Source: Documents on
British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, 2nd series, vol. I, pp. 314-21
(translated)
1 May 1930
[...] No one today doubts that the lack of cohesion in the pooling of the
material and moral forces of Europe does in fact constitute the most serious
obstacle to the development and efficiency of all political or judicial
institutions on which the foundations of any universal organisation of peace
tend to be based. Neither does this dispersion of energy limit less
seriously, in Europe, the possibilities of enlarging the economic market,
the attempts at intensifying and ameliorating industrial production, and
thereby every guarantee against labour crises, which are sources of both
political and social instability. Moreover, the danger of such division is
still further increased by the extent of the new frontiers (more than 20,000
kilometres of customs barriers) which the peace treaties have had to create,
in order to satisfy national aspirations in Europe.
The very activities of the League of Nations whose responsibilities are
made all the more heavy by the fact that it is a worldwide organisation,
might meet with serious obstruction in Europe if these territorial divisions
were not counteracted at the earliest moment by a bond of solidarity
enabling the nations of Europe to realise at last the geographical unity of
Europe, and to bring about, within the framework of the League; one of the
regional understandings which the pact has formally recommended.
That is to say, that the search for a formula of European cooperation in
conjunction with the League of Nations, far from weakening the authority of
that body, should not, and could not, tend but to increase it, for it is in
close keeping with the ideals of the League.
