew in age. … A vicious circle was thus completed: restrictive budget, ineffective League; ineffective League, restrictive budget’.60 Budget constraint impacted both on the Secretariat’s work and upon governance. Drummond, reflecting at a time when a successor organization to the League was being planned, observed that: ‘A notable example of missed opportunity was the Assembly’s failure to pay the travelling expenses of delegates’.61 He felt that smaller nations had been constrained in their attendance at the Assembly because they had to pay their own way even though many had long distances to travel, or had to send European-based diplomats. The payment of travel costs to allow delegates to attend meetings of governing bodies was adopted in the UN’s earliest days although with limitations on numbers. Financial pressures have since limited such payments to delegates from least developed nations. Another financial development which the League fostered due to its perennial need for additional resources and which has continued in today’s international organizations is the creation of ‘Trust Funds’. These are supplementary monies entrusted to an international organization by a donor (country, institution or even a private company) with specific terms of reference to finance agreed activities which support the organization’s aims. Non-core funding continues to be of concern to Member States today, with complaints that the providers of such funding can ‘steer’ resources into programmes that they support rather than into more general programmes that the membership as a whole considers necessary. The Rockefeller Foundation was the principal source of the League’s Trust Funds, donating just under $10 million between 1921 and 1930, but other donors existed such as British Quaker families. Rockefeller’s generosity was primarily due to Raymond Fosdick (see Text Box 4.2) who remained a life-long supporter and was able to secure funding for specific activities. Excluding J. D. Rockefeller Jr’s personal donation

228  D. MACFADYEN ET AL.

of $2m to build the Library, his Foundation supported the budget to an average level of 3.4% of annual expenditure, most of which was targeted to LONHO but in later years also to some EFO activities. It was the same Rockefeller who stepped in to resolve the UN’s problem of where to locate its headquarters: having purchased the land in midtown Manhattan alongside the East River, he then donated it to the UN. The physical legacies of the League include the Palais des Nations, the Treaty Registration records (a function passed over to the UN), and the Library and Archive, upon which this book’s authors have drawn extensively. The Archive’s existence at the Palais is very much due to Walters who protested that the original idea to distribute the records among several institutions would be: profoundly wrong – short sighted ungenerous, destructive and an offense against history. If anything of the sort is carried out, it will mean that all visible and material records of the League of Nations will for practical purposes be wiped out – scattered, merged into a mass of material in which they will lose all separate identity, removed from the place and setting in which they properly and historically belong. … I will even dare suggest that the Secretariat was an institution which deserves to leave some permanent traces behind it …62

Endnotes



1. Colban, E. (Tr.) Halvorsen, D. (1952), Femti År, p. 109. 2. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, pp. 117–8. 3. LONA, Directors Meetings, 28 January 1920. 4. Salter, J.A. (1961), Memoirs of a Public Servant, p. 105. 5. LONA ‘The Organization of the League of Nations’ 10 May 1919, Salter papers File 4, Organization and Administration 1919–29 quoted in Aster, S. (2016), Power, Policy and Personality, the Life and Times of Lord Salter, p. 88. 6. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, pp. 177–8. 7. Greaves, H. (1931), The League Committees and World Order, p. 76. 8. BL, Cecil, ADD MS Vol. 51114, Walters to Cecil 22 February 1939 f107 forwarding a note by the US government from D. Bigelow US Chargé d’Affairs, Geneva, US reference C.77.M.37 1939 VII. 9. Howard-Ellis, C. (1928), The Origin Structure and Working of the League of Nations, pp. 481–2.

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10. NCA, MSS Loveday, Box 18 letter 23 February 1950 to W. Leonard, Director UN Statistical Office. 11. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, pp. 86–7. 12. NCA, MSS Loveday, Box 18, letter 10 July 1950 to W. Sharp, Director Social Science Department UNESCO. 13. Stb5/1/9 Daily Graphic 12 May 1919 statement by Lord Grey of Falloden. 14. May, A. (1995), The Round Table 1910–1966. 15.  The Round Table 9(34). 16. Drummond, E. (1924), ‘Organizing the League of Nations Secretariat’, The World Today, March 1924 quoted in Howard-Ellis, The Origin Structure and Working of the League, pp. 171–2. 17. Drummond, E. (1931), ‘The Secretariat of the League of Nations’, Paper read before the Institute of Public Administration, 9 March 1931. 18.  Hansard, HL, Debate, ‘Headship of the Civil Service’, 25 November 1942, vol. 125, cc. 224–32. 19. Beck, P. (ed.) (1995), British Documents on Foreign Affairs Part II, Series J, vol. 9, Legal and Administrative Questions 1924–1939, document 106, pp. 159 and 161. 20. Bastid, S. (1931), Les Fonctionnaires internationaux. 21. Hammarskjöld, D. (1961), ‘The International Civil Servant in Law and in Fact’, lecture to Congregation, Oxford University, 30 May 1961. 22. LON. (1920), Official Journal number 4 (June) ‘Staff of the Secretariat Report Presented by the British Representative’, p. 137. 23.  Loveday, A. (1956), Reflections on International Administration, pp. 295–7. 24. Phelan, E. (1936), Yes and Albert Thomas, p. 66. 25. Lie, T. (1954), In the Cause of Peace, p. 41. 26. LONA, Directors’ Meeting, M187, 25 March 1927. 27. Loveday, A. (1956), Reflections on International Administration, p. 74. 28. Drummond, E. (1931), ‘The Secretariat of the League of Nations’. 29. LON. (1929), The League from Year to Year—Oct 1927–Sept 1928, p. 236. 30. Drummond, E. (1931), ‘The Secretariat of the League of Nations’. 31. Van der Poel, J. (ed.) (1973), Selections from the Smuts Papers, Vol. 5, September 1919–November 1934, p. 90. 32. Stb7/1/2/8, Confidential note to Selby 21 January 1927. 33. Barros, J. (1979), Office without Power, pp. 278–9. 34.  Loveday, A. (1956), Reflections on International Administration, pp. 43–4. 35. NCA, MSS Loveday, Box 2 Correspondence 1919 2/1–2/61 Letter of 11 August 1919.

230  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. 36. Fosdick, R. (1972), The League and the United Nations, p. 24. 37. LONA, Drummond to Chargé d’Affaires Bulgarie, 12 October 1929. 38. Rappard, W. (1925), La politique de la Suisse dans la Société des Nations, 1920–1925, p. 26 (Drummond objected to the expression ‘faire prévaloir’). 39. LONA, Directors’ Meeting, M139, 3 June 1925. 40. Rappard, W. (1931), The Geneva Experiment, p. 61. 41. LONA, The Spectator, 14 September 1928, p. 13. 42. Beer, M. (Tr. Johnston, W.H.) (1933), The League on Trial—A Journey to Geneva, pp. 199–200. 43.  Weiss, T. (1983), ‘The Myth and Reality of the International Civil Service’, p. 294. 44.  Memorandum Salter to MacDonald 11 August 1924 TNA FO371/10569. W7259/134/98 quoted in Aster, S. (2016), Power, Policy and Personality, p. 139. 45. NCA, MSS Loveday, Box 3 letter 10 September 1925 and Box 33 letter 3 December 1930. 46. Hill, M. (1947), Immunities and Privileges of International Officials—The Experience of the League of Nations, p. 16. 47. NCA, MSS Loveday, Box 18, Letter 10 July 1952 to W. Sharp, Social Science Department, UNESCO. 48. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, p. 307. 49.  LON. (1921), Records of the Second Assembly, Meetings of the Committees (Fourth Committee, Fifth Committee, Sixth Committee) p. 175, Annex 2, paragraph 18, Geneva, 7 May 1921. 50.  UN. (1945), Report of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations, Chapter VIII, Sect. 2 paragraphs 24, 25 and 68. 51. Report of the Special Committee for the Review of the United Nations Salary System, vol. I Chapter III paragraph 139, General Assembly Official Records Twenty-seventh Session Supplement No. 28 A/8728. 52. Ali, A. (2005), ‘Reflections and Memories’, FAFICS 30th Anniversary document. 53. Gorman, D. (2012), The Emergence of International Society in the 1920s, p. 183. 54.  Proceedings of the Conference on Experience in International Administration, Carnegie Endowment, January 1943, quoted in Ranshofen-Wertheimer, E. (1945), The International Secretariat. A Great Experiment in International Administration, p. 39. 55. Beck, P. (1995), British Documents on Foreign Affairs Part II, Series J, vol. 9, Document 23, TNA W9471/366/98. 56. British Documents on Foreign Affairs Part II, Series J, vol. 9, Document 106, Report by the British delegates to the 3rd Assembly 1922, paragraph 67.

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57. Hansard, HL. Debate ‘The League of Nations’, 11 February 1932, vol. 83, cc. 562–76. 58.  Reymond, H. (undated, unpublished), The International Service, Experiences and Recollections, p. 151. 59. BL, Cecil, ADD MS Vol. 51110, f46, letter 18 August 1923. 60. Perth, Earl of. (1944), The International Secretariat of the Future, pp. 50 and 52. 61. Perth, Earl of. (1944), The International Secretariat of the Future, p. 52. 62. BL, Cecil, ADD MS Vol. 51114, Walters to Hambro copied to Cecil 8 December 1945, f153.

CHAPTER 11

Humanitarian and Political Legacies

Specific areas of international responsibility that transited from the League to the United Nations included refugees, mandates and minorities. This chapter reviews these transitions as well as the League’s obligations for the maintenance of peace and security which the UN Charter sought to strengthen. * * *

11.1  Refugees * * * Refugees are an inevitable by-product of war and conflict. Inevitably, refugee crises can only be resolved through concerted international action. Through trial and error, action and experience, the League, under Nansen’s leadership, set the broad pattern for refugee work which has continued for 100 years. As so often, it was determined and charismatic individuals who often made the difference. Support for refugees was part of a trend in the 1920s towards an internationalization of humanitarian action, driven in large part by the desire to help those devastated by the horrors and tragedies of the First World War.1 Rene Cassin, the great French human rights’ advocate, mobilized support for war veterans whether allied or former foe. Herbert

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Hoover, the American businessman, philanthropist and later President, built on his war-time food aid experiences in Belgium to organize emergency feeding programmes in Russia and Eastern Europe. Alongside Hoover’s American Relief Administration, Nansen organized the provision of food and other relief to Russians suffering from famine, not on behalf of the League but as leader of Le Comité International de la Secours à la Russie. ‘Initiatives of the Nansen Organisation in Russia in the 1920s represented one of the first instances of modern disaster response, with efforts to coordinate the work of relief teams’.2 Children had their own champion in Eglantyne Jebb, the founder of Save the Children (see Chapter 7). The result of all these efforts, as recent research has shown, gave birth to a new development in human society—that of international humanitarianism. Nansen was central to these endeavours. One of the League’s first actions was to assist Russian refugees, despite the absence in the Covenant of any provisions for refugees. Drummond appointed Nansen as High Commissioner for Russian Refugees on 6 August 1921. It was an ideal choice, as he had begun to work under League auspices a year earlier, to bring home from Siberia several tens of thousands of prisoners-of-war. Nansen and his colleagues identified and put in place the elements of an international response to refugee situations. What Nansen did in Europe in the early 1920s endures.3 What are those elements? Refugees have two requirements: material and legal. Immediate assistance is characterized by the provision of material support to protect the afflicted refugees from starvation or death. This requires money, food, shelter, clothing and other essentials. The League’s early experience demonstrated the advantages of mobilizing resources on an international rather than exclusively national basis, a principle that remains applicable today. The second basic requirement is legal and political protection. This involves the substitution for the country of origin of a country ready to receive the refugee. Only an international authority can ensure that obligations undertaken by the receiving government are observed and that the efforts of receiving governments are internationally coordinated, so that refugee crises are quickly and efficiently overcome. Such legal protection needs international agreement. Here again, the League’s work provided the basis for the international conventions that today underpin all refugee action. Two examples illustrate how Nansen’s work has stood the test of time. In June 1928, Nansen convened a conference to clarify and promulgate rules governing the legal status of refugees. Refugees need documents that provide them with the security for identification

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and travel. The Nansen passport (or more technically a Nansen certificate) was originally issued for these purposes to Russian refugees. In the 1920s and 1930s over 425,000 Nansen passports were issued. The principle of non-refoulement (an undertaking that refugees cannot be removed from their authorized country of refuge without their consent) was codified in the 1933 League of Nations Convention Related to the International Status of Refugee, along with the issuance of Nansen passports. Today, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issues travel documents for stateless persons and refugees, including certificates of identity. The League’s several Refugee Conventions (see Chapter Note 1) provided the basic elements of the definition of a refugee that are enshrined in the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Optional Protocol. Refugees must have left the territory of the state of which they were a citizen and they must have done so for fear of persecution. Refugees defined by the League Conventions were considered to be covered by the 1951 Convention. A feature of the League’s approach to resolving refugee crises that has carried over into the post-war period concerns the practice, first developed by Nansen, of using voluntary associations or n ­ on-governmental organizations, to handle relief and many protection responsibilities (see Chapter Note 2). At first, this was difficult in a League composed of representatives of governments. Once again, this flexible partnership between the international authority and highly-motivated voluntary associations has stood the test of time. So the core of today’s refugee regimes was established by the League and has been carried over to all essential purposes to the post-1945 period (see Chapter Note 3). The death of Nansen in 1930 was a great loss to international refugee work. In 1933, the flight from Germany of Jewish refugees began as Hitler put in place his racial agenda. The League created the office of ‘High Commissioner for Refugees (Jewish and Other) Coming from Germany’ in 1933 appointing the American James McDonald as Commissioner. He did his best under appalling circumstances but left in 1935, concluding his letter of resignation with the words: ‘when domestic policies threaten the demoralisation and exile of hundreds of thousands of human beings, consideration of diplomatic correctness must yield to those of common humanity. I should be recreant if I did not call attention to the actual situation, and plead that world opinion, acting through the League and its member-states and other countries, move to avert the existing and impending tragedies’.4

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In 1938, all arrangements for handling refugee situations were folded into a single Office for High Commissioner for All Refugees under the Protection of the League of Nations. Also in 1938, the Nansen International Office for Refugees was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was said at the Ceremony’s presentation speech that ‘it is precisely here that we should begin, with a worldwide humanitarian work that will pave the way for the more stable organization of which we have dreamed and for which we have hoped’.5 The Evian Conference of July 1938 was an American initiative that established an Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR) to handle the exodus of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. George Rublee, who had served with Salter in the First World War on AMTE, was appointed Director of IGCR, but served only six months, being replaced by the British colonial administrator Herbert Emerson, who was also appointed High Commissioner. Nations were gradually dragged into a fresh global conflict with massive consequences for humanity. The War of Resistance to Japan’s invasion of China caused the greatest displacement of people in Chinese history, while the war in Europe displaced an estimated 30 million people. The allied powers, known then as the United Nations, met in November 1943 in Washington to establish the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) to help populations liberated from Axis-occupied countries in Asia and Europe. UNRRA Headquarters was in Washington D.C. and the European Office was in London. Loveday and others at Princeton were heavily involved in advising the US Government on practical issues in setting up an international operation and, as a result, UNRRA used many of the League’s administrative and personnel practices in order to get the operation up and running as quickly as possible.6 UNRRA also updated the League formula for establishing the contributions of each Member state to the budget (see Chapter 10) using an assessment of one percent of GDP. Several former League staff worked for UNRRA (see Chapter 13 and Table 13.1). In December 1945 UNRRA decided, for humanitarian purposes, to recognize ‘internal displacement’,7 an early sign of what is now, deplorably, a major problem in war-torn countries. It was clear that there would be a new mass of refugees added to those remaining from before the war.8 Accordingly, the UN General Assembly, in December 1946, established the International Refugee Organization (IRO) as a temporary specialized agency. By assuming responsibility for the refugees previously supported by the High Commissioner, the IRO absorbed the latter’s

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functions as well. In 1949, the Assembly decided that a new body, UNHCR, should replace IRO. And it was agreed that international responsibility for refugees would remain in Geneva. UNRRA was wound-up, an early victim of cold-war politics, as the US Congress refused to finance relief for communist Eastern Europe. As the emergencies were not over and the needs for assistance were still large and widespread, the UNRRA Council met in August 1946 in the Palais des Nations to divide up its assets and functions among several organizations. Most of UNRRA’s resources destined to support displaced persons went to IRO. Help for food-based agricultural projects transited to FAO. Field programmes in health and nutrition went to WHO. But there was a problem. UNRRA had been highly attentive to protecting the well-being of children in the affected countries, especially the feeding programmes. And here, there was no suitable organization to continue this task. Once again, old League hands in the guise of Rajchman and Noel-Baker came out in force. With the support of UNRRA’s Director-General Fiorello LaGuardia (the former Mayor of New York) and his deputy, Robert Jackson (who directed the Middle East Supply Centre during the Second World War), they created the consensus that led to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). Rajchman persuaded his colleagues on the UNRRA Council to devote their residual funds to the new agency and UNICEF was born a few months later in the General Assembly, Rajchman becoming the first Chair of its Executive Board. * * *

11.2  Mandates Under the League System Under the United Nations

and Trusteeships

* * * The mandates system was much criticized at the time from both proponents of colonial rule and those seeking full independence and has been much studied, most recently in Susan Pedersen’s book The Guardians.9 It was introduced as a way of balancing the Wilsonian promises of self-determination with the colonial powers’ firm intentions to preserve their empires. Mazower called this an ‘ingenious way of squaring the circle’.10 It was seen as a civilizing mission by the Mandatory Powers. Article 22 of the Covenant concerned territories that were ‘inhabited by

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peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world’. For them, ‘there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilisation … [and for which] the tutelage should be entrusted to advanced nations … willing to exercise such tutelage as Mandatories on behalf of the League’.11 As described in Chapter 7 the Permanent Mandates Commission (PMC) was established to exercise the League’s responsibilities, with Rappard heading the corresponding Section (Text Box 11.1). * * * Text Box 11.1  William Rappard (1883–1958)a Rappard, born of Swiss parents in New York, was a graduate student in economics at Harvard, where he became adjunct professor of political economy. Then he went to live in Switzerland and was appointed professor of economic history and public finance at the University of Geneva. From 1917 to 1919, he was a member of various Swiss diplomatic missions to Washington, London and Paris, including service with the Swiss delegation at Versailles, where he was highly influential in persuading Wilson to choose Geneva as headquarters of the League. A natural leader with a flair for public relations, he had an out-going American manner as well as being approachable and having a sense of humour. His strong association with the United States was often commented on. Harvard University President, Charles Eliot, referred to him as ‘a well-trained Swiss who understands America and liberal democracy in general’; and the Boston Globe commented that ‘he is connected with the University of Geneva but looks and speaks like a Bostonian’. Although known as an academic, he was also active in international affairs and in 1919 served as Secretary of the newly-created League of Red Cross Societies. On being invited by Drummond to head the Mandates Section in 1920, he replied to the affect that he was ignorant of many matters, but in none was he more fundamentally ignorant than on the question of the colonies, to which Drummond replied ‘that is precisely why I want you. Those who claim to know the colonial question almost always have preoccupied ideas and prejudices’. He was the most intellectual of Drummond’s Secretariat and authored four books and various articles on the ideal, practice and failure of the League. After the League, he worked at the University of Geneva where he became Rector. There, and through his position on the Swiss delegation to the Assembly, he continued to influence thinking about the League. He received great acclaim: Geneva has a William Rappard Centre and a Chemin William Rappard (Britain has nothing equivalent to recognise Drummond). aGraf, M.B. et.al. (2002), The Graduate Institute of International Studies Geneva 1927–2002, pp. 44–50; Ebling, R. (2000), ‘William E. Rappard: An International Man in an Age of Nationalism’

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Leo Pasvolsky, the US State Department official responsible for planning the new UN, recruited the former League public information official, Benjamin Gerig who had written his dissertation on the mandates system at the University of Geneva under Rappard.12 Gerig in turn called on Ralph Bunche, the highly-distinguished future UN USG, who had studied the French Mandates regime in Togo for his Harvard PhD. Huntington Gilchrist, an old League hand who had been Drummond’s liaison with Fosdick, was in charge of organizing discussions on trusteeship at San Francisco. Bunche, supported by Gerig, played a key role in London in late 1945 when the detailed procedures and arrangements for the Trusteeship Council were agreed at the UN Preparatory Commission meeting. There he worked closely with former ‘PMC Members Van Asbeck and Orts, now representing Dutch and Belgian imperial interests’.13 Rappard was not part of these discussions—Switzerland being a non-member—but he remained in touch through his old colleague Sweetser who was heavily involved in planning for the UN.14 Much remained the same. UN trusteeship, like the mandates, ‘was a regime of international oversight, not international government, with a specific state administering a specific territory, according to stipulations laid out in a text agreed between the administering power and the UN, under the supervision of a United Nations Trusteeship Council’. This Council replaced the PMC, and was supported by an International Secretariat. ‘The core procedures of the mandates regime—annual reports, regular meetings and a petition process—were retained’.15 There were, however, important modifications and changes, based in part on the League experience. The Covenant’s flowery language about the civilizing mission of advanced nations and the immaturity of native populations gave way to the Charter’s avowal of the ‘need to further international peace and security’ and to the ‘progressive development towards self-government or independence’ in line with the people’s ‘freely expressed wishes’. The Charter endorsed the need to ‘encourage respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without regard to race, sex, language or religion’: as Susan Pedersen says ‘the explicit endorsement of racial equality stood in sharp contrast with the racial underpinnings of the League system’.16 Thanks also to detailed knowledge of the mandates system’s workings, Bunche and others at the Preparatory Commission introduced important procedural changes so that in practice, trusteeship was different from mandates. Petitioners could now directly address the new Trusteeship

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Council instead of approaching through the mandatory power under the League system. In addition, the Trusteeship Council could initiate visits directly, unlike the Mandates Commission, which required the mandatory power’s approval. And the Trusteeship Council would act under the General Assembly’s responsibility rather than, as in the League, under the Council, ‘as Bunche surely realized, pressures for decolonization would grow as the Assembly became less European and less white’.17 The Second World War brought independence to mandated territories in the Middle East. That, and the special arrangements, on ‘grounds of security’ for the former Japanese mandated territories in the Pacific, meant that the trusteeship system was smaller in scope than the mandates regime. Just one non-mandate territory—Somaliland—was placed under trusteeship. Pedersen’s assessment of the mandates regime concludes: ‘however strenuously nationalist critics and wartime planners of the new world organization disavowed the institutions that had gone before, the new [UN] trusteeship system drew on League personnel and precedents’. She takes a long view of what was agreed upon in Paris in the summer of 1919, commenting that: ‘The League helped make the end of empire imaginable, and normative statehood possible, not because the empires willed it so, or the Covenant prescribed it but precisely because the dynamic of internationalization changed everything’,18 conflicting with the interests of the colonial powers that sought to protect themselves under its cover. It was this internationalization that was carried over into the UN through the trusteeship system and which led in time to decolonization and the independence of the formerly subject peoples. She also comments that trusteeship, although more respectful than mandates towards self-government and independence, was more political. Whereas the PMC was composed of experts on colonial issues nominated by their governments, the Trusteeship Council comprised representatives of Member States, including all the Permanent Members of the Security Council. Drummond spoke rarely in public about the League’s responsibilities under the mandates regime, although he did defend the Commission’s independence and authority.19 There was a subsequent filial connexion: from 1957 to 1962, British Trusteeship Territories were the political responsibility of Drummond’s son. In his capacity of Minister of State for Colonial Affairs in Harold Macmillan’s government, he was an ‘internationalist who oversaw the end of the Empire’.20 * * *

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11.3  From the Protection of Minorities to the Protection of Human Rights * * * International support for human rights is a phenomenon of the second half of the twentieth century. Its emergence as a subject for legitimate international concern can be traced back to the minorities regime installed by the post-First World War peace treaties. The Covenant’s silence on human rights was in keeping with the times. Proposals from Wilson and others that the allied powers should pronounce themselves in favour of freedom of religion went the way of the Japanese request for a racial equality clause: too radical and too controversial. If the League was to be an association of freedom-­loving democratic states, why was there any need to be worried about the observance of human rights? Walters’ comprehensive history of the League does not refer to human rights. Yet the seeds of progress were sown in the interwar years, for example in the work and dedication of Eglantyne Jebb, who was largely responsible for mobilizing support for the League’s 1924 Convention on the Rights of the Child (see Chapter Note 4) or of Albert Thomas (see Chapter 2) who established ILO’s system of standards and regulations that sought social justice by protecting the rights of the worker and that has endured to this day.21 Chapter 7 has described how international supervision was established under the League to protect minority rights. The international laws thereby created through the Minorities Treaties were held to prevail over national laws. These rights were individual in nature, but collective in reality. Minorities for which the Council undertook responsibility for enforcement included: Jews in Poland, Romania and Lithuania; Muslims in Albania, Greece and Yugoslavia and nonMuslims in Turkey and Iraq. States resented this infringement of their newly-won sovereignty; they considered such international obligations unfair as the allied powers did not subject themselves to the same treatment in spite of similar situations; the discrimination against the black community of the US being the most glaring example. In fact, reflecting in 1948 on the workings of the Minority Treaties, Drummond felt that it would have been preferable to have a general convention applying to all inhabitants, without special reference to minorities.22

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Notwithstanding these considerable difficulties, the League’s work paradoxically created a system of international supervision of rights that has survived. The minorities’ regime that Colban and others put into effect rested upon an impartial international institution—the Minorities Section—that reviewed petitions, ascertained the facts, sought additional information and then reported to the Council. Over time, the supervisory process became more transparent. The petitions’ system—and more generally the pro-activism of the League Secretariat—established important precedents for the subsequent administration of the post-war human rights machinery in the UN. Revulsion over the crimes against humanity committed during the 1930s and during the war, created pressure for international ­measures to protect individual rights. Consequently there were modest human rights provisions in the UN Charter which the ‘Big Three’ agreed to accept. Mazower points out that the minorities regime p ­ aradoxically paved the way for the UN’s post-war human rights regime since the abandonment of protection for group rights could be disguised under the new mantra of protection of individual rights. But the ‘new human rights regime had no legal binding force … probably the price to be paid for US and Soviet participation’. In effect, ‘the rights regime of the new UN represented a considerable weakening of international will compared with the interwar League’23 as the UN in its early days ‘abandoned the League’s commitment, however faltering, to protecting minorities’.24 It should also be noted that the Minority Treaties foresaw the need, in case of dispute, for possible referrals to the Permanent Court of International Justice; this happened on occasion and the resulting decision was generally favourable to the protection of minority rights. No similar provision exists in the post-1945 human rights machinery. Nevertheless, it was the internationalization of the League’s responsibility for the protection of minority, or collective, rights that inevitably led to a concern for the protection of human rights which became the bedrock of the post-1945 system (see Chapter Note 5). Additionally, the UN’s new human rights regime inherited the essential function of international supervision of the protection of rights and the role of a neutral non-political Secretariat. * * *

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11.4  Continuity in the Search for Permanent Peace and Security * * * The popular view is that there are no League legacies as regards peace and security but there were important continuities and the overall picture is more nuanced. * * * 11.4.1   The Covenant and the Charter The Covenant and the Charter share broad characteristics. Both are treaties based on the sovereign equality of Member States with allowance for the inevitable preponderance of Great Powers. Both seek to outlaw force and to eliminate unilateralism. Both seek to maintain or restore peace. Both promote international cooperation and the development and observance of international law. Both are open-ended, in the sense that both recognize that new norms for achieving peace and security may be introduced in the light of new needs. The origins of the two documents were different. The Covenant was adopted as an integral part of the 1919 Peace Treaty. The League was bound by the terms of the Treaty and was thus obliged to adhere to the territorial settlements imposed by the victors of the First World War. It was those settlements that in turn caused such problems to the League in the 1920s and 1930s. The Charter is a stand-alone treaty separated from the terms for the ending of the Second World War, an event that only reached a final denouement more than four decades later. The application of the Charter was thus more flexible: it could adapt to circumstances that would inevitably change over time. The Charter was drafted in light of the League’s deficiencies and most observers accept that it augmented the Covenant in a number of areas by closing loopholes.25 Most importantly, the League’s criteria for activating collective security mechanisms were regarded as weak and ineffective. League action was devolved, in the sense that it was left to the willingness of individual members to take whatever action each deemed appropriate. In contrast to the League’s adherence to violations of international law as being the tipping point, the Charter identified threats to

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peace as the over-riding concern, which is a political rather than a legal concept. The Charter thus focussed authority in the Security Council and envisaged conjoint action by obliging all members to adhere to decisions of that body. There were several other ways in which the Charter built on the Covenant. The Covenant shared responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security between the Assembly and the Council while the Charter assigns exclusive responsibility to the Security Council. The League Council had to be summoned into session whereas the Charter allows the SC to function continuously.26 The obligations of members under the Covenant were vague but under the Charter they are well defined. The League Council operated by unanimity, whereby in effect all members had a veto,27 although whether the unanimity rule really prevented effective action by the League is a matter of dispute, as some argue that as ‘moves to maintain peace were not dependent on votes … the principle of unanimity was not, formally speaking, a problem’. The Charter recognized the reality of the Great Powers by assigning them a veto on all non-procedural issues, though as regards decision-making some argue that neither the League nor the UN got it right. The Covenant is lax in forbidding the use of force while in contrast the Charter bans the use of force except when authorized by the SC and in cases of legitimate self-defence. Another broad area where the Charter builds on the Covenant concerns the threat of conflict arising from economic instability and deprivation. While the Covenant established no such linkage, League officials used the provisions of Articles 23 and 24 of the Covenant to develop important programmes of economic, social and technical cooperation that now form the basis of the UN system. Aware of this experience and heavily influenced by the consequences of economic depression and political instability in the 1930s, Pasvolsky (Text Box 11.2) and other drafters of the Charter decided to expand significantly the UN’s authority by making explicit its responsibility for the promotion of international economic and social cooperation and for the promotion of human rights. The Charter’s link between the maintenance of peace and the attainment of higher standards of living was in large part an appreciation of what the League managed to demonstrate in the 1920s and 1930s. * * *

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Text Box 11.2  Leo Pasvolsky (1893–1953)a A journalist, economist and a senior State Department official, Pasvolsky was possibly the single most important figure in the drafting of the UN Charter. Born in Russia, his anti-czarist family fled to the USA in 1905. He was educated at City College and then Columbia University in New York before beginning life as a journalist. One of his first assignments was to cover the Paris Peace Conference for the New York Tribune and other newspapers, an experience that led him to become a devoted Wilsonian internationalist. At the Brookings Institute in the 1920s he wrote a series of books on economics. In and out of the Roosevelt administrations in the 1930s, he attended several meetings of the League’s Economic and Financial Committees for the US Government. There he saw both the advantages of multilateral cooperation and the pitfalls to be avoided. In 1938/39, he encouraged closer US participation in the League’s non-political technical programmes. When attending meetings in Geneva, he developed a close working relationships with Alexander Loveday. This would pay dividends in the wartime planning for the new international organisation as Loveday, a train ride away from Washington in Princeton, was able to advise informally by drawing on his League experience. Pasvolsky, a consummate bureaucratic in-fighter, was an indefatigable, one man thinktank for Cordell Hull the US Secretary of State. Churchill and Roosevelt favoured, at different times, a regional approach to the organization of the world body. This he resisted, but he was able to articulate a vision of an open world economy underpinned by an effective world organization that appealed to Roosevelt. In addition, he was able to produce a draft text that was acceptable to a range of diverse interests. He played a central but largely invisible role at Dumbarton Oaks, only to emerge from the shadows at San Francisco where he chaired the decisive Coordination Committee that settled the finer points of the UN Charter. Rotund—he like to joke that he would find it easier to roll than to walk—jovial, an inveterate pipe-smoker, he was ‘one of those figures peculiar to Washington—a tenacious bureaucrat who, fixed on a single goal, left behind a huge legacy while virtually disappearing from history’. aClavin, P. (2015), Securing the World Economy; Holbrooke, R. (2003), New York Times, 28 September, reviewing Schlesinger, S.C. (2003), Act of Creation, The Founding of the United Nations

* * * 11.4.2   The Peaceful Settlement of Disputes, Peace-Keeping and Disarmament The League failed to maintain peace and security but was not powerless and indeed had some successes as seen from earlier chapters. Deficiencies in the Covenant, coupled with absentee nations and a general unwillingness to use the League’s potential condemned the League to irrelevancy during the conflicts and crises of the 1930s.

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Nevertheless, as some authors have demonstrated, the League left some legacy to the UN in this area. It developed techniques for the peaceful settlement of disputes and initiatives that calmed combatants. It provided, in some instances, an ad interim administration; in others, it organized plebiscites. In a further instance, the League commissioned Colombian national forces to act on its behalf and to distinguish them clearly the troops wore armbands with the letters SDN—the Spanish abbreviation for the League of Nations. This is not dissimilar to the blue berets deployed for the first time in the UN’s peace-keeping operation in Suez in 1956.28 In Spain, League officials monitored the withdrawal of foreign fighters from the civil war.29 Other countries where the League intervened included Albania, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Colombia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iraq, Liberia, Lithuania, Paraguay, Peru, Poland and Sweden.30 The case of the Saar is perhaps the best example of what the League tried to do in situations similar to those confronted by the UN. After the Great War, France had wanted to annex the Saar’s industrial area, with its majority German population and its extensive coal-mines. The Americans and the British objected to this. As a compromise, it was agreed that it should be governed for 15 years by a five-member Commission appointed by the League. At the end of the period, Saarlanders would be asked by plebiscite whether to continue the arrangement; to return the territory to Germany; or to transfer it to France. The Commission controlled the local police force and had at its disposal a special international force enjoying extra-territorial status. During the plebiscite, that force was reinforced by several thousand troops from a number of European countries, with the cost being borne by the states directly concerned. Thus there was, in principle at least, no difference between the League force in the Saar and many subsequent UN peace-keeping operations. One commentator found that the ‘Saar experience is important in that it constitutes the only occasion on which the League really established an international force … the secret of its success lay in the fact that the force represented a “neutral” or truly international force which was able to … obtain the respect and confidence of the population … In addition, the force appeared to be adequate in size for the operation and well disciplined’.31 This is exactly what UN seeks to accomplish in its peace-keeping.

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Regarding disarmament, Article 8 of the Covenant recognized that ‘the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations’ and also (in Article 8.5) enjoined the Council to advise on how to guard against the ‘evil effects’ of the private manufacture of armaments. By contrast, the UN Charter is less vigorous: in two short Articles the General Assembly may consider ‘the principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments’ (Article 11.1) and the Security Council ‘shall be responsible for formulating plans for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments’ (Article 26). As described in Chapter 7 the League had little to show for its efforts on disarmament, one of its few successes being the annual Armaments Yearbook published from 1924 to 1938, a mine of useful information. A proposition put forward at the League by France that a standing international force should be placed at the League’s disposal was adopted by Pasvolsky and others in the State Department as part of the preparations for Dumbarton Oaks and eventually found its way into Article 45 of the UN Charter. Under this provision, Members agree to hold ‘immediately available national air-force contingents for combined international enforcement action’ under the responsibility of the Security Council’s Military Staff Committee. If anything, the rhetoric and time spent in the UN on disarmament issues has been greater than those of the League, whose efforts came to nothing. One commentator pronounced that ‘Here is an area in which the United Nations would have done well not to follow the League. But, as in so many things, follow it did’.32 11.4.3   The Progressive Development of International Law In contrast to the UN Charter which in Article 13.1 enjoins the Organization to encourage the development and codification of international law the Covenant had no similar provision. The League, however, embraced the issue. It had a number of precedents to guide it, including the Geneva Red Cross Convention of 1864, the Paris and Berne Conventions on the protection of intellectual property and the two Hague Peace Conferences. So when the Committee of Jurists that prepared the statute of the PCIJ early in the 1920s suggested the further

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codification of international law, the Assembly decided in 1924 to act by establishing the Committee of Experts on the Progressive Codification of International Law. The Secretariat, under the responsibility of the head of the Legal Section, Joost van Hamel (Text Box 11.3), was heavily involved in this effort.33 * * * Text Box 11.3  Joost van Hamel (1880–1964)a The flamboyant Dutchman, Van Hamel, came from a legal family, his father being Professor of Criminal Law at Amsterdam University and his uncle owning a legal practice in the same city. After completing his studies in 1902 he worked in his uncle’s practice and then succeeded his father as Professor of Criminal Law. In 1917 he was elected to the Dutch Parliament and in 1919 advocated extraditing Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had sought asylum in Holland, to face trial for his part in the World War, contrary to the tenets of Dutch law at the time. He was appointed a member of the Dutch delegation to the Peace Conference, where he met Drummond. After serving as Director of the Legal Section from 1919 to 1925, he was appointed High Commissioner for Danzig a post he held until 1929. He upset Drummond, however, by calling publicly for a Polish-German peace treaty. After Danzig he returned to legal practice and, by 1933, was recorded as believing that the League had been a complete failure. Another uncle, Bernard Cornelius Loder, served as the first President of PCIJ. aSource Huygens.knaw.nl.bwn1880-2000/lemmata/bwn1/hamelija [accessed 22 May 2017]; Lewis, M. (2014), Birth of the New Justice: The Internationalization of Crime and Punishment 1919–1950

The League’s Expert Committee was ‘the first attempt on a worldwide basis to codify and develop whole fields of international law, rather than simply regulating individual and specific legal problems’.34 On the basis of the Committee’s work, the Assembly convened a diplomatic conference in The Hague in 1930 to codify international law in three areas—nationality, territorial waters and state responsibility to protect property belonging to foreigners. Political and other problems prevented progress on the latter two subjects, but conventions and protocols were adopted on issues relating to nationality, including questions related to the conflict of nationality laws to statelessness and to the status of married women. The Conference also raised awareness of the need for further development of international law. Accordingly, in 1931, the Assembly adopted measures that have underpinned the process of codification of international law. The League’s Committee of Experts on the Progressive Codification of International Law is the direct antecedent of the UN’s

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International Law Commission, founded in 1947, the essential purpose of which is the same as that of the League’s Committee. Other initiatives were taken by the League to develop international law. One such proposal had little impact at the time, only to be resurrected during the Second World War. At various stages during the 1920s and 1930s, professional legal associations discussed the need for, and structure of, an international criminal court to try crimes against ‘international public order and the universal law of nations’. Eventually in 1937, the League adopted the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism (see Chapter Note 6), with an accompanying protocol for the creation of an international criminal court. The Convention never entered into force, having failed to obtain the necessary number of ratifications. However, in late 1942, an informal grouping of representatives of allied nations, academics, journalists and intellectuals established the London International Assembly (LIA), under the presidency of Lord Cecil with Thanassis Aghnides, by then the Greek Ambassador in London, as Honorary Vice-President. The LIA said that ‘war criminals should be tried and punished either by National or International tribunals’ and went on to propose the creation of an international criminal court that was subsequently picked up by the United Nations War Crimes Commission.35 The latter commission prepared a draft convention for the establishment of a United Nations War Crimes Court based ‘mainly on the 1937 League Treaty’ which eventually gave rise to the International Military tribunals in Nuremburg and Tokyo. A further 50 years passed before the actual establishment of the International Criminal Court.36 Woodrow Wilson’s call for ‘open covenants openly arrived at’ gave rise to Article 18 of the Covenant, which required that every treaty entered into by a Member State be registered with and published by the Secretariat before coming into force. The result was that by 1946 the Secretariat had published 204 volumes in the League’s Treaty Series recording new treaties. This practice continues uninterrupted since 1920 due to the almost identical Article 102 of the UN Charter (see Table 10.1). Finally, there is the continued existence of two permanent bodies associated with the development of international law. Chapter 4 described the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice, located in The Hague. With a slight change of name, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was reborn in 1945 with an almost unchanged statute (see Chapter Note 7) and with the same methods of work. J.G. Guerrero

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of El Salvador, the last President of PCIJ, became the first President of the new ICJ. The International Institute for the Unification of Private Law was established in Rome in 1924 as an auxiliary organ of the League and was re-established in 1940 on the basis of a separate multilateral agreement, as Italy had withdrawn from the League. Now known as UNIDROIT, its purpose remains unchanged, namely to study and recommend measures to harmonize private and commercial law.37 Notes to Chapter 11 1. The League conventions were dated 1926, 1928, 1933, 1938 and 1939. 2. For example, The International Committee of the Red Cross, the Society of Friends, the Save the Children Fund, and Le Comité international de secours à la Russie.38 3.  For a fuller description of the considerable continuities of refugee law and organisation, see Goodwin-Gill, G. (2017), ‘International Refugee Law – Yesterday, Today, but Tomorrow?’, available at https://www.blackstonechambers.com/news/paper– international–refugee–law–yesterday–today–tomorrow. 4.  Known as the Geneva Declaration, or the World Child Welfare Charter, the Convention was the first human rights document approved by an intergovernmental organization and provided the basis for the subsequent 1959 United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child.39 5. See Sands, P. (2016), East West Street – On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity, for the remarkable story of how Hersch Lauterpacht fought to make individual rights part of international law. 6. Prompted by a French initiative following the 1934 assassination of Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia in Marseilles. 7. Article 92 of the UN Charter established that the ICJ would function in accordance with the Statute annexed to the Charter which was based upon the Statute of the PCIJ.

Endnotes

1. Cabanes, B. (2014), The Great War and the Origins of Humanitarianism, 1918–1924.

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2. Weindling, P. (2009), International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939, p. 4. 3.  See also Fosse, M., and Fox, J. (2016), Nansen—Explorer and Humanitarian. 4. LONA C13. M12.1936.XII. 5.  The Nobel Prize 1938—Presentation Speech. http://www.nobelprize. org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1938/press.html [accessed 2 July 2018]. 6.  Clavin, P. (2015), Securing the World Economy, pp. 297–301. See also LONA Report by Loveday on Washington Mission 30 January–5 February 1943, p. 2, Private papers p. 150 Miscellaneous Correspondence December 1940–December 1945: the ‘League of Nations provided an annotated agenda for UNRRA’s work’. 7. Vernant, J. (1953), The Refugee in the Post-War World, p. 31. 8. Vernant, J. (1953), The Refugee in the Post-War World, p. 33. 9. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians. 10. Mazower, M. (2008), No Enchanted Palace—the End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations, p. 45. 11. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, quoted in Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians. 12. Gerig, B. (1930), The Open Door and the Mandates System. 13. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, pp. 397–8. 14. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, p. 401. 15. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, p. 398. 16.  Article 76 of the UN Charter. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, pp. 398–9. 17. Pedersen S. (2015), The Guardians, p. 399. 18. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, p. 406. 19. Pedersen, S. (2015), The Guardians, p. 294. 20.  The Herald, 2 December 2002. 21. Cabanes, B. (2014), The Great War and the Origins of Humanitarianism, pp. 76–132. 22.  Hansard, HL. (1948), ‘The United Nations Commission on Human Rights’, 5 May, vol. 155, cc. 649–54. 23. Mazower, M. (2004), ‘The Strange Triumph of Human Rights’, p. 379. 24. Mazower, M. (2004), ‘The Strange Triumph of Human Rights’, p. 148. 25. See, for example, Kolb, R. (2015), ‘De la S.D.N à l’O.N.U. en Matière de Maintien de la Paix’, pp. 1331–70, in Kolb, R. (2015), Commentaire sur le Pacte de la Société des Nations. 26. UN Charter, Article 28.1. 27. James, A. (1995), ‘The United Nations’ Debt to the League of Nations’, p. 87.

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28. Urquhart, B. (1987), A Life in Peace and War, p. 134. 29. Ghébali, V.-Y. (2002), ‘Before UNESCO and WHO’, p. 660. 30. James, A. (1999), ‘The Peace-Keeping Role of the League of Nations’. 31. Bowett, D.W. (1964), United Nations Forces—A Legal Study of United Nations Practice, p. 11. 32. James, A. (1995), ‘The United Nations’ Debt to the League of Nations’, p. 90. 33.  UN. (1947), ‘Documents on the Development and Codification of International Law’. 34.  See webpage of the United Nations International Law Commission, http://legal.un.org/ilc/league.shtml [accessed 7 March 2017]. 35. Chatham House 10/3 LIA. 36. Quotations and information from Schabas, W.A. (2017), An Introduction to the International Criminal Court, pp. 1–4. 37.  See UNIDROIT’s website: http://www.unidroit.org/about–unidroit/ overview [accessed 7 March 2017]. 38. Fosse, M., and Fox, J. (2016), Nansen—Explorer and Humanitarian, p. 100. 39. Cabanes, B. (2014), The Great War and the Origins of Humanitarianism, pp. 248–99; Black, M. (1986), The Children and the Nations, pp. 18–19 and 199.

CHAPTER 12

Social, Economic and Technical Legacies

The salient achievement of the League was building the foundations of a better world through international cooperation in the social and economic fields. In Back to the League of Nations Pedersen remarked on the influence of international relations (IR) theory on a new generation of international historians.1 This had a genealogy that could be traced to the League. The basis of the ‘functionalist’ argument of IR theorists was that ‘international stability would be better enhanced through intergovernmental cooperation on specific technical or policy matters than it would be through “collective security”’.2 Salter and Monnet’s ideas about depoliticized expert cooperation strongly influenced the emergence of a functionalist ‘tradition’ of international thought. They were the true fathers of the functional approach to the conduct of international relations.3 ‘Functionalism’ has long been associated with David Mitrany who had contacts with the League and the British League of Nations Union. Mitrany chose not to refer to the League’s experience when developing his theories. In fact, he regarded the League has having been founded solely on the basis of the ‘negative sense’ of ‘keeping nations peacefully apart’ and ‘only vaguely with initiating positive common activities … the economic, financial and other sections of the League were mere secretariats’.4 However Victor-Yves Ghébali corrected Mitrany’s airbrushing of the League, showing how its technical work was based on the functional approach, ‘with the goodwill of governments, the benevolence of © The Author(s) 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0_12

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the Secretary-General, and the ingenuity of first-rate officials, the League in the 1920s enjoyed a golden age of functional cooperation’.5 Ghébali concludes that the League’s experiment in functional cooperation justifies to a very large extent some of the major arguments advanced by Mitrany in his A Working Peace System, stating that ‘the League promoted the idea that functional cooperation could be treated on its merits … and that an international organization was more likely to succeed if it approached issues on the basis of common interests rather than diverse conflicts’.6 It is not surprising then that, whilst there was no master plan for the institutional architecture of the emerging UN system, functionalism was in the minds of the US State Department’s designers of the system. A large part of this was due to Pasvolsky (Text Box 11.2) who had an intimate appreciation of the League’s non-political technical work thanks to his participation in League activities and his friendship with Loveday (Text Box 12.1). This defining feature of the League was carried over to the post-war period because of the powerful influence of a 1939 League report identified with former Australian Premier Stanley Bruce. During the latter part of the 1930s, there was greater recognition, by both members and non-members alike, of the value and usefulness of the League’s technical work, particularly measures to combat economic depression, to promote health and nutrition and to support social policies that protect women and children. In September 1938, the League discussed how non-members might usefully participate more effectively in such work and thus promote greater universality. It was understood that this would probably lead to a separation of the League’s technical work from its political responsibilities which, by then, had reached a near-total impasse. Accordingly, the League invited eleven non-­ members— some who had withdrawn as well as some that had never joined—to offer their views on how to promote their participation in its technical activities. However only the United States responded, and its response was highly surprising. US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, wrote to the League in early 1939 saying: ‘The League has been responsible for the development of mutual exchange and discussion of ideas and methods to a greater extent and in more fields of humanitarian and scientific endeavour than any other organisation in history’ (see Chapter Note 1).7 The letter had an immediate impact. Avenol belatedly realized there was a possible future for the organization. Following discussions with the Council, he asked Bruce to chair a small committee to come up with specific recommendations on how

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to separate the League’s technical and political activities and thereby secure greater participation of non-members, meaning mainly the USA. Bruce had already been pivotal in promoting the emerging work of the League on nutrition (see below), and in fostering economic and social cooperation through the League. Prominent personalities who joined the ‘Bruce’ Committee included Maurice Bourquin, a Belgian professor at the University of Geneva, Harold Butler who had recently retired as ILO Director, Carl Hambro, now head of the Norwegian parliament, and Charles Rist, the eminent French economist. Ambassador Tudela, a former Foreign Minister from Peru was the lone ‘southern’ representative. League staff, particularly Loveday, prepared material for the Committee that demonstrated how members and non-members were participating on an equal basis in such work as health and hygiene, opium control, or protection of children. Deliberately meeting away from Geneva to minimize lobbying, the Committee convened in the League’s Paris office for a single one-week session in August 1939. The Secretary of the Committee, Martin Hill (see Chapter 13) a League staff member, wrote much of its report. The Committee interpreted its mandate widely, the scope of economic and social issues embracing commercial, industrial and agricultural questions as well as a range of other technical issues.8 Its report, published on 23 August 1939, reads much like a similar report would today, vouching for the widespread benefits of a shared approach to promoting economic and social progress. Its centrepiece, which was subsequently picked up by the planners of the proposed new international organization, was the need for a more organized and structured approach to international economic and social cooperation through the establishment of a central Committee for Economic and Social Questions, equal in rank to the political side of the League, charged with overall direction and supervision of these activities. War broke out a week later and understandably, the report gathered dust, but the recommendations were not stillborn as they became the basis for an Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) within the UN. This formed part of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals that were eventually agreed in San Francisco. The UN Charter’s drafters created conceptual— but not institutional—links between political stability and economic well-being (see below), partly because of the League’s positive experience in addressing economic and social problems, but mainly because of the impact of the terrible economic problems of the 1930s on peace and

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security. Chapters IX (International Economic and Social Cooperation) and X (ECOSOC) of the Charter reflect these concerns. ECOSOC was based on the Bruce Report, but the planners of the UN did not absorb everything. Consequently ECOSOC was not a ‘carbon copy’.9 There were important differences. Bruce recommended that the Central Committee co-opt independent experts having the same authority as the government representatives. This proposal regrettably did not survive. ECOSOC was also given wider scope than the envisaged Central Committee, covering in addition to economic and social questions, issues related to education, culture, and human rights. Most importantly, Bruce’s proposed Central Committee would have been entrusted with ‘the direction and supervision’ of the work of the specialist groups. The UN Charter, in contrast, established ECOSOC on an altogether different basis, namely that it ‘may coordinate the activities of the Specialised Agencies’.10 Historian of the UN Charter, Ruth Russell, commented that ‘the basic decision made at Dumbarton Oaks, and confirmed at San Francisco, was that the relationship to be established between the Specialized Agencies and the World Organization would be one of coordination and cooperation, rather than one of centralization and direction’.11 Experience suggests there was better coordination in the League than in the UN system; the Secretary-General had more control over all the secretariat’s activities and League staff members were more easily transferable or exchangeable between separate units. While admittedly responsible for a far wider range of activities than the League, today’s UN system labours under multiple governmental and institutional arrangements. As well as adopting the UN Charter, San Francisco also established a Preparatory Commission to plan the new Secretariat and to put in place the rules of procedure and the initial agenda for the first round of meetings of the General Assembly, the Security Council and ECOSOC. The Commission met in London in late 1945. Several old League staffers or delegates represented their governments, including Aghnides, Colban, Hambro, Noel-Baker, Pelt and Manuel Perez-Guerrero. Their direct knowledge of League activities no doubt helped the Preparatory Commission to decide that the League’s non-political technical work would be transferred more or less in its entirety to the newly created Specialized Agencies and to the UN itself, mentioning ‘the Economic, Financial and Transit Department, particularly the research and statistical work; the Health Section, particularly the epidemiological service, the Opium Section and the secretariats of the Permanent Opium Board and the Supervisory Body’.12

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Present at the Preparatory Commission was Brian Urquhart, as private secretary to Gladwyn Jebb, its Executive Secretary. Urquhart went on to an acclaimed career in the UN. Ten years earlier, he had attended a League summer school in Geneva and had, apparently, wanted to work for the League. In his autobiography, Urquhart records that, for NoelBaker and others present in London, ‘the League of Nations was still an inspiring ideal which had simply gone into hibernation during the war’: his experience then convinced him of the ‘ultimate validity and necessity of an impartial and objective international civil service’.13 * * * Text Box 12.1  Alexander Loveday (1888–1962)a Alexander Loveday, whose reputation has recently been resurrected, was one of the League’s most distinguished and longest-serving officials, only leaving the League shortly before its dissolution in 1946. After being educated at Cambridge, when still a young man, he lectured in political philosophy at Leipzig University and in economics at Cambridge before he joined the War Office purchasing unit in London, where he must have come to Salter’s attention. Recruited by Salter as a statistician in August 1919, he was involved in all the League’s work on economic, finance and statistical issues over two and a half decades, beginning with the economic rescue programmes for Austria and Hungary in the early 1920s. His extensive correspondence with the good and great in the field of economics knew no ideological boundaries and at the League he created a pattern of rigorous economic analysis based on sound statistical facts that attracted up and coming economists from around the world. He was the principal author or the guiding hand behind most of the League publications on international economics and finance, and published several books including Britain & World Trade, Quo Vadimus and other essays (1931). By 1945, Loveday was refusing job offers from the new international organizations, as he believed strongly that the new era should not be associated with the alleged failures of the old. He went off to enjoy a new life as a Fellow and later Warden of Nuffield College, Oxford. aClavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy; Who was Who, 1920–2008, Oxford University Press, Oxford; The Times, Obituary, 22 January 1962

12.1  Economic, Financial and Related Issues * * * Obituaries of the Economic and Financial Organization were laudatory because EFO enjoyed a richly-deserved reputation among member and non-member states and among professional economists. Patricia

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Clavin is clear that the ‘chronicle of the League generated the impulse to build not just one new organization to facilitate international coordination and cooperation, but several … [in addition to the UN itself], the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD or the World Bank) … and the planned [but not realised] International Trade Organization (ITO)’.14 Emanuel Goldenweiser, the then President of the American Economic Association ‘publicly expressed, in April 1946, the association’s appreciation of the League’s work in the field of economics … that “will forever stand as a mighty contribution to the advancement of well-being throughout the world”’.15 Jacques Polak, a former EFO staffer who had a distinguished career in the IMF said, towards the end of his long life, that in the 1930s ‘everybody who was anybody in economics came through Geneva, the way they would now go through Chicago, maybe, or Washington’.16 Given the reputation of this and other parts of the Secretariat, it made sense for the Preparatory Commission to ask the Secretary-General to recruit the ‘experienced personnel’ presently carrying out the assignments in such a satisfactory manner.17 Clavin, who sub-titled her book The Reinvention of the League of Nations, has shown the contemporary influence, extensive scope and impressive nature of what the EFO did. The Secretariat’s work on the relationship between measures to expand trade and to regulate exchange rates was a precursor of what is now known as economic interdependence. Furthermore, expert discussions in the Finance Committee on payments and clearing arrangements, informed by the technical studies of Loveday’s colleagues, helped to quieten down the volatile international monetary markets. The beginnings of the notion of global welfare can be seen in the work led by the Australian agricultural economist Frank McDougall on the nexus between food production, nutrition and health (see below for his contribution to the establishment of FAO). The sum total of this work created a favourable climate for imaginative multilateral institution-building after the war: global problems could only be solved by a common effort underpinned by global institutions. * * * All of this was undoubtedly helped by the active participation of American economists who, by doing so, came to appreciate deeply the

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work of EFO. The US government was so determined to benefit from the EFO’s well-justified reputation that it welcomed arrangements for Loveday and several of his colleagues to move to Princeton in the summer of 1940, when the League’s future was in serious question. Sweetser, supported by Fosdick and his colleagues in the Rockefeller Foundation, secured financial support for the continuation of the League’s economic studies and the collection of international statistics (in part because the US wished to gather intelligence about Germany’s economic situation).18 Through its support of EFO the Rockefeller Foundation ‘contributed as much as or even more than European actors towards carrying forwards the legacy of the [League] within the United Nations’.19 Loveday moved to the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton with the cream of his staff, including some who were to play important roles in the post-war era. There, the EFO issued several reports on the economic situation and on the need for post-war reconstruction, including its particularly influential The Transition from War to Peace Economy, which contained a retrospective analysis of the causes of the Great Depression.20 This publication was released to coincide with the first of the three major conferences dealing with the post-war international order. Ragnar Nurkse produced his remarkable study on International Currency Experience 1919–1939 that heavily influenced both policymakers and academic opinion in the US and UK in the run-up to the negotiations at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944 (formally, the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference). As seen in Chapter 9, Loveday and Nurkse, as well as Polak (for the Dutch Government) and Rasminsky (for the Canadian Government) were present at Bretton Woods. ECOSOC’s decision in 1946 to establish an Economic and Employment Commission assured the continuity of EFO’s work on the transmission of business cycles and on the measures necessary to attain full employment and higher standards of living. Loveday was frequently called upon by Pasvolsky and others in Washington to advise on alternative options for the new world organization especially with regards to the relationship between the political and the economic side of the embryonic UN. Here, he kept to the line of the Bruce Report, namely a single organization encompassing multilateral cooperation to ensure peace and security as well as economic

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progress and welfare. Loveday was listened to with respect, but lost the argument. As a result, the emerging international architecture being put in place by the UN planners did not create institutional links between these elements of economic stability. Both Drummond and Loveday commented at the time on the consequences of what was happening. As early as October 1943, Drummond wrote to Cecil: ‘it would be disastrous to separate the economic side from the political organization of the future international’ body.21 Loveday, according to Clavin, regretted the separation of political and security issues from economic matters and the decentralized nature of the UN system compared to the more centralized one of the League (Illustration 12.1).22 Polak’s remark about the world’s economists flocking to the League is accurate. Loveday had the happy knack of being able to attract up-and-coming economists. Five future Nobel laureates in economics either worked for the League (Tjalling Koopmans, James Meade and Jan Tinbergen) or were closely associated with it (Ragnar Frisch and Richard Stone). All continued their collaboration in one way or another with the UN. Other well-known economists who worked for the League included J.M. Fleming (IMF), Folke Hilgerdt, (UN), Per Jacobsson (IMF Managing Director), Ragnar Nurkse (who died tragically young), Rifat Tirana (US Board of Economic Warfare) and Louis Rasminsky (Governor of the Bank of Canada and an IMF Executive Director) who played a critical role both before and at Bretton Woods. Others who were associated with the League in one way or another and who helped prepare the influential reports of the League’s 1938–44 ‘Depression Delegation’ included Bertil Ohlin, Gottfried Haberler, Alvin Hansen and Jacob Viner. Gunnar Myrdal failed to be enticed (see Chapter Note 2). As the League was more flexible than the UN, League economists enjoyed considerable freedom in the way in which they worked. The UN, however, is more hierarchical and subject to tighter control. Toye and Toye have remarked that it was perhaps regrettable that the League tradition of allowing economists room to think and write was not passed on to the UN.23 The UN’s Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), established in 1946 as part of the new secretariat arrangements in support of ECOSOC, was the institutional successor of the League’s Economic Intelligence Service. The League’s statistical and analytical work on international trade provided the basis for the DEA’s initial analysis of the terms of trade. The responsible official, Folke Hilgerdt, who

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had worked in Geneva and Princeton under Loveday, became the first Director of the UN Statistical Office and supervised Hans Singer’s initial studies of the late 1940s, which eventually developed into the PrebischSinger terms of trade thesis. Furthermore, DEA resurrected the League’s World Economic Survey. This survey, which began in the early 1930s under the responsibility of J.B. Condliffe, achieved increased prominence in the later part of that decade when it was prepared by Meade whom Loveday had persuaded to come to Geneva. An annual publication, it offered a broad overview of the global economy and its functioning. DEA continued the tradition, starting in 1948, with an Economic Report: Salient Features of the World Economic Situation. By the mid-1950s it had reverted back to the old League title.24 In addition, the League’s Survey gave rise also to the IMF’s annual World Economic Outlook. The Outlook and the Survey have continued to provide, from their respective institutional standpoints, alternative views on the world economy. The IMF owes a considerable intellectual debt to the League. Following the Brussels conference of 1920 and the experience garnered by the EFO during the financial rescues of first Czechoslovakia, later Austria and then Hungary in the early 1920s, the League developed the elements of a multilateral surveillance regime and loan conditionality that is uncannily similar to that of the Fund today. EFO research increasingly recognized the need for the coordination of national policies overseen by an independent international body that would promote free trade, exchange rate stability, balanced budgets, capital mobility, counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policies and orderly debt work-outs. The League’s experience had also shown that ‘national policies having external economic effects would have to be supervised and adjusted—if necessary through political coordination facilitated by an intermediary’.25 This was the IMF in the making. One observer asked ‘precisely how was the experience of the League transmitted to the IMF?’ before offering the answer, ‘Jacobsson, Fleming and Rasminsky brought the lessons they had learned in the League straight into the IMF. Jacobsson in particular, did so quite consciously and was only too willing to share his reflections on the League and on the constraints under which it laboured. The most significant link, however, is Polak’ who worked for seven years for the League in both Geneva and Princeton. After establishing the Fund’s statistical office, he moved to the Research Department ‘where he was to be its guiding spirit throughout the next thirty years’.26

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As for the Fund’s twin, IBRD, the League’s legacies were important but less significant. As early World Bank staff were mainly bankers, for whom the League had had no need, there are no known instances of League personnel transiting to IBRD. Only after some time did the Bank start to recruit significant numbers of economists and even later still, specialists in the fields of health, nutrition and population. However, elements of the Bank’s mandate were based on the League’s experience in providing loans to national governments with the need for longterm low-interest loans being one element. Another, as pointed out by an early historian27 of the World Bank, was the advantage of financial intermediation, namely a policy advanced by Lord Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, when planning with Salter and other League economists the emergency loans to Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary in 1922–1924. Even when they were facing financial collapse, the Governments of the three countries were baulking at the terms and conditions imposed by the bankers. The compromise was for the first time to move away from purely private sector support for government lending to having the League function as the supervisory authority. It is essentially the same today. Now, as then, private funds can be disbursed through an independent intermediary that would enable the borrower to accept conditions that ‘might have been politically impossible had the loans been offered directly by the bankers’. Government pledges to back World Bank bond issuances are explicit in the structure of its lending operations even if specific loans are not guaranteed individually. ‘Analogies may be drawn therefore between the League and the IBRD’. Trade issues were to be the focus of the third institution of the planned post-war triumvirate. Here again, the EFO had in its studies and recommendations demonstrated the mutual advantages of free trade and open economies. The downsides of tariff wars and protectionism were clear for all to see in the 1930s. Generalized ‘most favoured nation’ status (that is, the practice of treating trading partners equally) remained the desirable goal, but could only be achieved with due account being paid to differing national circumstances. This underpinned Meade’s work when he returned to work in the Cabinet Office in London. His skilful drafting had to find a compromise between the American desire to do away with the British imperial preferences and the need for Britain to retain some degree of protection given the acute potential balance of payments problems likely to arise after the war. Differences remained but eventually, consensus emerged at Bretton Woods on the need for an ITO, dedicated to reducing tariffs and other

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Illustration 12.1  A tree grows in Lake Success, circa 1948, cartoon by Aloïs Derso and Emery Kelen, United Nations Archives at Geneva

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trade barriers in partnership in particular with IMF. Accordingly, and under American sponsorship, ECOSOC at its first session in February 1946 launched the preparatory process for a United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment (UNCTE) that met two years later in Havana. Linking employment to trade was part of the Keynesian new deal to seek full employment amidst rising living standards, again a holdover from the EFO’s Princeton recommendations. The EFO had also been recommending reciprocal tariff reductions. This was achieved in 1947 when several industrialized countries negotiated tariff reductions through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). When the Charter drafted in Havana remained still-born—owing to opposition in the US Congress, generated largely by American farmers—GATT took on the task and regulated world trade in manufactures for the next five decades. In posing the case for a generalized freeing of trade, EFO recognised that this would not necessarily be applicable to all countries. Two broad problems were evident. First, the British and the Americans ­disagreed on the speed at which to liberalize trade in manufactured products, given the need for some countries to retain, however temporarily, a certain level of protection. The Toyes have pointed out that these disagreements gave an opening to developing countries who argued for special measures in their favour, given their economic underdevelopment. Although Article 55(c) of the UN Charter sought to promote international economic cooperation based on the underlying principle of non-discrimination, the provision for ‘full employment [in Article 55(a)] would help certain countries, particularly less-developed ones, resist trade liberalization measures that they claimed were incompatible with that aspiration … this was a factor that helped unite the newly emergent undeveloped bloc’.28 The result was years of intensive discussions on the need for agreements that favoured the economies of lowincome countries. The second set of problems was special to the international commodity economy, namely stability in supply at a price that satisfied the interests of both producers and consumers. This has proved to be enormously difficult to achieve and has remained the subject of considerable dissension among policymakers and economists. Agreement at the League’s World Economic Conference of 1927 paved the way for the introduction of international commodity agreements in the 1930s. International cooperation in grain production can be traced to the International Institute

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of Agriculture, which in 1933 sponsored the first International Wheat Conference. In 1934, the League established an International Wheat Agreement (IWA), designed to curb oversupply and stimulate prices in an era of protectionism. These initiatives floundered, but the resulting Wheat Advisory Committee became the nucleus for more successful post-war activity when a new IWA was agreed, with the focus shifting to stabilizing prices and supply. A second commodity agreement, negotiated in 1937 for sugar, also failed; but three were successful, for tea, rubber and tin.29 Loveday and McDougall, in the 1945 League report on Economic Stability in the Post-War World, proposed an ‘international buffer stock agency …invested with the power to purchase key commodities when prices were in a long downward trend and sell them when prices were rising’. This was pursued by Boyd Orr when head of FAO (see below). Subsequently, Raúl Prebisch (see Chapter 13), in preparations for discussions on commodities at the new international trade body, UNCTAD, in 1964, ‘used the regulation schemes of the 1930s to insist that it must be possible to devise appropriate forms of intervention in commodity markets’.30 However, technical complexities and opposition from consuming countries, who feared market interventions would maintain commodity prices above long-term trends, have always bedevilled attempts at international commodity regulation.31 There were a number of other subjects related to EFO’s work which also gave rise to important legacies. To have a full picture, four are mentioned. Statistics  The now widely accepted function of international bodies of collecting data encompassing the entire range of societal activities, verifying them and then disseminating them in an objective form may be said to date from the path-breaking work of the League’s statisticians. The essence of cross-country comparisons grew out of this work. As a result of Loveday’s early work, in collaboration with the International Statistical Institute, EFO was the first intergovernmental organization to develop methodologies and standards for the collection of economic, financial and social statistics (this in coordination with ILO). On the basis of the 1928 International Convention on Economic Statistics, governments and civil society came to trust the sources and use internationally comparable economic data for the first time. The

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precedent set by Loveday was clear: ‘Our constant intention is to be absolutely objective … Sometimes I am urged to write a preface underlining certain conclusions in the hope of influencing policy. Such a step would in my opinion not only be a misuse of my position, but a fatal folly … In a world of ideologies we are not even accused of preaching a Geneva doctrine’.32 The League’s Statistical Committee continued to meet during the war, overseeing the regular publication of the League’s Monthly Bulletin of Statistics and the Statistical Yearbook. The time series of statistics that is essential for any kind of analytical work was continued in an unbroken fashion by the UN and IMF to whom these responsibilities were transferred. One member of the Committee (Gunnar Jahn of Norway) transited across to the UN Statistical Commission set up by ECOSOC at its first meeting. One example suffices to show the importance and seamlessness of the League’s work. The System of National Accounts is the most widely used, internationally agreed statistical standard. It grew from the theoretical work of Keynes when searching for the causes of the Great Depression and from the need during the Second World War for a total accounting of all available economic resources. Meade and Stone collaborated in seeing how best to measure industrial output and labour force mobilization. In turn, this led the League’s statisticians to study the issue on an international basis. By the end of the war, at Princeton, Stone had developed for the League the first system for measuring national accounts. His report was prepared just when the League was being wound up. It was thus very natural for the UN Statistical Commission to agree to publication under its own authority.33 Technical cooperation Earlier chapters describe the manner in which League staff began to offer technical advice and information to member countries which sought such guidance. In fact, technical cooperation, based on the principle of mutual agreement and mutual execution between a sovereign state and an international organization, originated in the League. Initially this developed pragmatically, as a complement to the League’s operational activities in response to epidemics and other emergencies. It included, in a number of instances, the provision of

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resident League staff. Several countries participated in these activities, especially as regards health and social issues. By 1942, Lester was able to summarize China’s technical collaboration with the League, as ‘a collaboration launched in 1930 and that continued in a variety of fields—health; economics and finance; agriculture and silk production … transport and public works … and administrative reform. Technical experts in these fields and overseas study missions assisted Chinese nationals in their work’.34 It is not surprising, therefore, that when ECOSOC’s Economic and Employment Commission began to discuss action by the UN in favour of what were then known as underdeveloped countries, it was China (represented by Wellington Koo, who had been well-known in League circles) who spoke in favour of training and other programmes.35 Supported by a number of countries, this led in turn to a December 1946 General Assembly resolution that in effect launched the UN and Specialized Agency programmes of ‘expert advice in the economic, social and cultural fields to Member nations who desire this assistance’. Thus was born the now very large scale programmes of the UN and the Specialized Agencies. Europe  It is now commonly accepted that it is ‘impossible to understand the true nature of what came to be known as “the European project” without appreciating how it was set in train by a single guiding idea; an idea which originally crystallized back in the 1920s in the minds of two men’, who remained firm friends for life, namely Monnet and Salter.36 Monnet recounts in his memoirs how ‘at the end of May 1919, I set out in a memorandum [some principles for action by the League]. In it can already be traced the ambitions and limits of the method that gradually led me to the idea of the European community’.37 The first stirrings of European union came in 1929 at the 10th Assembly when French foreign minister Briand proposed a plan for a United States of Europe. In 1930, a Commission of Enquiry for European Union was established with Drummond as its Secretary (Illustration 12.2). Drummond was unenthusiastic about the concept judging that it would be detrimental to the principle of universality underpinning the League.38 Salter, however, was more amenable, believing that it should be based on free trade ‘most favoured nation’ concepts. When subsequently the French provided further details, the British and the Germans, for different reasons, were

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lukewarm. After Briand’s death in 1932, the idea faded away.39 However Salter, in later life, continued to develop the concept although always believing in an intergovernmental framework.40 Jean Monnet, two decades on, used his experiences of functionalism in the League and his frustration with some intergovernmental aspects of the League to underpin his thinking about the form and structure of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the forerunner of the European Economic Community (EEC)—see Chapter Note 3. He believed in the power of a dispassionate secretariat with greater independence than that of the League and put this into effect at ECSC.

Illustration 12.2  The League Commission of Enquiry for European Union, Geneva, May 1931, detail from a sketch by Emil Stumpp. L to R, Julius Curtius (Germany), André Francois-Poncet and Aristide Briand (France), Eric Drummond and Yotaro Sugimura, Peter, K. (1996), Emil Stumpp, Pressezeichnungen, Klartext

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The League’s work on simplifying customs formalities and nomenclatures—the basis for recording and moving goods through customs— has also stood the test of time. The Benelux Customs Union (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg) adopted the League’s nomenclature of 1937,41 which subsequently formed the basis for the EEC Customs Union. The League’s work was then taken over by the World Customs Organization. The creation of the European Payments Union in 1950 was based on Stoppani’s work at the League in the 1930s, on the functioning of monetary clearing arrangements.42 Finally, the civil service of the European Commission in some respects resembles the international civil service of the League and UN. Double taxation OECD now works on issues of tax coordination and international tax evasion. These issues are not new and were first raised by the League, in a report drafted with the help of the International Chamber of Commerce, in the first international attempt to address tax evasion.43 This report, which established the concept of ‘permanent establishment’ that underpins most tax treaties, led to the ‘adoption of the major rules which are now reflected in the OECD Model Tax Convention’.44 In the 1930s a number of countries negotiated double-­ taxation agreements based on the League’s model. While the League’s experts correctly foresaw that public opinion towards tax evasion would change over time, they probably did not think this would still be a problem in the twenty-first century. * * * It is appropriate to conclude this account of the EFO’s legacies by recalling the last report of Loveday and his colleagues, Economic Stability in the Post-War World. In taking full account of the League’s experience in the 1930s, this 1945 report remained resolutely multilateralist. It was a guide to all that was about to come concerning open, liberal, free-trade economies that the new international institutions would support. But it was also cautionary and pointed out three issues that needed attention and resolution, namely that: the achievement of the fullest measure of unemployment cannot be left to each government acting in ‘isolated independence’; paying special attention to the interests and needs of non-industrial primary producing countries would be beneficial for international peace and mutual security; and that an intergovernmental body positioned between the UN on the one hand, and the triumvirate of the

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IBRD, IMF and the proposed ITO on the other would be necessary to keep international attention focused on the proper functioning of the world economy and to recommend corrective action whenever necessary. All three issues remain central to our times. * * *

12.2  Women, Children and Social Issues * * * The League Secretariat never had a Women’s Section and, despite a great deal of lobbying on the part of the IWOs, the League failed to approve an Equal Rights Treaty. In 1937, external pressure eventually led to a compromise measure, namely the formation of a Committee to Study the Legal Status of Women which was set up to undertake in-depth research on the legal, political, social and economic status of women around the world. The seven-person Committee, which included four women, met three times throughout 1938 and 1939 before work was suspended with the outbreak of war. However, the Committee and the work of women activists during the interwar period provided the base for present-day UN work on women’s issues and related UN Conventions (see Chapter Note 4). At the San Francisco Conference, women took part in discussions (in contrast to Paris some 26 years earlier) and their input became part of the UN Charter with, to their delight, the inclusion of the principle of equality between women and men. One of the few women on the American delegation, Virginia Gildersleeve—a lover of literature and of the US Constitution—was personally responsible for several parts of the Charter’s Preamble, including much of its stirring language.45 Delegates at San Francisco were also aware of women’s lobbying practices at the League and other organizations and, recognizing that a similar situation would also arise in the UN, they decided that the practice should be formalized through a process of recognition and accreditation. Accordingly, they agreed on a special article in the Charter (Article 71) which authorized ECOSOC to make arrangements for consultation with international NGOs and with national NGOs (subject to the agreement of the relevant Member States) on issues being discussed in the Council. It is this provision in the Charter based on the League’s experience that

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underpins the now very extensive practice of participation by civil society in the work of the UN system. The question of a special women’s commission soon arose and the long-standing debate over separating out women’s issues from general human rights intensified. This was a repetition of the League debates some 20 years earlier between those favouring a separate body focussed exclusively on women’s issues and those like Crowdy who disagreed, arguing that women’s issues had to be integrated into all relevant programmes and activities. In the flush of success in drafting the Charter, the two main protagonists on women’s equal rights at San Francisco (Berth Lutz and Jessie Street) pushed for the establishment of a Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The US-based World Women’s Party took up the cause with gusto—sending delegates to lobby the first UN General Assembly in London. But not all women agreed. Dorothy Kenyon who had served on the 1937 League Committee, reported that many women’s organizations ‘hated to see women and women’s interests segregated in a special commission’.46 Her view was backed by Eleanor Roosevelt, a member of the Human Rights Commission, who believed that ‘women should work on an equal basis with men within the full UN system’.47 Sustained lobbying resulted in the creation of a sub-commission, later raised to a full Commission on the Status of Women, reporting directly to ECOSOC. The basis for the early activities of the CSW was the scheme outlined by the League Committee. Further continuity was built in with the appointment of Danish economist Bodil Begtrup, who had been a substitute delegate to the League Assembly, as the first Chair and of Dorothy Kenyon as a member.48 Thus, after almost two decades of disagreement on how best to improve the status of women in society, the IWOs met on the UN Commission in an uneasy alliance.49 Although a Division for the Advancement of Women was established within the UN Secretariat to service the CSW, a special women’s entity was not created. It was to be many years before a system was established which combined a separate women’s organization along with gender units in all parts of the UN and the Specialized Agencies aimed at integrating women’s issues (see Chapter Note 5). With issues concerning the status of women being covered by CSW, other social issues which had been handled by the League were passed initially to the Temporary Social Commission established at ECOSOC’s first meeting. This body, in turn, recommended the establishment

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of a permanent Social Commission of the United Nations (now the Commission for Social Development),50 which met for the first time in January–February 1947. In addition to the 18 members nominated by governments, representatives attended from ILO, FAO, UNESCO, WHO, the World Federation of Trade Unions, the International Cooperative Alliance and the American Federation of Labour. The Temporary Social Commission had been asked to review the existing organizations in the ‘social’ field and make recommendations on problems not covered by them, such as social welfare. The Commission recommended that the UN assume the work of UNRRA in the social welfare field and placed responsibility on the Secretariat for administering a programme of services to Member States. It also endorsed the new International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and agreed that the UN should assume responsibility for the League’s child welfare activities. Regarding other League activities, such as the campaign against traffic in women and children and the prevention and suppression of prostitution, the Commission recommended that responsibilities from Conventions developed by the League should be transferred to the UN. Responsibilities for the League’s work on opium were transferred to newly-created UN structures that were separate from those units dealing with social welfare issues (see below). * * *

12.3  Labour Standards, Workers’ Rights and Social Justice * * * Remarkably, ILO was founded with a tripartite membership of governments, employers and workers: this creative institution-building has stood the test of time and remains unique among all UN bodies (see Chapter Note 6). Albert Thomas, the charismatic and astute first Director of ILO (see Chapter 2) regarded the League’s control of its finances as interference and a nuisance; accordingly, over the course of the interwar years, ILO gradually assumed increasing independence from the League. At this time, the ILO practice of promulgating labour standards through its various Conventions and Recommendations of the rights and

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responsibilities of workers and employers—the forerunner of what today is known as the normative function—enjoyed considerable success. States that were not League Members joined the ILO, the most conspicuous being the USA in 1934, under Roosevelt’s New Deal administration. States withdrawing from the League still remained members of ILO. It was disturbed by the implications of the Bruce Report which failed to mention how the proposed new central committee would relate to ILO, inexplicably, since ex-ILO DG Harold Butler was a member of Bruce’s Committee. In the midst of war, ILO had been able to convene several regional meetings in Latin America, a general conference in 1941 and a major international gathering in 1944, which adopted the ‘Declaration of Philadelphia’. This supplemented principles established earlier in Geneva, including workers having freedom of expression and all people having the right to prosperity and to pursue material well-being. Thus ILO emerged from its sojourn in Montreal as an independent organization and deserves a place in the history of the League’s legacies, as its relationship with the League is directly relevant to the way in which the UN, through ECOSOC, established the system of Specialized Agencies. With the foreseeable demise of the League, and to the irritation of some EFO staff, the ILO began to see itself as the principal economic and social organ at the centre of a new multilateral system. There was widespread acknowledgement that its independence should be formally recognized and of the value of the labour standards that it had introduced. However, the British failed in their attempt to secure a special mention for ILO in the UN Charter. Several American ‘New Dealers’ were partial to ILO, but the Soviets were opposed; they disliked the tripartite structure and, with Ireland being a neutral country in the war, they distrusted acting Director-General Edward Phelan on the grounds of his nationality. Nevertheless, ILO’s relationship vis-à-vis the League provided the model for the new multilateral system as its success encouraged the notion of establishing other specialized bodies able to perform similar technical services unencumbered by political interference and with high degrees of autonomy (see also Chapter Note 7).51 So the ILO constitution was updated to remove references to the League, to accommodate the Philadelphia ambitions and to establish the Organization on a fully independent basis. This revised ILO constitution was used as a model for the constitutions of the other agencies then being planned.

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The experience of ILO affected the type of coordination in the new UN system, which was no longer to be conceived as the subordination of a functional organization to the central organization. It should henceforth be a collaborative relationship between functional and central organizations on the basis of equality.52 This approach was reflected in the agreements then being negotiated between the UN and the new Specialized Agencies that would give effect to such a relationship. ECOSOC launched this process in early 1946. Thanks to the skilful drafting of the ILO Legal Adviser, Wilfred Jenks, ILO managed to show full cooperation with the UN but secured full independence. It was ILO’s experience with the League that provided the basis for agreed collaboration and respect for each other’s mandates and responsibilities (for example in statistical services). Article 17.3 of the Charter, which enabled the General Assembly to make recommendations on the budgets of the Specialized Agencies could have caused a problem. But fortunately, old League-ILO comradeship came in play when former League official and now Chairman of the UN’s budgetary committee, Thanassis Aghnides agreed with a senior ILO official, Henri Reymond on the way forward with the UN commenting on budgets and their implications for concerted action.53 * * *

12.4  Health * * * Earlier chapters have described how the League, under the leadership of Rajchman, mobilized international support to help Poland, Russia and other Eastern European countries fight the post-war epidemics of louseborne typhus and other diseases. By 1923, the Epidemic Commission’s funds were depleted and the last Commissioner ceased work in 1924.54 By this time, the Health Organization had been established. The work of the small secretariat, half of whom were funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, was world-wide in scope, enjoying many successes and producing results ‘quite out of proportion to its financial resources’.55 ‘Much the most effective part of its work was … done by means of expert [or technical] committees of which, in the field of international public health, the League must be considered as the inventor’.56 The need for a full-fledged world body devoted to health issues was in the minds of the Brazilian and Chinese delegations at San Francisco which included Geraldo de Souza, who had served in LONHO, and the

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Cambridge-educated physician Sze Szeming.57 They succeeded in getting the word ‘health’ included in the Charter, opening the way for their Governments to present a Joint Declaration to the Conference, proposing a post-war international health organization—an artful procedure that did not require the adoption of a resolution.58 Action did, however, require an enabling resolution from the aboutto-be-established ECOSOC, which charged a group of individuals from 16 nations with the task of preparing the ground for the new health organization. This Technical Preparatory Committee (TPC) comprised Sze and several former LONHO staff, including the Yugoslav Andrija Štampar, Yves Biraud and Melville Mackenzie. Štampar had just been elected Vice-Chairman of ECOSOC and he asked Biraud to work closely with him on health matters. In 1940, Lester had retained Biraud and Raymond Gautier in Geneva, as the wartime skeleton staff of the Health Section (see Chapter 9); in 1944 the League convened an international conference on the Standardization of Penicillin in London and Biraud and Gautier produced four policy articles that set out in explicit terms the concepts of post-war global health.59 These documents were followed by their joint authorship of a constitution for a post-war international health organization.60 The Preamble and Draft Constitution that Štampar presented to the 1946 TPC is almost identical to the Biraud/Gautier draft of 27 September 1945.61 Indeed the definition of ‘health’ offered by Štampar is closely similar to that appearing in the WHO Preamble and Constitution adopted in July 1946 at the International Health Conference in New York. The respective texts are set out below and show how the broad social concepts of the League’s health initiatives transited to the new UN Organization: Health is not only the absence of infirmity and disease, but also a state of physical and mental wellbeing and fitness resulting from positive factors, such as adequate feeding, housing and training (Biraud/Gautier); Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (WHO Constitution).

In 1943, and again in 1946, Rajchman put forward an alternative proposal for a United Nations’ Health Service.62 His central idea was that ‘any policies to be adopted by the United Nations in the field of public health should have the sanction of consumers of health’. He proposed to

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fund global health activities through a 1% levy on local, social security, and national government health expenditures (see Chapter Note 8). His proposal was considered too radical and he was excluded from all discussions of a future health organization. He therefore redirected his energies to the formation of the children’s agency, UNICEF. If a place had been found for him at WHO, UNICEF might never have been created.63 WHO was established in 1948 after the Constitution achieved the required number of ratifications and the Canadian Brock Chisholm, the TPC’s Rapporteur, was elected as WHO Director-General. By then, WHO had taken over UNRRA’s health programmes together with its associated resources. However, during this delay UNICEF strayed into WHO’s domain by cooperating with countries in the field of health. WHO was anxious to preserve the hard-won principle, which had just been enshrined in the Constitution, that the organization was the ‘directing and co-ordinating authority on international health work’. There was also an element of rivalry—Rajchman was now the Executive Chairman of UNICEF and WHO’s relations with this brilliant but difficult man had become increasingly strained.64 A mechanism to contain this inter-agency rivalry was devised in 1948 during the first meeting of WHO’s governing body. The solution was to establish a Joint Committee on Health Policy drawn from the Executive Boards of WHO and of UNICEF, which the former LONHO staff member, Melville Mackenzie, was elected to chair. The health role of UNICEF, as defined by the Joint Committee, was to furnish governments with supplies and services; WHO’s roles were complementary—to approve any country health programme and provide international health experts.65 A formal partnership between WHO and UNICEF continued for five decades, effectively creating a role for WHO that the organization aspires to fill today, namely of acting as an international manager of global health, bringing together the expertise and resources of different organizations for the benefit of countries. Opening a seminar in China in 1982 on the country’s experience in primary health care, UNICEF’s Executive Director James Grant remarked that policy goals for rural health development in the country were linked to rural health policies that had been introduced into China by LONHO in the 1930s.66 Grant’s father John Grant at Peking Union Medical College had encouraged the Chinese to invite Rajchman to make his first visit in 1925.67 The final word on Rajchman belongs to Jean Monnet who in his memoirs said that ‘few people have had so

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powerful a sense of the universal. Everyone knows how much he did for children the world over, for which he established UNICEF. Rajchman believed in the generosity of human nature, but he had taken care to establish institutions’.68 * * *

12.5  Nutrition, Agriculture and Food69 * * * In 1931 Irish nutritionist Wallace Aykroyd joined LONHO, at a time when millions of unemployed people were suffering ‘hunger in the midst of plenty’ during the Great Depression. Aykroyd and Etienne Burnet surveyed the state of nutrition in Denmark, France, Norway, Sweden, the UK, USA and the USSR from a public health perspective. The malnourishment of working populations was also raised at ILO, which in turn reported that under-nourishment was prevalent among employed workers as well as in the unemployed. On 11 September 1935, Stanley Bruce, then the Australian representative in Geneva, made an impassioned speech to the Assembly, calling for a ‘marriage between health and agriculture’. He was drawing on the ideas of his economic adviser, Frank McDougall, who earlier had broadcast the views of nutritionists that too many of the world’s population were not getting enough of the right kind of food to eat, that food production should be expanded to meet such nutritional requirements and that international trade between agricultural and industrial countries should be revived. Bruce’s speech had an astounding effect. He cabled John Boyd Orr of Aberdeen’s Rowett Institute, who later became FAO’s first Director-General, stating ‘we have this day lighted such a candle, by God’s grace, in Geneva, as we trust shall never be put out’.70 Bruce’s presentation was so convincing that the Assembly asked for immediate further work and called for cooperation between the League, the International Institute of Agriculture (IIA) and ILO. Bruce, McDougall, Boyd Orr, and several other experts including Faith Williams (an author of the ILO report) produced The Relation of Nutrition to Health, Agricultural and Economic Policy. This work, published in 1937, became one of the League’s most popular publications and was considered at the time to be a monument to international

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cooperation in health. The recommendations provided a base for national policies, not just in the social domain but also in the economic field. One important recommendation was that national nutrition committees should be established to advise governments about food and nutritional policy, a recommendation that was acted on in some 20 countries (the authors called for urgent attention to the acute nutritional problems in Asia, Africa and tropical countries, although the report included no documentation from these areas). The war halted these promising activities. The most important result came later. The League’s nutrition programme set the stage for the creation of an international food and agriculture organization. McDougall, in Washington in October 1942 for discussions on the future of the League-inspired International Wheat Agreement, wrote a forceful memorandum, this time with colleagues from the US Department of Agriculture entitled A United Nations Programme for Freedom from Want of Food. The memorandum came to the attention of Eleanor Roosevelt who arranged for McDougall to dine with her husband. Nothing immediately happened, but President Roosevelt’s keen political instincts and timing were hard at work. He realised that the American public would favour such effort, and thus the first of the series of international conferences to plan the post-war world was convened by the USA at Hot Springs, Virginia, in May 1943. McDougall attended as a member of the Australian delegation and Aykroyd, a member of the Indian delegation, had a hand in drafting the report. The Conference succeeded in the most direct sense, that of agreeing to set up an interim commission on food and agriculture to prepare for the establishment of FAO. There was widespread agreement on most issues, including both the League’s approach to nutrition that brought together economic policy, agriculture, health and nutrition as well as the notion of a coordinated approach that linked increased employment in industrialized countries, greater food production in primary producing countries and expanded international trade. However, there was little progress at Hot Springs on the difficult question of the regulation of commodity trade. FAO was established at the October 1945 Conference in Quebec. Boyd Orr was appointed Director-General, Aykroyd became Director of Nutrition and Bruce Chairman of the FAO Council. At the request of Boyd Orr, the ubiquitous Bruce and McDougall prepared plans for a

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World Food Board that retained some of the League ideas, namely that increased consumption of food was central to the need to increase agricultural production and to promote agricultural trade. But the US was determined that issues related to agricultural trade should be the responsibility of the embryonic ITO, and the issue effectively died, along with the rest of the Havana Charter’s plans to regulate trade, when the US Congress failed to approve the ITO. The old IIA, which had functioned more or less continuously in Rome since its establishment in 1905 was transferred to FAO together with its library and rich store of statistical data. Likewise, Rome was chosen as headquarters for the new Organization. As for nutrition, the League tradition continues. Today, the UN attempts to replicate the ‘marrying of health and agriculture’ by addressing nutrition policy through an inter-agency mechanism (the Standing Committee on Nutrition) that promotes joint action with partner organizations to end hunger and malnutrition.71 * * *

12.6  Intellectual Cooperation and Education * * * The League’s legacies to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) are less all-embracing than those to WHO or FAO. This was because the relevant League activities covered only part of what was to become the new organization, and because the preparatory work for UNESCO took place in a framework disassociated from the League. In 1922, the Assembly established the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), a valiant attempt to promote international relations among artists, scientists and authors, to help improve the material conditions of intellectual workers (as ILO was seeking to do for industrial workers) and to strengthen the League’s influence for peace by encouraging teachers in schools and universities to support the cause of international cooperation. The Committee which had a distinguished membership, including Henri Bergson, Marie Curie, and Albert Einstein, made proposals for specific activities, but its lofty aims were poorly funded.

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To help the work of ICIC, the French financed an International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) based in Paris that in effect became an executive agency of the League. The Institute was housed in the splendid Palais Royal, prompting Drummond to comment at the opening ceremony, ‘There is one thing that I envy, namely the magnificent building which today is formally placed at the Institute’s disposal by you, Monsieur le Président. In this respect, I fear that the Secretariat must accept to remain forever in a position of inferiority’.72 The Institute undertook useful work especially in the 1930s, by promoting ‘meetings between leading scientists and savants, holding international conferences, encouraging greater cooperation between the world’s universities, facilitating student exchanges, and generally promoting … mutual understanding and self-knowledge’.73 The Deputy Director of the Institute from 1926–1930 was Alfred Zimmern whose position on international cooperation leveraged heavily on the opinions of Salter. The Italians subsequently financed a companion body, the Rome-based International Institute of Educational Cinematography, which sought to use the new medium of film to promote international understanding. The League had no mandate to promote international cooperation in the field of education and there was tension in Paris in 1919 between those who pushed for international education programmes and those who resisted on grounds of sovereignty. The absence of a mandate was a problem for ICIC and IIIC: ‘textbook reform, degree equivalence and academic and student exchanges’ could be discussed but ‘states would only cooperate on a voluntary basis’.74 In these circumstances, the Rockefeller Foundation provided funds to the Geneva-based Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau to establish the International Bureau of Education (IBE), a private Swiss association, as a centre for information, scientific research and coordination for promoting international cooperation in the field of education. Notable Swiss educators were behind the initiative, including its first Director, Jean Piaget, as well as Adolphe Ferrière, who helped establish the Geneva International School. By 1929, IBE had become the first intergovernmental organization in the field of education and thereafter was actively involved in studying issues of public education in a growing number of member countries.75 After the fall of France in June 1940, the IIIC more or less closed down. Independently of events in Paris, R.A.B. Butler, the British minister responsible for education, and Malcolm Robertson, Director of the British Council, felt that educational programmes especially in countries

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occupied by the Nazis would have to be central to post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation. They accordingly set up the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME). This met several times over the ensuing years and created a solid environment for building an international institution for education and science. In February 1944, CAME decided that a permanent body would be required to promote the necessary post-war re-education programmes and to facilitate international cooperation in science and the arts. A drafting committee was established in January 1945 to prepare the constitution of UNESCO. It was at that point that all these various strands came together. The drafting committee’s first task was to ‘look back to the language, mission and goals of the IIIC as a model of what should and should not be adopted in establishing UNESCO’.76 They also revisited the discussions in the League regarding education. Perhaps they also took to heart the prescient words of Mantoux in his foreword to the first major historical survey of international education activities: ‘It was not owing to some impulse of dreamy love for mankind in the abstract but rather for the sake of their own countries that the promoters of international education set to work’.77 A brief attempt, after the war, to revive IIIC failed. Its earlier presence in Paris provided the rationale for UNESCO’s headquarters and the Organization was established there in November 1945 with Julian Huxley as its first Director-General. The League transferred all IIIC’s assets and archives to UNESCO. Though ICIC died a natural death, its legacy lives on. Early on in its short life, it sponsored the creation of national committees for intellectual cooperation that were administratively supported by IIIC. The concept survived the war and they now provide the basis for the current structure of UNESCO National Commissions. In 1969, the IBE became an integral part of UNESCO whilst retaining full intellectual and functional autonomy. * * *

12.7  Control of Production and Trade of Narcotic Drugs * * * The Covenant entrusted the League with ‘the general supervision of the execution of agreements with regard to… the traffic in opium and

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other dangerous goods’.78 These agreements included the 1912 Hague Opium Convention. Accordingly, the first Assembly established the Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and other Dangerous Drugs, popularly known as the Opium Committee. So began the first efforts at serious international control of the drug trade. With the help of interested states, including the US, Crowdy led the efforts to put some action behind the words, mainly through the classical device of amassing quantities of information to demonstrate the seriousness of the situation as production and trade in opium was growing continuously, which showed the need to tighten up the Hague Convention. The Opium Committee prepared the groundwork for the Geneva Convention of 1925 which produced an international consensus on a control system to be supervised by a new body, the Permanent Central Opium Board (PCOB). A further Geneva Convention, in 1931, sought to establish workable control schemes through a system of estimates of governments’ medical and scientific needs that were to be administered by a Drug Supervisory Body (DSB). Both bodies were independent but administratively supported by the League. Work continued through 1939—states were beginning to negotiate an international supply control agreement when war broke out. The League’s annual statements of Estimated World Requirements of Dangerous Drugs continued to be issued during the war. Although the Americans had ceased official contacts with the Opium Committee, regarding it as too politicized, the US and other countries considered the experience of (and information held by) the PCOB and the DSB to be sufficiently important for that work to be continued. Therefore, it was decided to transfer the DSB Secretary Arthur Felkin, and some colleagues from Geneva, to Washington. The State Department ‘publicly affirmed that it is upon the operation of these two boards… supplementing and coordinating the efforts of independent nations, that the entire fabric of international drug control ultimately rests and the American Government regards it of the highest importance … to the entire world, that they should be enabled to function adequately, effectively and without interruption …’.79 Despite the problems of the war almost half the ‘states and territories covered by the 1931 [Opium] Convention continued to submit statistics’ and basic reports continued to be issued.80 Although the Opium Committee could not meet and the drug secretariat was largely inactive, having the two entities in Washington

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was, as one observer said, ‘a good example of continuity between the League and the UN. Officials, expertise and technical frameworks would be available for re-institutionalization after the war’.81 And that is exactly what happened. At San Francisco and then at the Preparatory Commission, there was wide consensus on the need to re-establish the drug control machinery that had existed in the interwar years. Whereas the Opium Committee as a League body would cease to exist, PCOB and DSB having been created by treaties independent of the League, continued. On the surface, the transition from the League to the UN looked smooth, but underneath there were disputes. These involved personalities and tensions between the drug-producing countries and the legitimate needs of the drug-importing countries.82 Nevertheless, ECOSOC at its first session in 1946 replaced the old Advisory Committee on Opium with a Commission for Narcotic Drugs, which had matching functions and some of the same members. PCOB and DSB were conjoined before being subsequently folded into the International Narcotics Control Board with essentially similar quasi-judicial functions. As with the League, a Division for Narcotic Drugs was established in the UN Secretariat separate from those units dealing with social welfare issues. The drug controllers wanted a single focus on the problem, independent of what they regarded as extraneous issues. Bertil Renborg, who was in charge of the League’s drugs section, had greatly irritated the Americans during the war and was passed over for the new division. This was assigned instead to the main DSB official, Leon Steinig while Felkin who had been working for PCOB was given responsibility for the combined Secretariats. Thus the efforts of the 1920s and 1930s reappeared after the war with renewed determination to use international machinery to control the illicit use of dangerous drugs. * * *

12.8  The Movement of People and Goods Across National Frontiers * * * Within the League the Communications and Transit Organisation (CTO) dealt with pressing needs in the area of ‘rail transport, inland

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navigation, ports and maritime navigation, road traffic and power transmission’. Although successful in its early years (see Chapter 7), CTO was constrained by political developments in the 1930s. By the decade’s end, when the League was cutting staff, its functions were folded into EFO. At the end of the war it comprised a section chief, Branko Lukač, and two assistants. Lukač, a former engineer of the Serbian Ministry of Public Works, was well informed about the state of transport in Eastern Europe and throughout the war issued monthly confidential reports to the allies for which he was later warmly thanked. Generally, the League’s legacies can be described in linear terms, namely, the transit of functions and programmes of the League in a direct fashion to one or other of the new multilateral agencies. Its transit and communications legacies are more diffused. Post-war assistance requirements were enormous, given the devastation to transport networks especially in Europe and parts of Asia where the need to ensure the rapid transition to peacetime production and trade so as to restore normal economic and social conditions was acute. Air transport, however, had not been part of the League’s mandate. Immediate post-war international cooperation as regards transport and communication fell under three broad headings. First, European transport networks needed urgent restoration. In mid-1945, European governments including the Soviet Union and also the US, set up the European Central Inland Transport Organization (ECITO) to do just that. Lukač made available to ECITO relevant League documents and information and, like the CTO, ECITO worked through the specialist transport bodies dealing with road, rail and inland waterways. ECITO began in London and then moved to Paris. By 1947, Soviet funding was drying up and the US was refusing to make up the difference. ECOSOC had created the first UN Regional Commission—the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE)—which decided to establish an Inland Transport Committee to be serviced by a dedicated secretariat unit. One of the first acts of the ECE’s newly appointed Executive Secretary, Gunnar Myrdal, was to agree with ECITO in September 1947 to take over its tasks and functions together with its archives and library. So in a sense, international responsibility for the organization and development of pan-European inland transport covering road, rail and waterways returned to Geneva.83 Second, there was recognition of the need for global arrangements to oversee the development and coordination of world-wide

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transport and communications facilities. In March 1945, Lukač, had circulated a memorandum calling for a ‘unique central specialized agency—an International Communications Organisation’ which would house all those entities dealing with international transport and communications. This received little support but, in December 1945, the UN Preparatory Commission recommended a transport and communication commission to act as a global forum for the review and coordination of transport and communications facilities, which ECOSOC set-up a few weeks later.84 Lukač went on to become the first Director of the UN’s Division for Transport and Communication serving until the late 1950s. Third, intergovernmental organizations were established for the different transport and communications modes. It was agreed that they would be designated UN Specialized Agencies and would cooperate with the UN and each other through ECOSOC. Air transport was the first, with the establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organization at Chicago in December 1944. Telecommunications followed, when the already existing International Telecommunications Union (ITU) became a Specialized Agency. The same process was used for the even older Universal Postal Union (UPU). Neither ITU nor UPU had ever been brought into the League’s ambit. This chapter establishes how the League’s functional activities transited in one form or another to the various international organizations set up at the end of Second World War. Though there was no masterplan, there was a widespread consensus that the League’s knowledge, experience and information should be made available to the new organizations. As seen in the next chapter, many League staff continued their international careers in environments similar to those they had enjoyed in the League. Notes to Chapter 12 1. Sweetser’s comment, that this letter represented the most consequential communication from the US to the League since 1920, was widely shared by many. 2. Loveday tried to recruit Myrdal in the early 1930s and again at Princeton; but by then Myrdal was heavily engaged in his monumental work An American Dilemma. The ‘Depression Delegation’ brought together outside experts and League economists in a

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coordinated attempt to understand the causes of the great depression and to propose collective remedial measures. 3. Myrdal, by now Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), states that Monnet needed independent expert advice: ‘the first draft of possible technical clauses for the creation of an ECSC was worked out in ECE by the then Director of the Steel Division’.85 4. These include: the 1957 Convention on the Nationality of Married Women; and the 1967 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. 5. In 1976, a UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) was created, focussed on socioeconomic projects that were central to countries’ development and to which women made major inputs, such as food production and marketing. In 2010 an autonomous agency dealing with women’s issues (UN Women) finally came into being, encompassing UNIFEM (its major source of human and financial resources) and other UN arrangements related to women. 6. The ILO model has been borrowed by other intergovernmental bodies: the governing body of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, for example, includes representatives of employers and employees’ organisations. 7. Agreements between the UN and the IMF and the World Bank do not allow the UN to make recommendations to either body, a way of insulating the financial institutions from political interference. 8. A later proposal by Rajchman suggested two sources of funds; UN regular budget funds and a special UN Health Fund.

Endnotes

1. Pedersen, S. (2007), ‘Back to the League’, pp. 1108–9 and fn 65. 2. Pedersen, S. (2007), ‘Back to the League’, pp. 1108–9 and fn 65. 3.  Holtaus, L., and Steffek, J. (2016), ‘Experiments in International Administration: The Forgotten Functionalism of James Arthur Salter’, p. 1 and Chapter 5. 4. See Mitrany, D. (1933), Progress of International Governance; and in particular (1943), A Working Peace System—An Argument for the Functional Development of International Organization. Quotations from 1946 edition.

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5.  Ghébali, V.-Y. (1975), ‘The League of Nations and Functionalism’, p. 152. 6.  Ghébali, V.-Y. (1975), ‘The League of Nations and Functionalism’, p. 157; Weiss, T.G. (1975), International Bureaucracy: An Analysis of the Operation of Functional and Global International Secretariats, pp. 7–9. 7. Letter of 2 February 1939 from Hull to Avenol, quoted in Ghébali, V.-Y. (1970), ‘La Réforme Bruce, 1939–1940, 50 ans de la Société des Nations’, pp. 16–18. See also the Bruce Report: LON. (1939), The Development of International Co-operation in Economic and Social Affairs. 8. See Bruce Report: LON. (1939), The Development of International Cooperation in Economic and Social Affairs, p. 6. 9. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, p. 327. 10. Article 63 (2) of the UN Charter, emphasis added. 11. Russell, R.B. (1958), A History of the United Nations Charter: The Role of the United States, p. 797. 12. UN. (1945), Report of the Preparatory Commission, p. 117. 13. Urquhart, B. (1987), A Life in Peace and War, pp. 7, 94–6 and its review by Mortimer, E. (1987), Financial Times, 22 October. 14. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, pp. 304–5. 15. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, p. 356. 16.  Interview with Jacques Polak, 15 March 2000, United Nations Intellectual History Project, Oral History, p. 11. 17. UN. (1945), Report of the Preparatory Commission, p. 118. 18. Tournès, L. (2014), ‘The Rockefeller Foundation and the Transition from the League of Nations to the UN (1939–1946)’, p. 339. 19. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, pp. 277 and 293–6. 20. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, p. 295. 21. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51112, 6/10/43 letter Perth to Cecil. 22. Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, pp. 342 and 351–3. 23. Toye, J., and Toye, R. (2004), The UN and Global Political Economy, pp. 87–88. 24.  The report is now issued under the title World Economic and Social Survey. 25.  See, for example, Pauly, L.W. (1966), The League of Nations and the Foreshadowing of the International Monetary Fund, pp. 27–28. 26. All quotations in this paragraph are from Pauly, L.W. (1966), The League of Nations and the foreshadowing of the International Monetary Fund, pp. 35–6. 27. Oliver, R.W. (1975, 1996), International Economic Co–operation and the World Bank, p. 332 fn 41. 28. Toye, J., and Toye, R. (2004), The UN and Global Political Economy, pp. 26–7.

288  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. 29. Davies, M., and Woodward, R. (2014), International Organizations, A Companion, p. 376. 30. Toye, J. (2014), UNCTAD at 50: A Short History, p. 32. 31. Toye, J. (2014), UNCTAD at 50; Clavin, P. (2013), Securing the World Economy, pp. 335–6. 32.  Loveday, A. (1938), ‘The Economic and Financial Activities of the League’. 33. Ward, M. (2004), Quantifying the World—UN Ideas and Statistics, UN. (2007), United Nations Statistics Commission: Sixty Years of Leadership and Professionalism. 34. LONA, R5685, 50/41606/980, Collaboration technique de la Societé des Nations avec la Chine: Activités en 1939 et 1940 et Liquidation, 15 juillet 1942. 35. Nashat, M. (1978), The Institutional Framework of the United Nations Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance, pp. 3–11. 36.  Booker, C., and North, R. (2003), The Great Deception: Can the European Union Survive? p. 2. 37. Monnet, J. (1978), Memoirs, p. 83. 38. LONA, Directors’ Meetings, Confidential Circular 13, 24 March 1927. 39. Walters, F. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, pp. 427 and 430–4. 40. Salter, A. (1933), The United States of Europe and Other Papers. 41. Howson, S., and Moggridge, D. (1990), The Collected Papers of James Meade, Vol III, p. 178. 42. Clavin, P. (2014), Securing the World Economy, p. 347. 43. LON. (1925), Double Taxation and Tax Evasion. 44. OECD. (Undated), Are the Current Treaty Rules for Taxing Business Profits Appropriate for E-Commerce, p. 10 and fn 5. 45. Schlesinger, S.C. (2003), Act of Creation, The Founding of the United Nations, p. 237. 46.  Rupp, L. (1997), Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement, pp. 223–4. 47. Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, pp. 230–1. 48. For a detailed account of the links between the work of the League and the UN on the Status of Women, see Eisenberg, J. (2013), ‘International Organization in Action: The Status of Women’, p. 824. 49. Miller, C. (1992), Lobbying the League, p. 232. 50. Simons, S.M., (1946), ‘UN Organizes in the Social Field: The Social Commission’; Lally, D. (1947), ‘First Session of the UN’s Permanent Social Commission’. 51. Luard, E. (1982), A History of the United Nations: The Years of Western Domination, pp. 13–14. 52. Tortora, M. (1979), L’OIT, Institution Spécialisée et le Système de l’Organisation Internationale, Free translation, p. 212.

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53.  Reymond, H. (Undated), The International Service: Experience and Recollections. 54. Weindling, P. (1995), International Health Organisations and Movements, Table 5.1, p. 101. 55. Walters, F.P. (1952), A History of the League of Nations, p. 182. 56. Brockington, F. (1958), World Health, p. 206. 57. University of Pittsburgh Archives, Sze Szeming Papers, 1945–88, UA.90. F14.1, Sze Diary 1946 Box 1 Folder 1. 58. Sze, S. (1988), ‘WHO: From Small Beginnings’, p. 31. 59. LONA, R 5780, 8A/42169/41755, ‘Confidential: International Health of the Future’, 15 March 1943; LONA 8A/42231/41674, Biraud, Y. ‘(Amended) Suggestions for the Post-war Amalgamation of International Health Institutions’, 28 November 1943; LONA 8A/42169/41755, Gautier, R. ‘The Future Health Organization’, 31 May 1943; LONA 8A/42169/41755; Gautier, R. ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, 15 August 1944. 60.  LONA, 8A/41755/41755, ‘Draft Constitution of the International Health Organisation of the United Nations (Extract)’, 27 September 1945; LONA, R6150, 8A/43627/41755, Biraud to Stampar, 26 February 1946, p. 2. 61.  LONA, 8A/41755/41755, Draft Constitution of the International Health Organisation of the United Nations (Extract), 27 September 1945 (English) and 25 octobre 1945 (Francais); WHO, Official Records; 1946; Minutes of the Technical Preparatory Committee for the International Health Conference, Annex 9. 62. Rajchman, L. (1943), ‘Why Not? A United Nations Health Service’; and (1946), ‘United Nations Health Organisation’. 63. Balińska, M. (1998), For the Good of Humanity: Ludwik Rajchman, Medical Statesman, p. 218. 64. Macfadyen, D. (2014), ‘The Genealogy of WHO and UNICEF and the Intersecting Careers of Melville Mackenzie (1889–1972) and Ludwik Rajchman (1881–1965),’ p. 323. 65. UNICEF. (1949), Report of the Third Session of the Joint UNICEF/WHO Committee on Health Policy. 66. World Health Organization. (1983) ‘Primary Health Care: The Chinese Experience’, p. 158. 67. Balińska, M. (1998), For the Good of Humanity, p. 78. 68. Monnet, J. (1978), Memoirs, p. 100. 69. Sources: Burnet, E., and Aykroyd, W.R. (1935), ‘Nutrition and Public Health’, p. 323; LON. (1936), Report on the Physiological Bases of Nutrition; LON. (1937), Final Report of the Mixed Committee of the League of Nations on the Relation of Nutrition to Health, Agriculture and

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Economic Policy; Passmore, R. (1980), ‘Obituary Notice, Wallace Ruddell Aykroyd’. 70. Lubbock. D. (2015), Just for the Family. 71. See https://www.unscn.org. 72.  https://jhiblog.org/tag/international-committee-on-intellectual-cooperation [accessed 21 March 2017]. 73. Wilson, P. (2011), ‘Gilbert Murray and International Relations’, p. 903. 74. Laqua, D. (2011), ‘Transnational Intellectual Cooperation, the League of Nations, and the problem of order’, p. 238. 75. http://www.ibe.unesco.org/en/who-we-are/history [accessed 21 March 2017]. 76. Intrator, M. (2015), ‘Educators Across Borders: The Conference of Allied Ministers of Education, 1942–45’, p. 70. 77. Mantoux, P. (1931), Foreword to Harley, J.E. (ed.) (1931), International Understanding: Agencies Educating for a New World. 78. Article 23 (c) of the Covenant. 79. Collins, J. (2015), Regulations and Prohibitions: Anglo-American Relations and International Drug Control, p. 40. 80. Collins, J. (2015), Regulations and Prohibitions, p. 40. 81. Collins, J. (2015), Regulations and Prohibitions, p. 45. 82. Collins, J. (2015), Regulations and Prohibitions, pp. 100–29. 83. UN Office at Geneva files G.IX 2/7 4844UNOG; Schipper, F. (2008) Driving Europe—Building European Roads in the 20th Century, pp. 166–7. 84. LONA, Box R 4264 9A/42109/39706, January 1946. 85.  Berthelot, Y., and Rayment, P. (2007), Looking Back and Peering Forward, A Short History of the ECE, p. 35.

CHAPTER 13

Internationalism Restored, Starting Anew

At the end of the Second World War new organizations came into existence and they were required to respond quickly to a multitude of postwar problems around the globe. As this chapter shows, they were helped in this regard by a large number of League staff who transited to the UN and its Specialized Agencies and who carried with them the spirit of internationalism that Drummond had instilled right from the beginning. * * *

13.1  Staffing the Organizations * * * The first organization to be created under the United Nations rubric (in 1943) was the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the ‘United Nations’ being the allied countries engaged in the war, not the new international body. As described in Chapter 11, this temporary organization (1943–1946) was designed to provide relief to liberated populations in Asia and Europe. UNRRA was American-led, with Salter as Deputy Director and McGeachy as Director of Welfare. They were joined by other League staff, including Berislav Borcic, Henry Cummings, Jacques Polak and Royall Tyler. Others were also involved in the UNRRA governing bodies, with Rajchman representing Poland © The Author(s) 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0_13

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in the global body and Mackenzie representing the UK in its European regional structure. It had a brief life and was said to resemble the mule, a useful animal but with no pride of ancestry or hope of posterity.1 However via the equally short-lived International Refugee Organization (1948–1951), UNRRA was one of the antecedents of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). In the United Nations and the new Specialized Agencies, links to the League were reinforced through the need to employ experienced staff. Old Geneva hands such as Colban, Sweetser, de Azcaráte and Pelt played important roles in the early days of the new organization, and a few of them had the distinction of serving not only three League SecretaryGenerals but also three in the UN.2 Additionally, former support staff were re-employed, particularly in Geneva with interpretation and translation skills being in considerable demand. Table 13.1 shows the movement of over 50 former League staff into professional positions in the post-war institutions, excluding ILO and ICJ staff who returned to their organizations when the war ended. Table 13.1 does not cover those who served only on UN Commissions or who became members of governing bodies. However, this last category of former League staff includes some who were instrumental in ensuring that UN practices were based on tried and tested administrative methods, such as Aghnides who became Chairman of both the UN’s International Civil Service Advisory Board and its Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. Another, Uno Brunskog, the League’s Auditor, was a member of the ‘Flemming Committee’ established in 1949 to review the UN salary and allowances system. The list shows that several of those who transited from the League rose to eminent positions, for instance Manuel Pérez-Guerrero became Secretary-General of UNCTAD and Per Jacobsson was appointed the third Managing Director of IMF where other former League officials also served, notably Jacques Polak who became Director of Research. Notable also were Émile Delavenay, who edited the Journal of the UN Preparatory Commission and established and supervised all the initial editorial procedures for the production of verbatim records of General Assembly and Security Council plenaries before moving to UNESCO; and ILO staff member Georges Rabinovitch who was recruited to head the UN interpretation services. The art of simultaneous interpretation was an ILO-acquired skill not a League one, as the League had used

1925–1941 1923–1940 1926–1946

1930–1938

1919–1927 1934–1940 1920–1939 1919–1936 1926–1927

1931–1946 1937–1940

Atzenwiler, Louis (Swiss) Aubert, Eva (Swiss)

Biraud, Yves (French)

Borcic, Berislav (Yugoslav)

Colban, Erik (Norwegian) Crocker, Walter (British) Cummings, Henry (British) De Azcarate, Pablo (Spanish) Delavenay, Emile (French)

Deperon, Paul (Belgian)

Dorolle, Pierre-Marie (French)

Chief Technical Specialist and SG’s representative in China

EFO

Administration Section (Mandates) ILO Information Section Director, Minorities Section, Deputy SG Editor

Health Specialist, Greece and China

Epidemiologist, Health Section

Opium Board Verbatim Reporter

Mandates and General Affairs

1931–1946

Anker, Peter (Norwegian)

League position Nutrition specialist, LONHO

League service

Aykroyd, Wallace (Irish/British) 1931–1935

Name/nationality

Table 13.1  Moving from the League to new organizations

(continued)

FAO: Director, Nutrition Division UN: Assistant Director, Trusteeship Division UN: Opium Board UN: Chief, French Stenography Service WHO: Director, Quarantine, Epidemic Intelligence and Health Statistics UNRRA: mission to China 1946, WHO: adviser to UNICEF UN: Kashmir UN: Chief, Africa Section UNRRA UN: Palestine UN: Official Records Division; UNESCO: Director, Publications Division UN: Geneva, detached to New York WHO: Deputy Director-General

Organization and significant positions

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293

1934–1947 1940–1945 1935–1937 1921–1946 1924–1946 1919–1928

1919–1932 1926–1946 1920–1928 1924–1940 1919–1921 1929–1946 1929–1946

Erim, Tewfik (Turkish) Evans, Albert (British)

Fleming, John (British) Frumkin, Grzegorz (Polish)

Gautier, Raymond (Swiss)

Gilchrist, Huntington (American) Giraud, Emile (French) Hekimi, Abol-Hassan (Iranian) Hilgerdt, Folke (Swedish) Hill, William Martin (Irish/ British) Huston, Howard (American) Jacklin, Seymour (S.African) Jacobsson, Per (Swedish)

Le Bosquet, Charles (British)

Lloyd, Edward M. (British) Lloyd, Edward A. (British) Lukač, Branko (Yugoslav)

1927–1946 1926–1941 1927–1946 1927–1946

League service

Name/nationality

Table 13.1  (continued) Organization and significant positions

(continued)

UN: Social Department UN: assigned to assist transfer of functions EFO IMF EFO, Editor Bulletin of Statistics UN-ECE and Editor, UN Statistical Yearbook Director, Eastern Bureau then wartime Head WHO: ADG of LONHO Mandates Section UN and then Resident Representative Legal Section UN: Human Rights Division Mandates Section UN Statistician, EFO UN: Statistical Office EFO and Political Sections, Secretary to UN ECE and later ASG, InterBruce Committee Agency Affairs Chief, Internal Control Service UN: Representative, Pakistan Treasurer UN EFO BIS then IMF: Managing Director Interpreter UN: Deputy Director, Languages Division EFO UNRRA and FAO Interpreter UNESCO Communications and Transport Section, UN: Director, Transport later Section Chief Division on detachment from LON

Political Section Document Specialist/Translator

League position

294  D. MACFADYEN ET AL.

Liaison Officer, Social Questions Shorthand Typist Précis Writer Deputy Secretary-General

EFO Economic Intelligence Section

1928–1940 1930–1940 1920–1940 1919–1923 1922–1940 1934–1946 1931–1938 1920–1940 1937–1940 1937–1943 1937–1940 1924–1942 1921–1939

McGeachy, Mary (Canadian) Midwinter-Vergin, Kathleen (British) Millar, George (British) Monnet, Jean (French)

Muller, Louis (French) Nurkse, Ragnar (Estonian)

Pampana, Emilio (Italian)

Pelt, Adrianus (Dutch)

Pérez-Guerrero, Manuel (Venezuelan) Polak, Jacques (Dutch)

Pollitzer, Robert (Austrian)

Rabinovitch, Georges (Latvian)

Rajchman, Ludwik (Polish)

Director, LONHO

ILO Interpreter

Health specialist, China

Information Section

Specialist, LONHO

Translator Economist

Interpreter

1925–1940

Mathieu, Georges (French)

League position

League service

Name/nationality

Table 13.1  (continued)

(continued)

UN: Editorial Section President, European Coal and Steel Community UN UN: Economic Affairs, for a very short time WHO: Director, Malaria Eradication Programme UN: ASG, SG Rep Libya and Director European Office UN: Country Representative; UNCTAD: SG UNRRA, IMF: Director, Research Department WHO: Epidemiological and Health Statistics Division UN: Chief, Interpretation Section Chair of UNICEF Executive Board

UN: Director, Languages Division UNRRA: Director Welfare UN: Social Affairs Department

Organization and significant positions

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295

1930–1940 1930–1943 1921–1946

1919–1930 1930–1940 1920–1939 1919–1942 1924–1928, 1938–1943 1920–1946 1919–1946

Ranshofen-Wertheimer, Egon (Stateless) Rasminsky, Louis (Canadian) Rosenborg, Johan (Swedish)

Salter, Arthur (British) Sampson, George (British) Stoppani, Piero (Italian) Sweetser, Arthur (American)

Tyler, Royall (American)

Watterson, Percy (British)

Vigier, Eugène (French)

League service

Name/nationality

Table 13.1  (continued)

Internal Control (Chief Accountant)

Translator, Head Précis Writer

Finance specialist

EFO Translator EFO Information Section

Information Section, later Social Questions Section EFO EFO

League position

UN: Director, Security Council Affairs FAO: Washington

UN Commissioner in Korea, Somalia and Eritrea IMF: Executive Director UN: ESCAFE, Executive Secretary, Resident Representative Indonesia UNRRA: Deputy Director UN European Payments Union UN: Public Information in New York and Washington UNRRA

Organization and significant positions

296  D. MACFADYEN ET AL.

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297

consecutive interpretation. The later international careers of some former League staff are briefly highlighted in the paragraphs that follow. Wallace Aykroyd, an Irishman, served as the League’s first nutrition specialist where, in 1935, he co-authored Nutrition and Public Health, which provided suggestions for improving the nutrition of the general population.3 Based on the report of a Mixed Committee of the League, ILO and IIA, he advised governments on national nutritional policies. Actively involved in the Hot Springs Conference (see Chapter 12), where FAO was born, Boyd Orr recruited him to direct the Nutrition Division where he remained until 1960. His major achievement was to produce the 1946 World Food Survey to quantify the problem of hunger and food shortages. A second survey published in 1952 included calculations of national calorific requirements.4 Raymond Gautier (Switzerland) and Yves Biraud (France) were physicians, recruited to the League in 1924 and 1925 respectively. During the Second World War, they maintained the work of the Health Organization, proposing ideas for future global health initiatives and jointly drafting a preamble and constitution for a new international health organization, which closely resembled the eventual WHO constitution (see Chapter 12). Gautier went on to become ADG of WHO while Biraud, its Director of Quarantine, Epidemic Intelligence and Health Statistics, left WHO in 1961 and had a fatal illness on a mission to Yaounde, Cameroon, in 1965. Martin Hill of Ireland (for the League) and Britain (for the UN) had a long and distinguished international career of more than 40 years (1927–1970). Highly sociable and friendly, he personified the ideals of the true international civil servant in a tradition of integrity, high values and standards. Born in Cork in 1905, he went directly from Oxford to the League where, before joining EFO, he dealt with several political issues including the resettlement of Assyrians in Iraq. He was Secretary to, and wrote much of the report for the 1939 Bruce Committee that laid the groundwork for the establishment of the UN’s Economic and Social Council. During the war he moved to Princeton where he worked with Loveday on issues of post-war reconstruction. A participant at San Francisco in 1945, and then Special Assistant in the early days to Trygve Lie, he later became the deputy head of the UN’s Department of Economic Affairs that underpinned ECOSOC and, to complete the circle, ASG for Inter-Agency Affairs.

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Per Jacobsson of Sweden, worked for EFO from 1920 to 1928 and, after a short spell in his home civil service, joined the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) as its economic adviser, serving from 1931–1956. He retained good connections with his League colleagues and was consulted by them periodically.5 He wrote the early BIS Annual Reports (recognized as an authoritative overview of the financial scene) almost single-handedly and was described as ‘brimming with dynamism, an enchanting communicator and he became the intellectual driving force of the Bank’.6 Jacobsson’s ‘special brand of practical, liberal international political economy promoted belief in the self-adjusting forces of the market’.7 In 1956 he became IMF Managing Director, a post he held until his death in 1963. During this time, he oversaw a reduction in the restrictions placed on members’ access to IMF resources and liberalization of their balance of payments practices. Kathleen Midwinter-Vergin,  a British national, worked in the League’s Editorial Section, EFO and the Treasury. Her experience in committee work recommended her for a clerkship in the British House of Commons where, in May 1940, she was the first woman to be appointed to the position (seated near Churchill as he delivered his wartime speeches). In 1943 she joined the Foreign Office Economic Relations Department, which was planning the winding up of the League and the creation of international agencies to replace it after the war. She entered the UN in 1946 and was the Secretary to discussions that led to a constitution for the International Refugee Organization. From 1946 to 1954 she served in the Social Affairs Department of the UN Technical Assistance Administration. In 1954 she was transferred to Geneva where, until her retirement in 1969, she worked in the UN’s European Social Development Unit.8 Adriaan Pelt of the Netherlands, a multilingual journalist, joined the Information Section in April 1920, rising to become its Director in May 1934. He left the League in May 1940 to work as head of his government’s information service during the war. After representing the Dutch government at San Francisco in 1945 and on the Preparatory Commission, he joined the UN in 1946 with responsibility for Conference Affairs. He finished his career as Director of the UN’s European Office. He is most known for his time as the UN Commissioner for Libya, from 1949 to 1952, where he brought together the disparate English and French controlled regions of the country to form a unified state. He was instrumental in drafting a

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constitution and having it accepted by the Libyan people. After his retirement, Pelt became President of the World Federation of United Nations Associations from 1963 to 1966. Jacques Polak, another Dutchman, worked for the League from 1937 to 1943. Having moved to Princeton with EFO, he then participated at Bretton Woods as a member of the Dutch delegation. He worked for UNRRA before joining IMF in 1947. After helping to establish the Fund’s statistical operations, he was appointed Director of the Research Department, ‘where he was to be its guiding spirit throughout the next 30 years’.9 Polak was instrumental in creating the post-Second World War international monetary system, which was based on fixed exchange rates pegged to the US dollar. He went on to play a key role in refashioning that system after it collapsed in the early 1970s when Special Drawing Rights were created. His most important contribution to IMF, however, was the 1957 ‘Polak Model’, which gave economists a way to determine the effect of a country’s domestic policies on its international balance sheet.10 After retirement he continued to serve with IMF as the Netherlands’ Executive Director from 1981 to 1987 and thereafter was an Adviser to the Fund until 2007. Raúl Prebisch (Argentina) and Manuel Pérez-Guerrero (Venezuela) were both associated with the League and both eventually went on to serve as Secretaries-Generals of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) established in 1964. Prebisch never worked for the League as such; however, in late 1932 and early 1933, he was the Argentinian representative on the League’s Preparatory Commission for the World Economic Conference. Observing that Argentina, though a major wheat exporter, counted for little in such discussions, Prebisch realized that his hitherto neo-classical economic theories had to be replaced by more activist ones that did not depend on an automatically favourable international economic environment.11 He further developed this approach when head of the UN Regional Commission for Latin America in the 1950s and as UNCTAD’s first SecretaryGeneral from 1964 to 1969. Pérez-Guerrero was recruited to the League’s Information Section in 1937, but soon transferred to the EFO Intelligence Service. He left the League in 1940 to take-up government service before joining ILO towards the end of the war. In 1946 he became the first Director of the Coordination Division in the UN Department of Economic Affairs. There, he jointly oversaw the introduction of the relationship agreements between the UN and the new

300  D. MACFADYEN ET AL.

Specialized Agencies, as well as the launching of the UN’s technical assistance programmes. He was one of the first UN Resident Representatives, serving in Egypt and Algeria. He was UNCTAD’s second SecretaryGeneral from 1969 to 1973. * * *

13.2   Plus ça Change: The International Civil Service at Work * * * A League staff member joining the UN System today would feel at home in the structure and modes of work of the organizations, despite their now encompassing many more areas of activity and their geographical footprint being truly global. They would, however, be surprised at the size to which the ICS has grown. At their peak the League and the ILO employed only around 1100 staff. Today the UN Secretariat in New York, alone, has more than 6000.12 The greatest change is in the sphere of development, where present-­ day international civil servants are concerned at national policy levels to a much greater extent than in the days of the League. Consequently many more are located in field offices. The growth in support to national development programmes required a new approach to recruitment and, since the 1980s, the UN System has been employing National Professional Officers who provide local knowledge and support to its activities. In the early days of the UN system, as in the days of the League, oversight of the ICS was effected through committees of the governing bodies, such as those on budget and personnel issues. Gradually however, national experts assigned to those bodies were replaced by political appointees, thus weakening their potential effectiveness. Compared to today’s staff, League staff appear to have been trusted more, despite the League having to deal with residual international disputes and conflicts arising from the First World War which had the potential to force them to support one side or another. Weiss concluded that ‘in contrast with the United Nations, the staff of the League of Nations (particularly in the early years) was far more neutral and sought to counterbalance pressures from their national governments’.13

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The independence of the ICS continues to be maintained, although it is increasingly exposed to pressure from Member States. When one or other of the major powers puts pressure on intergovernmental organizations, particularly when the organization is acting in the interests of the membership at large, the confidence of a Secretariat is slowly undermined. Some executive heads manage to resist this tendency. Halfdan Mahler, WHO Director-General, in his address to the 1987 World Health Assembly stated that, ‘I have to face governments insisting on the appointment of their nationals to specific senior staff positions, sometimes without thought for their suitability … accompanied by hints that a positive response on my part, is the key to voluntary contributions’.14 One area where the assault on independence is problematic is in the humanitarian activities of international organizations. It has become increasingly difficult to be regarded as impartial, the large scale and appalling nature of some crises making it almost inevitable that the staff will offend one party or another if they are to tackle the most egregious problems. More and more ICS members have died in service because their lives have been put a risk simply through helping vulnerable groups or trying to broker an agreement. In the first decade of the twenty-first century 413 UN civilian personnel were killed.15 The practice of some executive heads of making politicized appointments to lower level posts significantly affects staff morale. On the other hand, gender and nationality balance are now much improved although gender balance has some way to go at more senior grades. There is one fundamental League policy that has by now been largely abandoned in the UN System, namely the desirability of having a large number of staff holding permanent contracts to protect them from undue political influence. The UN has moved a long way away from this concept and although staff can be given permanent contacts, many do not have them. A feature of working at the League was the breadth of work that staff could be expected to address and the opportunities for working across organizational units. Henri Reymond recalled that in 1921 he worked simultaneously for the High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Red Cross and the International Save the Children’s Fund.16 Language staff often found themselves working on ‘technical’ matters such as mandates or minority questions simply because they were knowledgeable about the problems. In today’s complex world the now more specialized staff do not have such an opportunity to move laterally, and organizations are more inclined to protect their ‘turf’. One positive

302  D. MACFADYEN ET AL.

personnel policy for the modern international civil servant is that, in those organizations with a strong field presence, they are frequently rotated from headquarters to field duty stations. * * *

13.3  Geneva: ‘A Point on the Globe’ * * * As early as 1820, American President Thomas Jefferson had viewed Geneva as a point on the globe, where ‘industry, honesty, simplicity of manners, hospitality and science seem to have marked it as their own’.17 However it did not become the headquarters of the UN. In late 1944, when the State Department recommended to Roosevelt that the new world organization and its agencies could all be located in an ‘internationalized’ suburb of Geneva, Petit Sacconex, and the neighbouring Pays de Gex in France, Roosevelt summarily rejected the idea. He wanted no association between the ‘failed’ League and his new hope for the world. The Genevois took this in their stride and Genève internationale weathered the storm. Today it is still the centre for world action on humanitarianism, human rights, health and multilateral trade negotiations. It is also the place for setting international standards as regards business, labour and worker’s rights, telecommunications, meteorology and intellectual property. It continues its role as a centre for the settlement of political disputes. This was not a seamless process. Even if they were reserved on the matter, the Genevois had been proud of their city being, as some said, the international capital of the world. The Palais functioned during the war with Séan Lester and his skeleton staff but it was a difficult time. When rumours of Swiss attempts to force the League to leave dissipated, there was a brief resurgence of optimism. However, not being an allied power, Switzerland paid for its neutrality by not being invited to San Francisco. The local newspaper, Le Journal de Genève, commented with a certain bitterness, ‘an historic achievement, but it has excited neither great enthusiasm nor a real interest in public opinion in Europe … far from the joy that greeted the League in 1919’.18

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Before dissolving itself, the League transferred the Palais to UN ownership and, in 1947, the UN European Office was established. As part of the new machinery, the UN envisaged regional economic and social commissions as building blocks for the new world order. The first such Commission, the UN Economic Commission for Europe, also began work in the Palais in 1947. In 1948, ILO returned from Montreal, the same year that both WHO and ITU established their headquarters in Geneva. Other agencies, including the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and UNHCR followed. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was signed in Geneva in October 1947, and there the organization remained. International NGO’s also established themselves in the city and with the expansion of UN membership, especially with the process of decolonization in the 1960s, more and more diplomatic missions were established. Switzerland, while a full member of the Specialized Agencies and a generous host to Genève internationale, remained a non-member of the UN. A referendum on membership in 1986 had failed, the Swiss preferring to remain apart but, in 2002, the Swiss agreed to join. At least the Swiss were consistent: the popular vote in favour, 55%, matched almost exactly the popular vote 80 years earlier when adhering to the League.19 And with full Swiss membership, the door was now open for Geneva to play its now-dominant role in multilateral diplomacy. As the ‘spirit of Geneva’ took root anew, Genève internationale expanded and the physical presence of the new international organizations grew on and around the right bank of Lake Geneva. This gave rise to a spate of buildings to house the international organizations (Text Box 13.1). They have transformed the area of Geneva centred around the Place des Nations located in front of the Palais. Promised to the League in 1929, and a constant headache for pedestrians and motorists alike, the organization of the Place des Nations was finally determined in 2007 in a manner that satisfied logistical, environmental and aesthetic concerns. The Genevois insisted that the giant broken chair, erected in 1997 to encourage adoption of the convention to ban landmines, remain in its centre. * * *

304  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. Text Box 13.1  The Buildings of International Genevaa The ILO had a permanent headquarters before the League. Built in 1926 by a local Vaud architect, this austere building surrounded by sequoia trees occupies a lovely site down by the lake. Now known as the William Rappard Centre, it currently houses the World Trade Organization (WTO). Work on the Palais des Nations, the League’s permanent home, began in 1929. The result of an international architectural competition attracting some 370 entries and built during the years of economic and political crisis, it was the largest building site in Europe in the inter-war years. The Secretariat began moving into its new offices in 1936. The period of the League saw a battle between modernists and classicists, first over the construction of the neo-classical ILO building and later over the design of the Palais des Nations. The next phase was a triumph of the modernists with the then avant-garde WHO building of the mid-1960s. By 2000, an eclectic architecture was the order of the day, drawing ideas and style from a variety of tastes, as embodied for example in the WMO and WIPO buildings. Over the years, the challenges have the remained the same, namely the need to constantly marry a contrasting set of interests and requirements: • the interests of the host community; • the requirements of the organizations for space; • the preservation and exploitation of the beauty of the environment; • the need to take advantage of new building technologies whilst ensuring economy and efficiency; • an aspiration to ensure architectural attractiveness whilst avoiding extravagance; • the need to minimise maintenance and renovation costs; and • the necessity to accommodate the multiplicity of levels of decision-making among the Geneva and Swiss governments, the secretariats and the member states. All this has been achieved without a master plan for the development of the international quarter. The result is a group of buildings that are much admired and are now part of the heritage of Geneva. It is a never-ending process and the buildings of International Geneva continue to evolve. The most recent Palais des Nations renovation includes the restoration of the Celestial Sphere sculpture, installed in 1939 to commemorate the establishment of the League and its universal aspirations. aKuntz,

J. (2017), Genève Internationale—100 ans d’architecture

In 2017, 23,000 people were employed in the 37 international organizations located in the city, with a further 4000 people employed in the diplomatic missions and 2700 in the 356 international NGOs. Over 200,000 delegates and experts participated in the more than 2800 meetings organized in 2016. The two educational initiatives of the League days (see Chapter 5) have blossomed. The International School of Geneva now has three campuses with over 4000 students: it initiated the International Baccalaureate Diploma that is now taught worldwide.

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The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies now has 900 students from almost 100 countries studying in stunning new buildings in the heart of the international quarter. Alumnae of both the School and the Institute read like a global index of eminent personalities. The international quarter is now a major part of La Grande Genève that extends to the neighbouring Pays de Gex and département of Haute Savoie in France.20 All this can be traced back to that sunny August day in 1920 when Drummond insisted that the League should be housed on the right bank of Lake Geneva and thereby enjoy the magnificent view of Mont Blanc.

Endnotes





1. Goodman, N.M. (1971), International Health Organizations and Their Work, p. 147. 2. Ghébali, V.-Y. (1983), ‘La transition de la Société des Nations à l’organisation des Nations Unies’, p. 86. 3. Phillips, R. (1981), FAO: Its Origins, Formation and Evolution, p. 5. 4. Food and Agriculture Organization. (1985), FAO the First 40 Years, p. 73. 5. BL, Cecil, ADD MS 51112, Letter Drummond to Cecil Dated 24/2/31 f102. 6.  Toniolo, G. (2005), Central Bank Cooperation at the Bank for International Settlements, p. 287. 7. Enders, A., and Flemming, G. (2002), International Organizations and the Analysis of Economic Policy, p. 233. 8. BAFUNCS. (2017), A Guide to the United Nations Career Project at the Bodleian Library. 9.  Pauly, L. (1996), The League of Nations and the Foreshadowing of the International Monetary Fund, Essays in International Finance No. 201, pp. 36–37. 10. Brown, E. (2010), Obituary Jacques Polak, Washington Post, 5 March. 11. Dosman, E.J. (2008), The Life and Times of Raoul Prebisch, 1901–1986. 12. UN. (2018), Composition of the Secretariat. 13. Weiss, T.G. (1982), ‘International Bureaucracy; the Myth and Reality of the International Civil Service’, p. 303. 14.  Quoted by Ali, A. (2009), ‘The International Civil Service 90th Anniversary’. 15. Davies, M., and Woodward, R. (2014), International Organizations A Companion, p. 97. 16.  Reymond, H. (Undated), The International Service, Experiences and Recollections, Unpublished Manuscript.

306  D. MACFADYEN ET AL. 17.  Source  https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98–01– 02–1710. 18. Journal de Genève, 27 June 1945. http://www.letempsarchives.ch/page/ JDG_1945_06_27/1. 19.  https://www.admin.ch/ch/f/pore/va/20020303/can485/html. 20.  Sources https://www.eda.admin.ch/missions/mission–onu–geneve/en/ home/geneve–international/faits–et–chiffres.html; https://www.ecolint. ch/overview/our–history; http://graduateinstitute.ch/files/live/sites/ iheid/files/sites/about–us/presentation/factsheet_Graduate_Institute_ Geneva_fr.pdf [accessed 1 August 2018].

Epilogue: A Centennial Assessment of the ‘Great Experiment’

The authors were international civil servants for the majority of their careers. We have explained how Drummond and his senior colleagues developed processes that set the pattern of international governance and the structures and procedures within which we worked. This final reflection on his legacy summarizes our conclusions and our personal experiences, offering thoughts on three questions: how did the League sow the seeds of global governance; how has the International Civil Service developed subsequently; and what needs to be done to support and reinforce the ICS today? How did the League sow the seeds of global governance? The evidence assembled in the preceding chapters indicates the success of Drummond’s tenure as Secretary-General in achieving cooperation among nations, despite the League’s subsequent decline. His Secretariat established the first international machinery designed to achieve political consensus, global economic advancement, social progress and better living standards; cooperative arrangements with sovereign governments to allow international personnel to work within their borders and respect and tolerance for other cultures. This is the

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0

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foundation for people living together in peace, which was far from being a norm in 1919, when the brief Preamble to the Covenant focused solely on state relations. By 1945, a broader aspiration was expressed by the nations of the world. Consequently, the Preamble to the UN Charter speaks of ‘the dignity and worth of the human person’ and ‘the economic and social advancement of all peoples’. The practical experience of seeing nationals of various states working harmoniously within the League contributed to a way of thinking that emerged between 1919 and 1945. The League influenced key features underlying global development. First, it pioneered programmes of international economic and social analysis, mutually-conceived and mutually-executed technical cooperation and purely disinterested aid programmes. Second, it protected refugees, established safeguards for children, upheld minority rights, and held colonial nations accountable for indigenous populations, all of which paved the way for the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Third, links between the large women’s movement and the League established an international platform for advancing the status of women. Although the march to equality for women has been slow, the League was ahead of its time in its requirement that ‘All positions … shall be open equally to men and women’. Drummond and his colleagues were at the start and at the centre of the League’s approach. He surrounded himself with a relatively young team of Directors (average age 41) comprised of strong and innovative characters, many of whom had achieved prominence during the First World War. Although he was more Secretary than General, he guarded his prerogatives zealously and supported his colleagues in their efforts to interpret the Covenant broadly. His reluctance to become the face and voice of the League was in this mould, as he preferred to leave public statements to the politicians. He was the precursor of the modern era, as no Secretary-General can achieve satisfactory outcomes in the face of a major power’s opposition or reluctance to become involved. On the two occasions when he strayed from his chosen line, he was not particularly successful. He could not control the fallout from negotiating the expansion of the Council at the time of Germany’s accession (a problem also experienced by recent SecretariesGeneral in the context of Security Council expansion) and he failed when trying to use his ‘good offices’ to broker a solution over Manchuria. Drummond’s quiet persuasiveness, total integrity and an unswerving commitment to internationalism foretold the manner in which

Epilogue: A Centennial Assessment of the ‘Great Experiment’

  309

subsequent Secretaries-General might be able to succeed in their ‘impossible job’. He created the independent ICS as the ‘glue’ that holds the governance system together. His only quid pro quo was that Governments must be ‘prepared to create and maintain the necessary conditions [for it to operate effectively]’.1 He believed that internationalism was fully consistent with national loyalty since ‘the highest interests of one’s own country are served best by the promotion of security and welfare everywhere’.2 The result was a body of staff who had allegiance to the organization, who advocated neutral solutions to politically charged issues based on identifying points of consensus, and who exhibited independence from their own governments. An idea of enlightened self-interest is encompassed within Drummond’s definition of internationalism. Enlightened self-interest as a basis of cooperation between nations displaced Wilsonian idealism, starting with Stanley Bruce and Frank McDougall who expressed the linked ideas of expanding food production to meet the need of the world’s underfed population and of stimulating international trade between agricultural and industrial countries. Their argument convinced American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, that he would be able to secure the support of the American public for a United Nations organization. After the Second World War, the international structure needed to be seen as a new construct with no overt linkage to the League even though, as our later chapters make clear, the links were always there. The result was that Drummond and his colleagues became the forgotten men and women of history, despite the acknowledgement of later SecretariesGeneral, especially Hammarskjöld, that the ICS is Drummond’s legacy. How has the International Civil Service developed subsequently? In 1919 there were only eight Public International Unions of global inter-governmental significance3 and five bodies of regional interest.4 Starting from these small foundations, what Drummond established was the first instalment of the later growth in internationalism. By 1939 there were 17 regional, transregional and global international organizations plus the League and its offshoot organizations. Chapter 9 showed how the League and ILO staff kept the flame alight during the Second World War. After the war, the rate of increase spiralled such that by 1959 there were 132 conventional international organizations and by 1979—286. More recently the number has declined slightly.5 The number of international civil servants, originally at a maximum of 1200 in 1931, has grown to more than 170,000 today,6 and women, who accounted for

310  Epilogue: A Centennial Assessment of the ‘Great Experiment’

no more than a tiny proportion of senior professional staff at the League, accounted for 33% in the UN in 2015.7 In parallel with this (again building on League experience) there has been a vast increase in the participation of civil society/non-state actors in the work of international organizations, to greatly beneficial effect—from 14 international NGOs in 19108 to 11,430 now.9 But there has been a significant change in the nature of international organizations. All League activities were under one umbrella, while today the work of the UN System alone is spread out over 31 funds, programmes and Specialized Agencies. Many more international organizations are truly global with a commensurate presence within member countries. They have become issue specific (e.g. the UN Industrial Development Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency) with over half (178) being regional bodies. The scope of their work in humanitarian activities has increased with fundraising from the public supplementing inter-governmental budgets, in contrast to the League’s financially precarious existence. Their technical activities, originally mostly normative in nature, now have a dual normative/programmatic and operational focus. And, with echoes of Monnet and Salter, there is now a degree of supra-nationality creeping into the governance system. What needs to be done to support and reinforce the ICS? Nations are now interconnected in ways not seen at the start of the twentieth century. While some international issues (communications, drugs and human trafficking) have existed since the time of the League, threats to global commons have grown. Multilateral economic, social and technical cooperation now operates in the content of increased technological complexity. Common issues that are confronted multilaterally include controlling the spread of nuclear weapons, fighting terrorism, the impact of migration flows, protecting refugees, containing global health threats, plant and animal diseases, protecting the environment, countering marine pollution, resolving trade disputes and avoiding financial contagion. Many more member states are involved in decision-making; the maximum membership of the League was 58 but the UN now has 193 members. This places demands on the ICS that requires it to adapt continually to the pressures from multiple voices (including a more significant civil society). Compared to the League with its single set of reform proposals in 1939, reform is now a constant, resulting in a degree of institutional instability.

Epilogue: A Centennial Assessment of the ‘Great Experiment’

  311

The League failed politically because one major power turned its back on its international responsibility from the start; other Great Powers failed to accept constraints on their own actions while requiring them of others; and narrow self-interest took precedence over concerted international action. In recent years there has been a resurgence of these elements. Large powers frustrate coordinated international action more than in the days of the League and an institution is needed that ‘speaks truth to power’. This institution can only be an effective international civil service with strong leadership. Despite some international organizations being exemplars in their spheres of activity and notwithstanding a generally positive presence in developing nations, there are a number that fall short of expectations. Five basic reasons for the difficulties in ensuring the impartiality and effectiveness of the ICS can be identified, as follows. Many member states (particularly the major powers) have failed to exercise their responsibilities and leadership in favour of multilateralism.Major powers also tend to focus on budgetary constraint rather than building a strong and independent ICS. Today’s Executive Heads still need to plead, like Drummond, for financial resources and ‘because programme formulation is often divorced from financing, members … salami-slice budgets so that ultimately no programme is adequately resourced’.10 Proven leadership traits of the type exemplified by Drummond are more often foregone, with nationality and politics being elevated above competence and integrity.11 Despite improvements in the quality of management of businesses and governments, a similar trend has been slower to take root in international organizations. There has been an erosion of impartiality; short-term staff contracts, often tied to the source of funding, do not encourage independence and there is a need to revert to Drummond’s philosophy that competence should override nationality, all other things being equal.

The ‘Great Experiment’ in collective action that Drummond and his colleagues nurtured has survived and expanded but today is threatened by forces of national self-interest and protectionism similar to those faced by the League. The outcome of his creation, an independent ICS, is essential for preserving effective multilateralism. In 1935, after Bruce had

312  Epilogue: A Centennial Assessment of the ‘Great Experiment’

given his speech linking nutrition to food production and international trade, he cabled John Boyd Orr, borrowing Hugh Latimer’s words of 1554: ‘we have this day lighted such a candle ... as we trust shall never be put out.’12 Those acting to secure a safe and prosperous future for the peoples of the world still have that candle to guide them. To proceed along the path, however, they need to regain faith and recapture something of the confidence and hope that inspired the builders of the first institution of global governance a hundred years ago.

Endnotes



1. Earl of Perth, et al. (1944), The International Secretariat of the Future. Lessons from Experience by a Group of Former Officials of the League of Nations, p. 10. 2. Earl of Perth, et al. (1944), The International Secretariat of the Future, p. 18. 3.  International Telecommunications Union, Universal Postal Union, International Meteorological Organization, International Institute of Agriculture, International Committee of the Red Cross, Bureaux Internationaux Réunis pour la Protection de la Propriété Intellectuelle, Bureau International des Poids et Mesures and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. 4.  Pan American Union, Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, International Commission for the Scheldt, Commission for Control of the Danube, Central Office of International Carriage by Rail. 5. Davies, M. and Woodward, R. (2013), International Organizations: A Companion, p. 2. 6. Davies, M. and Woodward, R. (2013), International Organizations: A Companion, pp. 103–4. 7.  UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2017), The World’s Women (2017): Trends and Statistics. 8. Based on an analysis of existing PIU in 1910. 9. Union of International Associations data. 10. Davies, M. and Woodward, R. (2013), International Organizations: A Companion, p. 105. 11. Davies, M. and Woodward, R. (2013), International Organizations: A Companion, p. 92. 12. Lubbock, D. (2015), Just for the Family.

Annexes

Annex 1: Sir Eric Drummond’s Family Tree

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0

313

314  Annexes

Annex 2: Milestones in the Life and Career of James Eric Drummond Year

Milestone

1876 1891–1895 1893 1895–1896 1896–1900 1900 1903 1904 1905 1906–1908

Born in York, 17 August Attends Eton College Father, James Drummond dies Serves in 3rd Battalion The Black Watch with rank of 2nd Lieutenant In Germany for several months each year Enters Foreign Office (FO) as Clerk on the Establishment Converts to Catholicism at Downside Abbey Marries Angela Constable-Maxwell in April Eldest daughter Margaret born FO Private Secretary (PS) to Lord Fitzmaurice Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Under-Secretary of State Son John David born FO Précis Writer to Sir Edward Grey FO PS to Parliamentary Under-Secretary Thomas McKinnon Wood FO Précis Writer to Sir Edward Grey Daughter Angela born PS to Prime Minister Herbert Asquith Awarded Order of the Bath (CB) FO PS to Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey Knighted, Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) FO PS to Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour Accompanies Balfour to USA Delegate at Peace Treaty negotiations assisting Balfour Appointed Secretary-General League of Nations Daughter Gillian born Mother, Margaret Smythe dies Awarded Estonian Cross of Liberty Awarded honorary doctorate in civil law by Oxford University Official visit to Latin America in December/January. Awarded honorary degree by the State University of Chile Awarded Wateler Peace Prize (Carnegie Foundation), donates prize ($12,500) to the International Federation of League of Nations Unions Resigns as Secretary-General UK Ambassador to Italy Made Privy Councilor Awarded GCMG Awarded honorary doctorate by Liverpool University Attends Stresa Conference Assumes the title Earl of Perth and Chief of Clan Drummond Negotiates Anglo-Italian Agreement Leaves FO Adviser in the new Ministry of Information Maiden speech in the House of Lords Chairman, Hampshire Rivers Catchment Board Deputy Lieutenant-Governor of Hampshire Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords Dies at Rogate, Surrey, 15 December, buried Sweetheart Abbey, Galloway, Scotland

1907 1908 1908–1910 1910–1911 1912 1912–1915 1914 1915–1916 1916 1916–1919 1917 1918–1919 1919 1920 1920 1925 1930 1930–1931 1931 1933 1933–1939 1933 1934 1935 1935 1937 1938 1939 1939–1940 1941 1942–1947 1943 1946–1951 1951

July/August, First World War commences March, ‘February Revolution’ starts in Russia leading to the abdication of the Tsar; November, Bolshevik Revolution November, First World War ends

1914 1917

March, Greece attacks Turkey in contravention of the Covenant; May, Two years of Russian famine begins; June, Allies sign Treaty of Trianon with Hungary; December, Irish Free State established

March, US Senate fails to ratify the Covenant of the League of Nations; September, Allies sign Treaty of St Germain with Austria

1920

1920 cont’d 1921

February, Russo-Polish war starts June, Allies sign Treaty of Versailles with Germany; October, Woodrow Wilson has a stroke

1919

1918

World events

Year

(continued)

April, Covenant approved, Drummond appointed Secretary-General, May, first meeting of Committee on Organization June, Covenant of the League of Nations signed; second meeting of Committee on Organization October, First International Labour Conference; November, Albert Thomas appointed Director of ILO January, First League Council meeting; February, League assumes administration of the Free State of Danzig and the Saar; establishes a peacekeeping operation in Schleswig (Germany/ Denmark); April, League hosts first International Health Conference, London; Nansen appointed to deal with repatriation of prisoners of war; July, League sets up a peacekeeping operation in Allenstein/ Marienwerder (France/Germany); September, League hosts International Financial Conference, Brussels; October, Secretariat moves to Geneva November, First Assembly of League establishes Permanent International Court of Justice March, First Communications and Transit Conference, Barcelona; June, League holds International Conference on the Treatment of Women and Children; intervenes in Åland Islands dispute (Sweden/Finland); August, Nansen Office created to deal with Russian famine, later becomes High Commission for Refugees

January, Woodrow Wilson sets out his Fourteen Points to the US Congress, the last of which refers to a new association of nations

League milestones

Annex 3: World Events and the League of Nations Time Line 1914–1945

Annexes

  315

1930

1929

1927 1928

1926

1925

1924

August, Great Depression starts; October, Wall Street crash April, Gandhi’s march to the sea

August, Kellogg-Briand Pact signed (the underlying legal basis for the Nuremburg Trials in 1945–1946)

August, Ruhr evacuation concluded; October, Treaty of Locarno restores the standing of Germany in Europe July, Panama Canal Treaty.

Rise of Fascism in Italy. April/May, Genoa Economic and Financial Conference on reconstruction of central and eastern Europe January, French and Belgian troops occupy the Ruhr to enforce German reparations; USSR established; July, Refugee crisis in Greece and Turkey; August, Corfu crisis

1922

1923

World events

Year

(continued)

April, League intervenes to resolve Hungarian financial crisis; September, Declaration on the Rights of the Child adopted; October, Mosul settlement assigns Kurdish territories to Britishmandated Iraq rather than Turkey; November, League holds first opium conference October, Greek/Bulgarian clash at Demir Kapou resolved by League; June, The Geneva Protocol prohibiting use of chemical and biological weapons adopted January, International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation established to work with League Committee for Intellectual Cooperation; June, League discontinues control of Hungarian finances; July, League discontinues control of Austrian finances; September, Germany admitted to League; Anti-Slavery Convention adopted May, League sponsors International Economic Conference May, International Institute for the Unification of Private Law established (UNIDROIT); November, League holds International Conference on Economic Statistics; December, League intervenes to resolve Chaco War (Paraguay/Bolivia) October, Rajchman's second visit to China: elicits request for technical cooperation in health January, International Nansen Office for Refugees given permanent status; September, Commission of Enquiry for European Union

May, League intervenes to resolve Austrian financial crisis; October, League hosts International Conference for the Unification of Customs Formalities

January, First meeting of Permanent Court of International Justice; May, Austrian financial rescue commences

League milestones

316  Annexes

1938

1937

1936

1935

1934

1933

March, Germany remilitarizes the Rhineland; May, Italy annexes Ethiopia; July, Spanish Civil war starts; October, Rome-Berlin Axis Pact July, Sino-Japanese War begins; December, fall of Nanjing to the Japanese March, German troops annex Austria (the Anschluss); April, Anglo-Italian Agreement; September, Munich Agreement, Czechoslovakia required to cede Sudetenland to Germany

January, Austrian civil war, Dollfuss ‘affair’, Italy mobilizes on Austrian border; June, the Allies default on their war loans from the USA October, The Long March begins in China March, Saar reunited with Germany; October, Italy invades Abyssinia; Stresa Conference in Italy, tripartite meeting of UK, Italy and France

July, International debt moratorium; September, Manchurian conflict between Japan and China commences; Gold Standard collapses February, Japan establishes puppet regime in Manchuria; May, Second Russian (Soviet) famine commences; November, Franklin D. Roosevelt elected US President January, Nazi party under Hitler’sleadership takes control in Germany

1931

1932

World events

Year

(continued)

December, International Nansen Office awarded Nobel Peace Prize

December, Italy withdraws from League and ILO

February, League Conference on Disarmament opens in Geneva; May, Albert Thomas dies July, League’s second loan to Austria March, Japan withdraws from the League; June, League sponsors International Economic Conference, London, Drummond’s resignation takes effect; July, Avenol appointed second SG; October, Germany withdraws from the League. League appoints a High Commissioner for Refugees (Jewish and other) Coming from Germany August, USA joins ILO; September, USSR joins the League; November, League brokers an agreement between Columbia and Peru (the Leticia Dispute) January, Ethiopia (Abyssinia) appeals to League to arbitrate over its dispute with Italy; Saar plebiscite on return to Germany takes place; League initiates first fully neutral peacekeeping operation to oversee Saar plebiscite; April, League condemns German rearmament in contravention of Treaty of Versailles; October, League sanctions imposed on Italy March, Secretariat moves to the partially-completed Palais des Nations the League’s new headquarters

May, Geneva Convention limits the manufacture of narcotic drugs to medical uses

League milestones

Annexes

  317

January, Spanish Civil War ends; March, Germany seizes rest of Czechoslovakia; April, Italy seizes Albania; September, Germany invades Poland and Second World War commences

August, The Atlantic Charter November, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration established in Washington August/October, Dumbarton Oaks Conference April–June, United Nations Conference on International Organization, San Francisco August, Second World War ends. October, UN holds its first session in London; Food and Agriculture Organization established

1939

1941 1943

1946

1944 1945

1940

World events

Year

April, League disbanded, Lester retroactively confirmed as third SG

May, ILO Conference, Philadelphia

September, League Economic and Statistical work transfers to Princeton, USA; work continues in Geneva with skeleton staff; Avenol resigns, Seán Lester appointed acting SG

August, Bruce Report on reform of Economic and Social work issued December, USSR expelled from the League following its invasion of Finland

League milestones

318  Annexes

Italian

French

Irish

French

British French Yugoslav Canadian Dutch

Uruguayan

Attolico, Bernardo

Avenol, Joseph

Aykroyd, Wallace

Biraud, Yves

Blennerhassett, Mary Boisseau, Gabrielle Borcic, Berislav Boudreau, Frank Bourdrez, Francois

Buero, Juan

1928–1935

1919–1946 1919–1946 1930–1934 1925–1937 1931–1938

1926–1946

1931–1935

1923–1940

1919–1927

1919–1926 1920–1921

Canadian Italian

Ames, Herbert Anzilotti, Dionisio

1919–1944

1928–1930

Greek

Employment dates

Aguirre de Cárcer, Manuel Spanish

Nationality

Name of staff member

Aghnides, Thanassis

Internal Administration Disarmament Health Health Communications and Transit Legal

Health

Health

DSG’s Office

USGs’ Offices

Administrative Commissions and Minorities Administrative Commissions and Minorities Internal Administration USGs’ Offices

Section

(See Table 13.1 for Secretariat staff who moved to other organizations after 1946)

Annex 4: Members and Specialists Working for the Secretariat Mentioned in the Chapters

(continued)

Director of section

Head of section USG, became Judge at PCIJ USG, oversaw Disarmament Section DSG, later Second SG, resigned 1940 Nutritionist, member of section Epidemiologist, member of section Interpreter-translator Secretary Health specialist Member of section Hydrologist in China

Member of section later Political Section, Head, General Affairs, USG Director of section

Principal position(s)

Annexes

  319

Nationality

American French British

Italian

British Norwegian

French Australian British

British

British

Spanish

Swiss

Spanish Brazilian French

Name of staff member

Bullard, Arthur Burnet, Etienne Buxton, Tony

Catastini, Vito

Chazal, Edmond Colban, Erik

Comert, Pierre Condliffe, John Crichton-Stewart, Colum

Crowdy, Rachel

Cummings, Henry

De Azcárate, Pablo

De Haller, Edouard

De Madariaga, Salvador De Paula Souza, Geraldo Delavenay, Émile

Employment dates

1922–1927 1929 1926

1926–1940

1922–1936

1920–1939

1919–1921

1919–1932 1931–1937 1919–1920

1920 1919–1927

1921–1937

1926–1927 1928–1936 1919–1931

Section

Administrative Commissions and Minorities Administrative Commissions and Minorities Disarmament Health Internal Administration

Press and Information

Social Affairs

Internal Administration Administrative Commissions and Minorities Press and Information Economic and Financial SG’s Office

Mandates

Information Health SG’s Office

Principal position(s)

(continued)

Member of section later Director, Mandates Section Chief of section Member of section Precis-writer

Member of section, later Councilor and London Office Member of section later Director

Director of section Member of section Personal Assistant while in London Chief of section

Member of section Specialist in nutrition Private Secretary later Section Chief, Documents Member of section later Chief, then Director Interpreter Later Director, Disarmament Section

320  Annexes

Nationality

French

British

British German

Swedish British British

Irish British

British American

Japanese Japanese Swiss

American

Name of staff member

Destouches, Louis

Dixon, Gertrude

Drummond, Eric Dufour-Féronce, Albert

Ekstrand, Erik Etlinger, Dorothy Felkin, Arthur

Ferrière, Suzanne Figgis, Norah Fleming, Ian

Fleming, John Fosdick, Raymond

Furukaki, Tetsuro Fujisawa, Chikao Gautier, Raymond

Gerig, Benjamin

Employment dates

1930–1938, 1940

1924–1929 1920–1923 1926–1946

1935–1937 1919–1920

1936–1938 1919–1931 1930

1931–1939 1920–1940 1923, 1938–1946

1919–1933 1927–1932

1919–1939

1924–1927, 1932

Section

Press and Information

Press and Information Press and Information Health

Nansen Office Social Affairs Intellectual Cooperation and International Bureaux Economic and Financial USGs’ Offices

Social Affairs Economic and Financial Social Affairs

SG’s Office USGs’ Offices

DSG’s Office

Health

(continued)

Member of section USG, resigned when USA failed to ratify Covenant Member of section Member of section Member then Director of Section Member of section later Commissioner-General for the League, New York World Fair

Member of section and then interpreter Private Secretary later Precis writer SG USG overseeing International Bureaux Director of section Assistant based in London Member of section, Opium Board Member of Nansen Office Shorthand typist Member of section

Principal position(s)

Annexes

  321

Employment dates

British Irish

Swedish British South African Swedish British

Dutch

British

British Irish British

Yugoslav

Heap, Iris Hill, Martin

Hilgerdt, Folke Howard, Joan (Tiger) Jacklin, Seymour Jacobsson, Per Johnston Watson, John

Koopmans, Tjalling

Layton, Walter

Leak, Daniel Lester, Séan Loveday, Alexander

Lukic, Branko

1929–1939

1919–1924 1937–1947 1919–1946

1920

1938–1940

1927–1946 1919–1933 1926–1940 1920–1928 1922–1938

1922–1939 1927–1946

1920–1938

Japanese

Harada, Ken

1919–1928

1927–1932 1919–1935

Gilchrist, Huntingdon

Guistiniani-Bandini, Maria Italian Haas, Robert French

Nationality

American

Name of staff member

Section

Communications and Transit

Registry DSG’s Office Economic and Financial

Economic and Financial

Economic and Financial

Economic and Financial SG’s Office Internal Administration Economic and Financial Health

Health Economic and Financial

Administrative Commissions and Minorities USGs’ Offices Communications and Transit Intellectual Cooperation and International Bureaux

(continued)

Shorthand typist Member of section, later Office of the SG Statistician Private Secretary Treasurer Member of section Health Organization and later Finance Officer Specialist, after League: Nobel Prize for Economics 1975 Interim Director of Section Registrar DSG later Third SG Statistician later Head, Economic Intelligence and of Princeton Mission Member of section later Chief of Section

Private Secretary Member of section later Director Member of section later Political Section

Member of section and later Mandates Section

Principal position(s)

322  Annexes

1929–1940 1930–1940 1919–1923 1919–1921 1919

French French

British

Canadian British

French French British

Japanese

British British Estonian

German

British

Swiss

Italian

Mantoux, Paul Maux, Henri

Meade, James

McGeachy, Mary Midwinter-Vergin, Kathleen Monnet, Jean Monod, Alfred Nicolson, Harold

Nitobe, Inazo

Nixon, Frank Noel-Baker, Philip Nurkse, Ragnar

Olsen, Otto

Palmer, John

Parodi, Humbert

Paulucci di Calboli, Giacomo

Employment dates

1927–1933

1919–1921

1919–1939

1925–1940

1921–1923 1919–1922 1934–1946

1919–1926

1938–1940

1920–1927 1937–1939

1928–1940

Nationality

British

Name of staff member

Mackenzie, Melville

Section

USGs’ Offices

Internal Administration

Internal Administration

Health

Economic and Financial Mandates Economic and Financial

USGs’ Offices

DSG’s Office Internal Administration SG’s Office

Press and Information Internal Administration

Political Communications and Transit Economic and Financial

Health

Principal position(s)

(continued)

DSG Precis-writer Private Secretary while in London USG overseeing International Bureaux Acting Director Member of section Economist, member of section Medical doctor, member of section Precis-writer and Opium Traffic Section Head, Interpretation Section USG overseeing Internal Administration

Specialist, after League: Nobel Prize for Economics 1977 Senior Assistant Shorthand typist

Medical doctor, member of section Director of section Engineer in China

Annexes

  323

Swiss Canadian Swedish Danish

American British British Dutch Yugoslav Austrian

British

Royall, Tyler Russell, Alexander Salter, Arthur Sevensma, Tietse Stampar, Andrija Steinig, Leon

St George Saunders, Hilary

Economic and Financial Press and Information

Press and Information Economic and Financial USGs’ Offices

Section

1920–1938

Internal Administration

Health Information and Social Questions 1920–1924 Mandates 1930–1943 Economic and Financial 1939–1946 Social Affairs 1920–1936 Administrative Commissions and Minorities 1938–1943 Economic and Financial 1920–1939 Internal Administration 1919–1920, 1922–1931 Economic and Financial 1927–1938 Internal Administration 1932, 1936–1937 Health 1930–1946 Social Affairs

Polish Stateless

Rajchman, Ludwik Ranshofen-Wertheimer, Egon Rappard, William Rasminsky, Louis Renborg, Bertil Rosting, Helmer 1921–1939 1930–1940

1937–1943 1920–1938

Dutch Lithuanian

Polak, Jacques Radziwill, Gabrielle

Employment dates 1920–1940 1937–1940 1933–1937

Nationality

Pelt, Adriaan Dutch Perez-Guerrero, Manuel Venezuelan Pilotti, Massimo Italian

Name of staff member

(continued)

Specialist Interpreter Director of section Librarian Health expert Member of section, Opium Board Precis-writer and Pension Fund Secretary

Director of section Member of section Chief of section Member of section

Member of section Member of section USG overseeing International Bureaux resigned on Italy leaving League Assistant later specialist Member of section, later Social Section, liaison with international women’s organizations Director of section Member of section

Principal position(s)

324  Annexes

Italian

Japanese

American

Dutch

Albanian German

Dutch British

British

US New Zealander

British

Stoppani, Pietro

Sugimura, Yotaro

Sweetser, Arthur

Tinbergen, Jan

Tirana, Rafat Trendelenburg, Ernst

Van Hamel, Joost Walters, Frank

Williams, Nancy

Wilson, Florence Wilson, Joseph

Zilliacus, Konni 1920–1938

1919–1926 1923–1940

1927–1939

1919–1926 1919–1940

1931–1939 1932–1933

1936–1938

1920–1942

1927–1933

1923–1939

Employment dates

Source With credit to the LONSEA database www.lonsea.de

Nationality

Name of staff member

Press and Information

Internal Administration SG’s Office

Internal Administration

Legal SG’s Office

Economic and Financial USGs’ Offices

Economic and Financial

Press and Information

USGs’ Offices

Economic and Financial

Section Economist later Director, Economic Relations Section USG overseeing Political Section, resigned when Japan left the League Member of section later Head of section Specialist, after League: Nobel Prize for Economics 1963 Member of section USG, resigned when Germany left the League Director of section Personal Assistant later USG and DSG Member of Personnel Section later Minorities Librarian Later Chief, Central Administration Member of section

Principal position(s)

Annexes

  325

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Index

A Abbott, Grace, 105, 110, 141, 177 Aberdeen, Ishbel, 73, 102, 110 Abyssinia, 16, 53–56, 58, 137, 187, 317 Addams, Jane, 176, 182fn67 Administrative Tribunal, 40, 219, 221–222 Advisory Commissions on Trafficking in Women and Children/Welfare of Children, 96, 98, 105, 110, 141 Africa, xxviii, 137, 160–161, 278 Aghnides, Thanassis, 131, 133, 192, 195, 249, 256, 274, 292, 319 Åland Islands, 132, 315 Albania, 35, 60, 121, 152, 241, 246, 318 Allied Maritime Transport Council, 36, 72 Executive, xxv, 72, 73, 75, 144, 192, 205, 236 Ames, Herbert, 77, 84, 131, 222–223, 319

Anglo-French relations, 11, 31, 56, 85, 134, 143, 317 Anglo-Italian relations and Pact (1938), 52–58, 59, 60, 121, 314, 317 Annan, Kofi, 44 Anschluss, 58, 317 anti-Semitism, 29, 135–136, 189 Anzilotti, Dionisio, 77, 84, 101, 114, 123, 319 Argentina, 159, 167, 299 Armenia, 42, 139, 140, 166 Asia, 160–161, 168–169, 236, 278, 284, 291 Asquith, Herbert, xxiii, 7–9, 15, 314 Attolico, Bernardo, xxvii, 23, 37, 44, 72, 107, 114, 119, 123, 124, 131, 149, 216, 319 Auchincloss, Gordon, 38–39, 74, 75 Australia, 117, 137 Austria, 9, 26, 53, 58, 143, 144, 152, 236, 257, 261, 262, 315–317 Austro-Hungary, 80, 135, 160

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 D. Macfadyen et al., Eric Drummond and his Legacies, Understanding Governance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04732-0

347

348  Index Avenol, Joseph, 24, 27, 28, 44, 49, 50, 114–117, 118, 122, 146, 187, 188–189, 209, 211, 254, 317–318, 319 Axis Powers, 57, 58, 117, 189, 236, 317 Aykroyd, Wallace, 277, 278, 293, 297, 319 Azerbaijan, 166 B Balfour, Arthur, xxiii, xxv, 7, 9–11, 12, 15, 28, 33, 38, 41, 71–72, 77, 81, 96, 103, 104, 139, 171, 193, 208–209, 216, 218, 314 Baltic Germans, 136 Bank for International Settlements (BIS), 205, 298 Barton-Peel, Alexandrina, 102, 106 Beer, George, 136 Belgium, 9, 96, 137, 234, 269 Beveridge, William, 194 Biraud, Yves, 190, 275, 293, 297, 319 Black Crows, 9 Blackett, Basil, 26 Blennerhassett, Mary, 95 Bolivia, 34, 246, 316 Borcic, Berislav, 291, 293, 319 Bourdrez, François, 147, 319 Bourgeois, Léon, 72, 73, 204, 206 Boyd Orr, John, 190, 265, 277, 278, 297, 312 Bretton Woods, 191, 259, 260, 262, 299 Briand, Aristide, xxiii, xxiv, 34, 35, 39, 85, 96, 163–164, 267–268, 268, 316 British Empire, 107, 137, 220, 226, 240 Government. See Great Britain

Bruce Committee Report, 162, 204, 254–256, 259, 273, 277, 278, 294, 297, 318 Bruce, Stanley, xxiii, 117, 254–255, 277, 278, 309, 311–312 Brunskog, Uno, 292 Brussels, 80, 83, 84, 142, 162, 261, 315 budgets of the League. See League of Nations, budget Buero, Juan, 131, 319 Bulgaria, 35, 144, 152, 246, 316 Bunche, Ralph, 239–240 Butler, Harold, 50, 77, 211, 255, 273 Buxton, Tony, 37, 84, 100, 104, 320 C Caernarvon, Anne, 96 Catastini, Vito, 131, 136, 320 Cecil, Roberty, xxiii, xxvii, 9, 11–12, 28, 29, 34, 36–38, 71, 72, 73, 75, 83, 104, 110, 126, 139, 158, 170, 171, 194, 249 correspondence with Drummond, 9, 37, 39, 76, 85, 157, 226, 260 Central Europe, 135, 143, 158, 316 Chaco region, 34, 316 Chamberlain, Neville, 58, 61 Chazal, Edmond, 149, 320 Childers, Erskine, 43 Child welfare, xxviii, 73, 80, 82, 96, 98, 105, 138, 139–141, 146, 152, 169, 173, 234, 237, 254, 255, 270, 272, 276, 277, 308, 315–316 China, 26, 114, 122, 144, 145–146, 147, 169, 236, 267, 276, 316–317 Chisholm, Brock, 276 Churchill, Winston, v, 245, 298 Ciano, Galeazzo, xxiii, 16, 55, 57–60, 59, 62

Index

civil society, 26, 134, 139, 158, 265, 271, 310 Clemenceau, Georges, xxiii, xxvi, 12, 72–73, 85, 132 Colban, Erik, xxvii, 14, 44, 77, 79, 80, 84, 122, 126, 131, 133, 135, 151–152, 191, 192, 195–196, 197, 199, 203, 215, 242, 256, 292, 293, 320 Colombia, 167, 246, 317 Comert, Pierre, 23, 37, 103, 114, 126, 131, 134, 172, 320 Commission of Enquiry for European Union, 267, 268, 316 Commission on Deported Women and Children in the Near East, 140 Committee for the Study of the Legal Status of Women, 270 Committee of Statistical Experts, 143, 205, 266 Committee of Thirteen, 101, 215 commodity agreements, 264–265, 278 Communications and Transit Organisation (CTO), 98, 130, 147, 283–284 Communications and Transit Section, xxvii, 123, 147–148 Condliffe, John, 261, 320 Conference of Allied Ministers of Education, 281 contributions to budget, 41–42, 113, 124, 222–223, 224, 225, 226, 228, 236 Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Women and Children, 141 Corfu, 35, 124, 132, 316 Costa Rica, 160, 168 Costantini, Francesco, 54 Covenant of the League of Nations. See League of Nations, Covenant

  349

Crowdy, Rachel, xxviii, 26, 27, 28, 29, 37, 39, 41, 77, 79, 82, 93, 96–98, 99, 101, 110, 119, 126, 131, 138–141, 144, 152, 174, 271, 282, 320 Crowe, Eyre, 37, 61 Curie, Marie, 101, 177, 279 Curzon, George, xxiii, 29, 77 Cushman, Emma, 140 customs regulations, 178, 269, 316 customs unions, 269 Czechoslovakia, 57, 58, 60, 152, 261–262, 317–318 D Dalton, Hugh, 54 Danzig, 79, 123, 159, 189, 248, 315 Davison, Henry, 176 de Azcaráte, Pablo, 110, 114, 131, 292, 293, 320 de Cárcer, Manuel, 131, 319 de Cuéllar, Javier Perez, 35 de Madariaga, Salvador, 26, 28, 31, 102, 108, 115, 122, 123, 125, 131, 133–134, 320 de Valera, Eamon, 32 Declaration of Philadelphia (ILO), 273 Delavenay, Émile, 292, 293, 320 Delevingne, Malcolm, 99 Deputy Secretary-General, 49, 76, 113–114, 193–194 Derso, Alöis, 103, 171 Destouches, Louis, 146, 321 Dickinson, G. Lowes, 71 Directors, xxvii, 12, 25, 30, 77, 93, 126, 129–131, 150, 151, 216, 308. See also League of Nations, Directors’ Meetings

350  Index disarmament, xxviii, 133–134, 175, 177, 218, 247, 317 Disarmament Conference (1932), 122, 133–134, 177, 187, 196 Disarmament Section, 123, 133–134, 196 Dixon, Gertrude, 95, 321 Dollfuss, Engelbert, 52 Dominican Republic, 160, 168 double taxation, 269–270 Drummond, Angela (Ela), 7–8, 37, 74, 84, 313, 314 Drummond, David, 18, 113, 115, 240, 313, 314 Drummond, Eric, xxvii, 3–18, 13, 59, 77, 100, 102, 113, 114, 140, 144, 145, 151, 152, 157–160, 164, 207–208, 209, 211, 216, 238, 240, 260, 267, 280, 305, 307–309, 313, 321 ambassador to Italy, 16, 51–62, 64, 119, 219, 314 as Secretary-General, xxvi, 12, 17, 34, 40, 49, 52, 74, 80, 81, 108, 121–122, 130, 132, 136, 149, 151, 152, 162, 165, 168, 170, 193, 210, 219, 224, 225, 226–227 Catholicism, 7, 9, 51, 61, 62, 64 childhood and education, 4, 6, 23 family life, 3, 4, 8, 15, 49, 57 farewell tributes to, 14, 18, 33–34, 50, 52 Foreign Office career, xxv, 7, 8, 9–10, 11, 16, 23, 51, 61, 314 grave of, xxix, 17 in House of Lords, 5, 63 in Ministry of Information, 62, 314 in retirement, 17, 65 inherits earldom, 16, 57, 314 involvement in Abyssinian crisis, 53–56, 58

leadership qualities, 4, 23–45, 208, 311 Manchurian crisis, 15, 28, 35, 39, 119, 122, 132, 165, 308 recreational interests, 3, 5, 6, 14, 62, 65, 74, 85, 86 reflections on the League, 65, 192–196, 241 relations with member states, 15, 29–30, 32, 34, 35, 80, 85, 106, 108, 125, 145–146, 163, 166–167, 210, 311 relations with staff, 12, 14, 15, 30–31, 138, 215 resignation of, 24, 49, 211, 219, 314, 317 Scottish linkages, 3, 5, 24, 27 travels in Germany, 6, 35, 314 Washington D.C. mission (1917), xxv, 10, 38, 71–72 Dufour-Féronce, Albert, 107, 114, 125, 216, 321 Dumbarton Oaks Conference, 191, 194, 215, 245, 247, 255, 256, 318 E Eastern Europe, 135, 143, 234, 237, 274, 284, 316 Economic and Financial Organisation (EFO), 98, 130, 142–143, 178, 189, 191, 228, 257–259, 261, 262, 264, 265, 269, 298–299 Economic and Financial Section, 110, 142–144, 273 Ecuador, 161 Eden, Anthony, xxiii, 52, 58, 61, 194, 195 Einstein, Albert, 101, 279 Ekstrand, Erik, 131, 321

Index

Epidemic Commission, 139, 144–145, 146, 165, 274 Equal Rights Treaty, 98, 270 esprit de Genève. See Geneva, spirit of Estonia, 152, 166 Ethiopia. See Abyssinia Etlinger, Dorothy, 143, 321 Eton College, 4, 28, 314 Europe, xxiii, 56, 79, 80, 139, 144, 147, 160, 161, 168, 190, 234, 236, 267–269, 284 European Central Inland Transport Organization, 284 European Coal and Steel Community, 268, 286 European Payments Union, 269 European Union (EU), 37, 72, 267, 269 expert committees, 142, 143, 145, 149, 205, 248, 258, 274, 279 F Fascism, xxiii, xxiv, 16, 31, 57, 56, 60, 61, 64, 107, 108, 121, 123, 146, 210, 316 Felkin, Arthur, 190, 282, 283, 321 Figgis, Norah, 96, 321 Finland, 117, 132, 152, 165, 246 Fleming, Ian, 10, 102, 321 Fleming, John, 260, 261, 294, 321 Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), 191, 222, 237, 265, 272, 277–279, 318 Forchhammer, Henni, 140 Fosdick, Raymond, xxvii, 24, 33, 76–7, 79, 80, 81–82, 96, 106, 113, 114, 122, 125, 148, 191, 217, 227, 259, 321 France, xxv, xxviii, 9, 50, 52, 58, 73, 77, 85, 113, 125, 133–134, 135, 137, 143, 163, 196, 210, 246, 247, 267, 277, 280, 317

  351

Franco-German relations, 57, 119, 130, 132, 134, 160, 163, 246, 315 Franco-Italian relations, 53, 56, 122, 317 Frisch, Ragnar, 260 Fromageot, Henri, 75 functionalism, 253–254, 268 Furukaki, Tetsuro, 121, 321 G Gautier, Raymond, 190, 275, 294, 297, 321 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 264, 303 Geneva, xxvi, 33–34, 83, 84, 129, 162, 177, 189–190, 199, 212, 219, 220, 221, 237, 238, 258, 275, 284, 302–305 International School, 105–106, 280, 304 Institute for International and Development Studies, 103, 106, 132, 305 life in, 37, 102–104, 144 spirit of, xxvii, 85, 101–104, 119, 221, 303 Genoa conference (1922), 143, 160, 316 Georgia, 166 Gerig, Benjamin, 191, 239, 321 Germany, xxv, xxviii, 9, 16, 35, 52–53, 55, 57, 58, 60, 107, 114, 124–125, 134, 135–136, 137, 143, 159–160, 163, 165, 187, 210, 235, 246, 259, 267, 308, 315–318 Ghébali, Victor-Yves, 253–254 Gilchrist, Huntingdon, 81, 239, 294, 322 Gildersleeve, Virginia, 270 Graham, Ronald, 51, 53

352  Index Grandi, Dino, 124 Grant, James, 276 Great Britain, xxviii, 9, 29, 37, 51, 52–58, 72, 113, 122, 135, 137, 143, 196, 262, 273 civil service of, xxix, 74, 150, 208, 210, 220 Foreign Office, 6, 8, 10, 16, 23, 29, 37, 42, 51, 53, 57–58, 61, 75, 136, 162, 168, 173, 190, 216, 220, 298 government of, 15, 36, 38, 52–56, 60, 77, 85, 109, 123, 135–136, 159, 163, 190, 220, 221, 224, 264, 267 Great Depression, Wall Street crash, 122, 178, 187, 259, 260, 277, 316 Great Powers, xxviii, 11, 27, 73, 76, 91, 93, 101, 109, 117, 125, 130, 135, 144, 159, 160, 162–165, 194, 196, 204, 216, 218, 243 Greece, 35, 124, 152, 241, 246, 315–316 Grey, Edward, xxiii, 7, 8, 28, 33, 207, 314 Guistiniani-Bandini, Cristina, 124, 126, 322 H Haas, Robert, xxvii, 126, 131, 134, 147, 152, 322 Haberler, Gottfried, 260 Hague Conferences, 78, 148, 247, 248 Hague, The, 30, 78, 99, 148, 176, 182, 219, 249, 282 Haile Selassie, 56 Halifax, Edward, 58 Hambro, Carl, xxiv, 101, 108, 255, 256

Hammarskjöld, Åke, 49 Hammarskjöld, Dag, 35, 42, 44, 49, 195, 209, 211 Hankey, Maurice, 11, 37, 38, 57–58, 61, 71, 73, 74–76, 85, 159, 170, 207 Heads of Section, xxvii, 24, 82, 93, 95, 123, 131, 133–134, 138, 148, 151, 173, 284 health, xxvii, 79, 82, 144–146, 169, 237, 254, 255, 258, 262, 267, 274–279, 297, 302, 310, 316 Health Organisation (LONHO), 98, 130, 139, 141, 144–146, 164, 189, 190, 228, 274–276, 277 Health Section, xxvii, 139, 144–146, 256, 275 Heap, Iris, 145, 322 Henderson, Arthur, 60, 134 High Commissioner for Refugees, 41, 42, 55, 176, 234, 235–236, 292, 301, 315–317 Hilgerdt, Folke, 260–261, 294, 322 Hill, Martin, 255, 294, 297, 322 Hitler, Adolf, 53, 58, 235, 317 Hoare, Samuel, 56, 61 Hoare-Laval plan, 56 Horodyski, Jan, 10 Hot Springs Conference, 190–191, 278, 297 Hotel National (Geneva), 39, 83, 91–92, 148, 150, 172 Hotel Victoria (Geneva), 91–92, 102 House, Edward, 8, 10, 11, 38–39, 72, 83 House of Lords, 208, 224, 314 Howard, Joan (Tiger), 7, 27, 28, 30, 84, 93, 100, 123, 322 Hull, Cordell, 162, 245, 254 human rights, 64, 96, 138, 233, 239, 241–242, 244, 250, 256, 271, 302, 308

Index

humanitarian activities, xxviii, 42, 79, 80, 82, 101, 177, 187, 194, 196, 199, 233–237, 254, 301, 310 Hungary, 64, 144, 152, 257, 261, 262, 315–316 Hurst, Cecil, 73, 208 Huxley, Julian, 281 Hymans, Paul, 32 I India, 144, 174 Information Section, 98, 103, 121, 134, 142, 143, 148, 170, 171–174, 298, 299 Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton. See Princeton intellectual cooperation, 101, 119, 279–281 Intellectual Cooperation and International Bureaux Section, 101, 114, 119, 124 International Alliance of Women, 176 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. See World Bank International Bureau of Education, 280, 281 International Chamber of Commerce, 178, 269 International Civil Aviation Organization, 285 International civil service (ICS), xxix, 18, 26, 39, 42, 65, 74–77, 99, 104–105, 106, 109, 188, 194, 195, 207, 215, 257, 269, 300–301, 307, 309–310, 311 immunities of, 212, 219 management structure of, 192–193, 199, 210–211 standards of conduct, 106, 214, 217–218

  353

International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation, 101, 119, 279–280, 281, 316 International Committee of the Red Cross. See Red Cross International Council of Women, 102, 110, 173, 176 international courts, 78, 249 International Criminal Police Organization, 211 International Economic and Financial Conference (Brussels, 1920), 80, 142, 261, 315 International Federation of League of Nations Societies, 179, 314 International Institute for Agriculture (IIA), 204, 207, 264, 277, 279, 297, 312 International Institute for the Unification of Private Law, 250, 316 International Institute of Educational Cinematography, 280 International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, 98, 101, 280–281, 316 International Labour Organization (ILO), 27, 30, 31, 39–40, 50, 77–78, 82, 84, 98, 110, 141, 150, 166, 190, 209, 210–211, 221–222, 223, 225, 226, 241, 265, 272–274, 277, 279, 286, 292, 297, 303, 304, 315, 317 international law, 148, 243, 247–248 International Law Commission, 248–249 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 191, 204, 258, 260, 261, 264, 266, 270, 286, 292, 298, 299 international press, 102, 129, 158, 170–174

354  Index International Refugee Organization, 236–237, 292, 298 International Telecommunications Union (ITU), 222, 285, 303, 312 International Trade Organization, 258, 270, 279 International Women’s Organizations, 28, 73, 91, 98, 101, 139, 173, 175, 176–178, 270–271 interpretation, 129, 149–150, 152, 292 Iraq, 241, 246, 316 Irish Free State, 29, 166, 189, 315 Italo-German relations (The Axis), 53, 57, 58, 61, 130, 317 Italy, xxv, xxviii, 9, 35, 51, 52, 53, 55–58, 60, 61, 64, 107, 114, 119, 121–122, 124, 125, 187, 210, 250, 316–318 J Jacklin, Seymour, 131, 190, 198, 294, 322 Jacobsson, Per, 143, 260, 261, 292, 294, 298, 322 Japan, xxviii, 15, 30, 58, 114, 119, 120, 121–122, 126, 137, 165, 187, 236, 317 Jebb, Eglantyne, 141, 152, 177, 234, 241 Jebb, Gladwyn, 51, 194, 195, 257 Jenks, Wilfred, 274 Jeppe, Karen, 140 K Kelen, Emery, 91, 103, 106, 107, 150, 171 Kennedy, A.L., 33 Kenyon, Dorothy, 271

Kerr, Philip, xxiv, 71, 74, 82, 136, 160, 207 Khrushchev, Nikita, 16 Koo, Mrs Wellington, 103 Koo, Wellington, xxiv, 267 Koopmans, Tjalling, 260, 322 L LaGuardia, Fiorello, 237 Lane, Hugh, 27 Latin America, 99, 161, 164, 167– 168, 273, 314 Latvia, 152, 166 Laval, Pierre, xxiv, 53, 54, 56 Layton, Walter, 131, 143, 322 leadership, 4, 14, 23–45, 126, 145, 209, 233, 274, 311 League of Nations, v, xxvi–xxviii, 11, 16, 33, 34, 36, 40, 51, 52, 53–54, 56, 58, 63, 71, 78, 79, 105, 117, 122, 124, 125, 132, 133, 138, 142, 147, 152, 159, 162, 165, 169, 170, 177, 178, 189, 192, 198–199, 233–235, 241–242, 245–246, 248–249, 254, 258, 261, 262, 265–266, 269, 277–278, 307–308, 311, 315–318 Archive, 149, 150, 159, 188, 228 Assembly, 55, 81, 84, 85, 91–92, 102, 108, 122, 129, 139, 170, 203, 208, 215, 221, 223, 227, 243, 267 budget, 14, 15, 30, 77, 78, 113, 124, 149, 151, 212, 220, 222–228 Communications and Transit Organisation. See Communications and Transit Organisation

Index

Council, xxvi, 34, 35, 75, 81, 108, 122, 124, 135, 141, 170, 203, 206, 212–213, 221, 239, 243, 315 Covenant of, xxvi, 34, 35, 55, 72, 73, 80, 91, 122, 124, 133, 149, 161, 163, 169, 211–214, 223, 237–238, 239, 243–244, 247, 281, 315 Directors’ meetings, 12, 25–26, 79, 121, 171, 175, 217–218 dissolution of, xxviii, 189, 190, 194, 198, 281, 298, 303, 318 Economic and Financial Organisation. See Economic and Financial Organisation finances, 188, 190, 193–194, 212, 213, 222–228 Health Organisation. See Health Organisation Interpretation and Translation Services, 149–150 Library, 82, 95, 148–149, 189, 228 Opium Board, 190, 256, 282–283, 293; Opium Committee, 169, 282–283 Organisation Committee, 36, 74, 75, 76, 315 pay and benefits, 40, 93, 95, 109, 215, 218, 219, 220–221 Permanent Advisory Commission, 98, 133, 204 recruitment to, 29, 73, 76, 91–93, 101, 152, 192–193, 209, 212, 215–217 Secretariat, xxvi, xxviii, 14, 26, 44, 54, 74, 80, 81, 85, 91, 93, 104–105, 106–107, 152, 160, 174, 192, 204–206, 208, 210, 212–214, 218, 228

  355

Secretary-General, xxvi, 11, 49, 109, 158, 163, 195, 206, 209, 212–213, 215, 224, 254, 256 staff regulations, 30, 93, 108, 147, 196, 214, 215–222 structure of, 73, 75, 98–99, 101, 113, 143, 158, 203–204, 210–211 Supervisory Commission, 41, 204, 221, 223, 226–227, 256 technical cooperation programmes, 26, 105, 114, 145–146, 169, 244, 266–267 treaty registration, 148, 189, 213, 228, 249 Unions, 171, 174, 253, 314 Legal Section, 123, 148, 248 Lester, Séan, 14, 151, 188–189, 190, 198, 267, 275, 302, 318, 322 Liberal Party (UK), 5, 63, 194, 314 Liberia, 137, 145, 246 Lie, Trygve, 5, 195, 211, 263, 297 Lithuania, 152, 166, 241, 246 Lloyd George, David, xxiv, 9, 38, 71, 85, 163 Locker-Lampson, Godfrey, 40 London, xxvi, 17, 50, 54, 57, 75, 78, 81, 84, 98, 133, 140, 143, 144, 150, 188, 190, 196, 199, 218, 221, 236, 239, 249, 256–257, 271, 275, 284, 315–318 Loveday, Alexander, xxvii, 24, 26, 62, 115, 117, 142, 143, 191, 195, 198, 205–206, 210, 215, 216, 218, 223, 254, 255, 257, 260, 265–266, 269, 322 at Princeton, 236, 245, 259, 285 Lukač, Branko, 148, 284, 285, 294, 322 Lytton Commission, 122

356  Index M Macdonald, Ramsay, xxiv, 51, 54, 61, 218 Mackenzie, Melville, 145, 188, 275, 276, 292, 323 Madsen, Thorvald, 145 Mahler, Halfdan, 301 Manchester Square (Number 23), xxvi, 76, 136 Manchukuo/Manchurian crisis, 15, 35, 119, 122, 132, 134, 165, 187, 317 mandates, 105, 136–138, 157, 237–240 Mandates Section, xxvii, 136–138, 238 Mantoux, Paul, xxvii, 78, 106, 126, 130–132, 165, 281, 323 Masaryk, Tomas, 11 Maurette, Marie-Therese, 106 Maux, Henri, 147, 323 McDonald, James, 55, 235 McDougall, Frank, 190, 258, 265, 277, 278, 309 McGeachy, Mary, 98, 103, 173–173, 174, 188, 291, 294, 323 Meade, James, 188, 260, 261, 262, 266, 323 member states, 34, 35, 55, 75, 80, 106, 109, 124, 158, 160–161, 169, 187, 189, 192, 195, 208, 213, 223, 227, 240, 243, 249, 267, 270, 301 Mexico, 160, 168 Middle East, xxviii, 137, 139, 240 Midwinter-Vergin, Kathleen, 294, 298, 323 Miller, David, 73 Milner, Alfred, 136 minorities, 64, 105, 135–136, 241–242 Minorities Section, 135–136, 196 Mitrany, David. See functionalism

Monnet, Jean, xxv, xxvii, 18, 23, 26, 36, 38, 50, 72, 75, 76, 80, 81–82, 83, 105, 113–115, 116, 125, 132, 134, 142, 144, 151, 160, 163, 171, 203, 205, 253, 267–268, 276, 286, 295, 324 relationship with Drummond, 14, 50, 77, 114 Monod, François, 221, 323 Murray, Gilbert, 194 Mussolini, Benito, xxiv, 16, 51–55, 57, 58, 61, 107, 121, 123, 132, 216 Myrdal, Gunnar, 260, 284, 285–286 N Nansen, Fridtjof, 41–42, 139, 164, 175, 233–234, 235, 315 Nansen passport, 105, 235 narcotic drugs, 37, 82, 138, 169, 190, 255, 256, 272, 281–283, 316–317 Nazis, 57, 64, 188, 189, 210, 317 New York, 10, 109, 151, 191, 199, 228, 275, 300, 321 New Zealand, 137 Nicolson, Harold, 23, 216, 323 Nitobe, Inazo, 77, 114, 119, 120, 149, 323 Nixon, Frank, 131, 143, 323 Nobel Prize, 42, 176, 236, 260, 317 Noblemaire, Georges, 215 Noblemaire Report, 110, 215, 220, 223 Noel-Baker, Philip, xxix, 36, 41–42, 86, 96, 110, 137, 139, 140, 191, 237, 257, 323 non-governmental organizations, xxix, 98, 101, 102, 105, 129, 134, 139, 140, 141, 158, 174, 175–179, 183fn83, 235, 270, 303 non-refoulement, 235

Index

Nurkse, Ragnar, 191, 259, 260, 294, 323 nutrition, 145, 277–278, 297 O oath of office, 108, 194, 214, 217 Office International d’Hygiène Publique, 144 Olsen, Otto, 164, 323 Opium Board. See League of Nations, Opium Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 211, 269 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 211 Ottoman Empire. See Turkey P Palais des Nations, 91, 149, 150, 189, 224, 228, 237, 302, 304, 317 Palmer, John, 31, 323 Panama, 167 Paraguay, 34, 246 Paris, xxvi, 11, 24, 38, 41, 72, 74, 75, 78, 84, 85, 98, 144, 255, 270, 280–281, 284 Parmoor, Charles, 36–37 Parodi, Henri, 84, 149, 323 Pasvolsky, Leo, 191, 239, 243–244, 247, 254, 259 Paulucci de Calboli, Giacomo, 107, 114, 123–124, 134, 216, 323 Peace Conference (1919), xxvi, 11, 72, 73, 74, 120, 121, 130, 132, 169, 192, 207, 245, 248, 314 peacekeeping, 246, 317 Pelt, Adriaan, 143, 192, 195, 292, 294, 298, 324

  357

Pérez de Cuéllar, Javier, 35 Pérez-Guerrero, Manuel, 292, 294, 299, 324 Permanent Court of International Justice, 30, 75, 78, 98, 123, 219, 242, 247, 249, 250, 315–316 Permanent Health Committee, 145 Permanent Mandates Commission, 52, 98, 130, 137–138, 163, 238–240 permanent representations, 32, 109 Perth, Lord. See Drummond, Eric Peru, 168, 246, 317 petitions minorities, 135, 242 mandates, 137, 239 Phillimore Committee, 38, 72 Piccadilly (Number 117), 78, 148, 196 Pichon, Stéphen, 74 Pilotti, Massimo, 114, 124, 324 Plainpalais incident, 31–32 Polak, Jacques, 191, 258, 259, 260, 261, 292, 294, 324 Poland, 105, 135–136, 139, 152, 241, 246, 274, 291, 299 Political Section, xxvii, 28, 119, 130–132 Politis, Nicholas, 32 Prebisch, Raúl, 261, 265, 299 Prendergast, Kieran, 210 press. See international press Press and Information Section, 142 Princeton, 148, 189, 190–191, 219, 222, 259, 264, 266, 297, 299, 318 protectionism, 262, 265, 311 Public International Unions, 204, 207 Q Quai d’Orsay, xxvi, 99, 114

358  Index R Rabinovitch, Georges, 292 racial equality, 73, 121, 126, 135, 239, 241 Radziwill, Gabrielle, 98, 172, 174, 324 Rajchman, Ludwik, xxvii, 26, 105, 126, 131, 139, 151, 164, 169, 188, 237, 274, 275–277, 286, 291, 294, 316, 324 Ranshofen-Wertheimer, Egon, 296, 324 Rappard, William, xxvii, 25, 105, 106, 107, 110, 126, 131, 136–138, 151, 217–218, 238, 239, 324 rapporteurs, 204, 206 Rasminsky, Louis, 191, 259, 260, 261, 296, 324 Rathbone, Eleanor, 141, 152, 177 Red Cross, 102, 247, 301 International Committee of, 83, 139, 250 League of Red Cross Societies, 176, 238 Refugee convention (1951), 235, 250 Refugees, 42, 98, 105, 190, 233–237 Greek, 42, 144 Jewish, 64, 235 Russian, 41, 139, 234–235 Registry Service, 150 Renborg, Bertil, 283, 324 Reymond, Henri, 221, 274, 301 Rights of the Child, Declaration and Convention on the, 241, 250, 316 Rockefeller Foundation, 82, 106, 145, 162, 189, 227–228, 259, 274, 280 Rockefeller, John D. Jnr, 82, 149, 227–228 Romania, 64, 152, 241 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 271, 278 Roosevelt, Franklin, 245, 273, 278, 302

Rosting, Helmer, 135, 324 Round Table, 207 Royal Institute for International Affairs, 192, 194, 195 Rublee, George, 72, 236 Russell, Alexander, 150, 324 Russia, xxviii, 9, 65, 79, 105, 117, 134, 139, 143, 145, 159–160, 161, 164–165, 166, 178, 198, 211, 234, 242, 273, 274, 277, 284, 315–318 Russian famines, 164, 234 prisoners of war, 41, 139, 164, 222, 234, 315, 317 Russo-Polish war, 139, 315 S Saar, 79, 159, 206, 246, 315, 317 Salandra, Antonio, 124 Salle de la Reformation (Geneva), 83, 92 Salter, Arthur, xxv, xxvii, 23, 26, 37, 39, 65, 72, 105, 126, 131, 142–144, 151, 162, 205, 218, 253, 257, 262, 267–268, 280, 291, 294, 296, 324 San Francisco, 163, 191, 195, 198–199, 239, 245, 255, 256, 270, 283, 297, 298, 302 Save the Children, 101, 152, 178, 234, 250, 301 Schiemann, Paul, 136 Scoones crammer, 6 Scotland, 5, 6, 17, 314 Secretariat of the League of Nations. See League of Nations, Secretariat Secretary-General. See either League of Nations, SecretaryGeneral or United Nations, Secretary-General

Index

senior-most staff, 44, 85, 107, 108, 113–126, 149, 158, 161, 192, 194, 210, 216, 217–218 Sevesma, Tietse, 149, 324 Shaw, George Bernard, 40 Siam. See Thailand Simon, John, xxiv, 49, 52, 61, 126, 132 Smuts, Jan, 72, 73, 216 social issues, 105, 176, 270–272 Social Questions Section, xxviii, 138–142 Somalia, 240 South Africa, 137 Soviet Union. See Russia Spain, 35, 246 Spanish Civil War, 57, 58, 317–318 Specialized Agencies of the UN. See United Nations, Specialized Agencies staff categories, 92, 93, 95, 219 Štampar, Andrija, 275, 324 statistics, 142, 143, 145, 191, 205, 257, 259, 260, 265–266, 274, 279, 282, 316 Steegmann, Edward, 144 Steinig, Leon, 283, 324 St George Saunders, Hilary, 31, 55, 324 Stone, Richard, 260, 266 Stoppani, Piero, 25, 99, 110, 131, 143, 269, 294, 325 Strathallan family, 4–5, 213 Stresa Conference (1935), 53–54, 61, 314, 317 Stresemann, Gustav, xxiv, 163, 164 Sugimura, Yotaro, 114, 119–120, 130–132, 268, 325 Swanwick, Helena, 139–140, 152, 177 Sweden, 132, 246 Sweetser, Arthur, 14, 17, 44–45, 105, 131, 162, 172, 191, 199, 259, 285, 292, 325

  359

Switzerland, 83, 84, 161–162, 188, 302, 303 Syria, 137, 169 System of National Accounts, 266 T tariffs, 178, 262, 264 technical cooperation/collaboration, 145, 146, 151, 169, 187, 224, 266–267, 300 Tellini, General Enrico, 35 Thailand, 168–169 The Hague, 78, 99, 148, 176, 219, 248, 249 Theodoli, Alberto, 52, 53, 138 Thomas, Albert, 27, 39–41, 84, 210, 218, 241, 272, 315, 317 Tinbergen, Jan, 260, 325 Tirana, Rifat, 260, 325 trade, xxvii, 147, 178, 258, 261, 262, 264–265, 267, 277, 278–279, 284, 309, 310 trafficking, 96, 105, 138, 140–141, 272 translation, 95, 129, 132, 149, 152, 171, 283–285 transport, 147, 210, 267, 283–285 Treasury Section, 222–223 Trendelenburg, Ernst, 114, 125, 325 trust funds, 227–228 Turkey, 80, 137, 140, 152, 160, 166, 241, 315–316 Tyler, Royall, 291, 296, 324 U Under Secretaries-General, xxvii, 27, 76, 107, 110, 113, 117–126, 258 United Nations, xxviii, 148, 151, 161, 178, 190, 191, 192, 198–199, 256, 260, 272, 286, 303, 318

360  Index Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, 195, 204, 223, 292 Agencies. See Specialized Agencies budget, 223, 226, 311 Charter, 34, 191, 196, 198–199, 211–214, 219, 223, 239, 242, 243–244, 247, 249, 250, 256, 264, 270–271, 273, 274, 308 Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 146, 237, 272, 276–277, 292 Commission on Human Rights, 64, 271 Commission on the Status of Women, 271–272 Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 265, 292, 299–300 Disarmament Committee, 203 Division for Narcotic Drugs, 283 Division for the Advancement of Women, 271 Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), 163, 194, 204, 213, 255–256, 259, 260, 264, 266, 270, 274, 275, 283, 284, 285 Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), 284, 286, 303 Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 206, 222, 272, 279, 281, 292 General Assembly, xxviii, 18, 96, 194, 196, 203–204, 212–213, 219, 236, 240, 247, 256, 267, 271, 274 High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 235, 237, 292, 303 International Court of Justice, xxiv, 78, 196, 222, 249–250 International Law Commission, 269 Legal Committee, 203

Military Staff Committee, 204, 247 Monetary and Financial Conference. See Bretton Woods oath of office, 217 pay and benefits, 215, 220–221, 292 Preparatory Commission, xxviii, 195, 196, 199, 215, 220, 239, 256–257, 258, 283, 285, 292, 298 Secretariat, 171, 194, 199, 210, 212–214, 216, 219, 300 Secretary-General, 35, 50, 62, 165, 193, 194, 212–213, 219, 256 Security Council, 35, 65, 194, 203, 204, 212–213, 216, 240, 243, 247, 256, 292, 299–300, 303, 308 Social Commission, 142, 271–272 Specialized Agencies, 78, 194, 204, 213, 222, 256, 267, 271, 272–273, 274, 285, 291–292 staff, 212–214, 217, 219, 300, 301, 316 Statistical Commission, 205–206, 266 Statistical Office, 261 System, 203, 216, 217, 220, 222, 244, 256, 260, 274, 300–301, 310 Trusteeship Council, 203, 212–213, 239–240 Women-UNIFEM, 271, 286 United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA), 144, 173, 236–237, 272, 276, 291–292, 299, 318 United Kingdom. See Great Britain Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. See Russia United States of America, 35, 63, 81, 82, 134, 141, 143, 150–151, 159–160, 161, 162, 167–168, 178, 190, 198, 205, 220, 222, 224, 236, 242, 245, 254, 264, 273, 282–283, 284, 317

Index

Congress, 82, 162, 279, 315 State Department, 72, 81, 245, 247, 254, 282, 302 Universal Postal Union (UPU), 212, 223, 285, 312 universality, xxviii, 35, 157–169, 254 Urquhart, Brian, 43, 257 V Vacarescu, Helena, 150 Van Eysinga, Willem, 50 Van Hamel, Joost, 131, 148, 161, 163, 248, 325 Vansittart, Robert, 51, 52, 54, 56, 61 Venizelos, Eleftherios, 11 Versailles, Treaty of, 78, 79, 80, 81, 119, 134, 160, 162, 173, 243, 245, 315, 317. See also Peace Conference (1919) voluntary organizations. See non-governmental organizations W Walters, Frank, 27, 28, 36, 37, 72, 75, 100, 114, 120, 131–132, 188, 192, 195, 204, 205, 206, 228, 325 Washington D.C., xxv, 10, 38, 190, 236, 245, 259, 278, 282, 318 wheat agreements, 205 Wicksell, Anna Bugge, 137, 152, 177 Williams, Nancy, 95, 325 Wilson, Edith, 92 Wilson, Florence, 95, 105, 148–149, 325 Wilson, Joseph, 192, 325 Wilson, Woodrow, xxiv, xxv, 10, 11, 35, 36, 38–39, 72, 73, 82, 84, 157, 158, 169, 176, 237, 241, 249, 315 Wiseman, William, 10, 38, 74

  361

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 140, 152, 176, 182fn67 women’s issues, 98, 139–140, 141, 176–177, 254, 270–272 World Bank (IBRD), 204, 258, 262, 286 World Customs Organization, 269 World Financial and Economic Conference (1927), 178, 264, 316 World Financial and Economic Conference (1933), 50, 317 World Health Organization (WHO), 144, 222, 237, 272, 275, 297, 301, 303, 304 World Intellectual Property Organization, 303, 304 World Meteorological Organization, 222, 303, 304 World Trade Organization, 211, 304 World War First, v, xxiii, xxv, 71, 78, 96, 115, 144, 146, 172, 173, 233, 236, 241, 243, 248, 300, 308, 315 Second, 18, 26, 28, 60, 117, 146, 148, 187, 188, 209, 220, 236, 237, 239, 240, 243, 249, 255, 266, 278, 285, 291, 297, 299, 309, 318 Y Young, Hilton, 224 Yugoslavia, 152, 241 Z Zilliacus, Konni, 31, 81, 103, 172–173, 325 Zimmerman, Rudolph, 143 Zimmern, Alfred, 179, 280