Grand Days

by Frank Moorhouse

  As a point of historical accuracy, this conference took place in Geneva slightly earlier than when it occurs in the book.

  Under Secretaries-General

  In practice, the Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General and the Under Secretary-Generals of the League together reflected the nationalities of the permanent members of the Council. Consequently there was never a Swiss Under Secretary-General.

  HOW A REGISTRY WORKS — AN OVERVIEW*

  One of the tests of an organisation such as the League was whether its officials could quickly put their hands on all relevant papers.

  The system to ensure this was called the Registry. The League used an adaptation of the classification system of the British Foreign Office.

  All official papers (letters, notes, drafts, etc.), confidential or non-confidential, were filed and kept in the Registry. That is, everything on paper produced or received by the League.

  The material was arranged in files, cardboard folders containing all the papers relevant to a particular question.

  All documents were held in the folder by a metal-tipped cord drawn through holes punched in the left upper corner of the file and documents.

  The last letter received was the top letter of the file.

  No correspondence could be removed from the file unless the Registry was notified by the section concerned.

  No document was circulated without being fixed into a file.

  The files were kept in steel cabinets in the Registry, classified by the names of the sections of the League.

  There were eight messengers in the Registry who took the files to the offices of those officials who needed them and then replaced them when the officials had finished with the files.

  There existed only a few secret files, one of which contained the minutes of the secret meetings of the Council of the League. These files were kept by the Registrar himself, in his office, under lock and key, and the schedules and the numbering of the documents were made in his office.

  These secret files could be consulted only by the Secretary-General or the Under Secretaries-General, and were brought to them in sealed envelopes by a responsible official of the Registry, not by messenger.

  Only Directors or heads of services could, in exceptional cases, take a file home, and the Registry had to be notified.

  The Registry consisted of three branches: classification, registration, and index.

  The correspondence coming to the League was received by the League of Nations post office, which delivered it to the Registry.

  Some sections, such as the Library, received their mail direct, but in principle the Registry received all mail and only letters marked ‘personal’ or ‘private’ were delivered directly to the addressee.

  Each League section had a classification number under which was filed all the correspondence concerning that section.

  The sections were (with some changes of name and structure over the years): Political, Administrative Commissions (e.g., the Saar, Danzig), Legal, Minorities, Intellectual Cooperation, Mandates, Disarmament, Health, Communications and Transit, Economic and Financial, Social Questions, Opium, Information, Council, Assembly, Library, Treasury, Internal Administration, Publications and Refugees.

  Each file had three numbers: the first indicated the section to which it belonged; the second indicated the incoming number of the first letter or document in the file; the third indicated the number of the file series.

  Mail arrived at the Registry from the post office in the morning and was sorted at once by the classification branch. All new correspondence received on a given day was numbered in its sequence (the middle number).

  The classification branch placed the letters in their cardboard folders and sent them to the registration branch.

  The registration branch entered the number of the folder in the appropriate section register, wrote the title and the subtitle on the folder, and numbered and classified the correspondence in each folder.

  The index branch entered on the index cards all new correspondence included that day in the file.

  If the contents of the file were confidential, notation of the fact was made in two places only: the front page of the file was stamped with Confidential, in large red letters, and the classification card was stamped Confidential.

  The file so stamped was always sent in a sealed envelope.

  If a section asked for the confidential files of another section, the Registry asked the permission of that section.

  Once the new communication was classified and registered in the Registry and put in a file, it was taken then by messenger to the ‘action section’, that is, the section which needed to respond to the incoming letter.

  It took about fifteen minutes to start a new file and five to ten minutes to take the file to its action section.

  When the messenger arrived at the section with the file it was handed to the secretary of the section who was responsible for the record of files received by the section and for the circulation of them within the section.

  Each official of the Secretariat had In and Out trays in which the secretary of the section would place files and from which the messengers collected files.

  The sections could not forward files from one section to another without notifying the Registry which marked on the outgoing card ‘Passed to …’ But the normal procedure was to send the file back to the Registry first.

  If a file was needed urgently for a meeting, it was directly dispatched by messenger.

  Letters written by the sections were called the out-letter files and sections were responsible for placing in the files two copies on heavy paper of each outgoing letter. One was placed in the file on top of the letter it answered, and other was inserted, in chronological order, in a special out-letter file.

  Drafts of large reports and minutes were called Bulky Enclosures and were kept in special envelope files called Bulky Enclosures. They were not usually circulated because of their volume. A note was placed in the file mentioning the existence of the relevant Bulky Enclosure.

  A fireproof room with a special lock was built in the basement to hold the Bulky Enclosures and the confidential files.

  Within a section, at the end of each day, the secretary had to place under lock and key all confidential files currently in that section.

  When the Registry received a communication which needed to be added to a file which was not at that moment in the Registry — that is, a file that was circulating — a messenger would be sent to fetch the file. If the messenger found the file on the desk of an official when the official was out of the room, the messenger left a slip stating that the file had been taken back to Registry and would be sent back as soon as possible.

  Files could be requested by telephone by the secretary of the section or by officials.

  After 7.30 p.m. there was a Registry official on night duty.

  Some of the correspondence was summarised daily by an official of the Registry. This was called the Daily Synopsis. It could consist of letters from well-known individuals, important proposals, discoveries, appointments, appeals, decisions of important character, frontier incidents, circumstances which might disturb the international peace, and so on.

  It was sent to the Information section before 9.30 a.m. This was considered to be a confidential document and was intended for circulation only within the Secretariat.

  While the correspondence and files of the sections of the Secretariat were, in theory, handled, established, and kept by the Registry, for practical reasons, some sections established duplicate files independently of the Registry. They did this either because they were authorised to function autonomously, or because they kept parallel files close at hand for their own use.

  THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DUPLICATING MACHINE

  By the end of the ’twenties, the League staff had duplicated more than ten million sheets of paper — about a million pages a year.

  It is doubtful whether the League of Nations could have funct
ioned without the invention of the duplicating machine which came to be commonly known by the company name of Roneo or Gestetner.

  It was introduced into office work in 1899. It was a rotary duplicating machine using a wax stencil cut on a typewriter without the ribbon, or by hand, using a pointed steel stylus.

  The stencil was stretched over a perforated drum and ink was supplied by a roller inside the drum as it was rotated.

  As a sheet of paper was fed through in contact with the drum, an impression of the work cut onto the stencil was transferred to the paper.

  The turn of the handle produced one copy.

  This process was necessary to allow the circulation of multiple copies in an organisation. To print the copies using a printing press would have been too expensive and would have taken too long.

  Before the duplicating machine, the original document from which copies were to be made was produced by ink to which had been added sugar or gum. A wet tissue was pressed onto the original.

  From this developed the letterpress, where a strong aniline ink was used and the impression transferred by hand pressure to a tray of gelatine. Again, impressions could be made of the original by pressing damp paper onto the gelatine.

  Carbon paper was then developed, which allowed up to six copies.

  But the duplicating machine was perfect for an organisation the size of the League because a wax stencil could give up to 1,000 copies in a couple of hours.

  Later heavy-duty stencils were developed which could give up to 5,000 copies without wearing out.

  THE COVENANT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS — WITH COMMENTARY

  President Woodrow Wilson described the Covenant as ‘… a practical and humane document. There is a pulse of sympathy in it, and yet it is intended to purify, to rectify, to elevate.’ He saw the first biblical covenant as being between Man and God. The world now needed a covenant between Man and Man.

  On the ship from Australia to London on her way to take up her appointment, Edith read A Handbook to the League of Nations written in 1919 by Sir Geoffrey Butler KBE, MA, Fellow, Librarian and Lecturer in International Law and Diplomacy of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. This book contains a copy of the Covenant.

  Australia made a small contribution to the format of the Covenant. At the meeting of the 7th Assembly in September 1926, the Delegate from Australia, Mr John Latham, moved: ‘The Assembly instructs the Secretary-General to cause the paragraphs of the articles of the Covenant to be numbered in all future editions published by the Secretariat.’

  He said that he thought his proposal did not require an elaborate defence. Few documents were so often discussed and dealt with in many publications as the Covenant of the League of Nations; unfortunately it was somewhat difficult to refer to the Covenant owing to the length of certain of its articles. He argued that it was not an amendment to the Covenant, as such.

  The motion was adopted without opposition.

  The following is the original League of Nations Covenant as adopted in 1919 together with Sir Geoffrey Butler’s commentary. The Covenant was amended, from time to time, during the life of the League.

  (Million upon million of lives had been lost in the five years of the War. Million upon million had been wounded. Horrors innumerable, experienced and apprehended … A new spirit of freedom and of independence was the heritage left to mankind by those who had fallen in the War: the common sense of their legatees seemed to resolve that the best war memorial that could be erected to them was an instrument for the perpetuation of this spirit. Mankind was prepared to give the League of Nations its chance.

  The document that has emerged is not the constitution of a super-State, but, as the title explains, a solemn agreement between sovereign states, which consent to limit their complete freedom of action on certain points for the great good of themselves and the world at large. It is no more derogatory to their sovereign independence so to do than for a Rugby football club to bind its action, permanently in effect, by the regulations of the Rugby Union. Such sacrifice on its part is a necessary condition of each club performing its own functions without producing chaos in the world of Rugby football, as those who remember the game half a century ago will bear full witness.)

  THE COVENANT

  The High Contracting Parties, in order to promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security by the acceptance of the obligation not to resort to war, by the prescription of open, just, and honourable relations between nations, by the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as the actual rule of conduct among Governments, and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all treaty obligations in the dealings of organised peoples with one another, agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations.

  ARTICLE I

  The original Members of the League shall be those of the Signatories which are named in the Annex to this Covenant and also such of those other States named in the Annex as shall accede without reservation to this Covenant. Such accession shall be effected by a Declaration deposited with the Secretariat within two months of the coming into force of the Covenant. Notice thereof shall be sent to all other Members of the League.

  Any fully self-governing State, Dominion, or Colony not named in the Annex, may become a Member of the League if its admission is agreed to by two-thirds of the Assembly, provided that it shall give effective guarantees of its sincere intention to observe its international obligations, and shall accept such regulations as may be prescribed by the League in regard to its military, naval and air forces and armaments.

  (It is arguable that this article is the Covenant’s most significant single measure. By it the British Dominions, namely, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and Canada, have their independent nationhood established for the first time. There may be friction over small matters in giving effect to this internationally acknowledged fact, but the Dominions will always look to the League of Nations Covenant, as their Declaration of Independence. That the change has come silently about, and has been welcomed in all quarters through the British Empire, is a final vindication of men like the United Empire Loyalists.)

  Any Member of the League may, after two years’ notice of its intention so to do, withdraw from the League, provided that all its international obligations and all its obligations under this Covenant shall have been fulfilled at the time of its withdrawal.

  ARTICLE II

  The action of the League under this Covenant shall be effected through the instrumentality of an Assembly and of a Council, with a permanent Secretariat.

  (The Secretariat has immense possibilities of usefulness and a very wide field will be open for the energy and initiative of the first Secretary-General. A reliable supply of facts and statistics will in itself be a powerful aid to peace.)

  ARTICLE III

  The Assembly shall consist of Representatives of the Members of the League.

  The Assembly shall meet at stated intervals and from time to time as occasion may require, at the Seat of the League or at such other places as may be decided upon.

  The Assembly may deal at its meetings with any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world.

  At meetings of the Assembly each Member of the League shall have one vote, and may not have more than three representatives.

  ARTICLE IV

  (A smaller body is required to deal with emergencies; such a body is found in the Council, the central organ of the League, and a political instrument endowed with greater authority than any the world has hitherto seen. Its unanimous recommendations are likely to be irresistible.)

  The Council shall consist of Representatives of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, together with Representatives of four other Members of the League. These four Members of the League shall be selected by the Assembly from time to time in its discretion. Until the appointment of the Representatives of the four Members of the League first selected by the Assembly, Representative
s of Belgium, Brazil, Greece, and Spain shall be members of the Council.

  With the approval of the majority of the Assembly, the Council may name additional Members of the League whose Representatives shall always be members of the Council; the Council with like approval may increase the number of Members of the League to be selected by the Assembly for representation on the Council.

  (It is through the machinery provided in this clause that the members of the late hostile alliance may hope to regain their position among the family of nations. It allows for admission of both Germany and Russia to the Council when they have established themselves as Great Powers that can be trusted to honour their obligations.)

  The Council shall meet from time to time as occasion may require, and at least once a year, at the Seat of the League, or at such other places as may be decided upon.

  The Council may deal at its meetings with any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world.

  Any Member of the League not represented on the Council shall be invited to send a Representative to sit as a member at any meeting of the Council during the consideration of matters specially affecting the interests of that Member of the League.

  At meetings of the Council each Member of the League represented on the Council shall have one vote, and may have not more than one Representative.

  ARTICLE V

  Except where otherwise expressly provided in this Covenant or by the terms of the present Treaty, decisions at any meeting of the Assembly or of the Council shall require the agreement of all the Members of the League represented at the meeting.

  All matters of procedure at meetings of the Assembly or of the Council, including the appointment of committees to investigate particular matters, shall be regulated by the Assembly or by the Council, and may be decided by a majority of the Members of the League represented at the meeting.