The extracts selected from the British press spoke with various voices. The Morning Post commented, without much distress, on the obvious disintegration and collapse of the League, which had always had within itself the seeds of ruin and now was meeting its expected Nemesis. Such preposterous houses of cards, said the Morning Post, cannot expect to last long in a world which is, in the main, a sensible place. It did not now seem probable that, as some said, Bolshevists were behind these outrages; on further consideration it was not even likely to be Irish traitors; for these sections of the public would doubtless approve the League, typical as it was of the folly which so strongly actuated themselves. Far more likely was it that their assaults were the work, misguided but surely excusable, of the Plain Man, irritated at last to execute judgment on these frenzied and incompetent efforts after that unprofitable dream of the visionary, a world peace. It was well known that the question of disarmament was imminent....
The British Bolshevist (its leader, not its correspondent, who seldom got quoted by the Press Bulletin) agreed with the Morning Post that the house of cards was collapsing because of its inherent vices, but was inclined to think that the special vice for which it was suffering retribution was its failure to deal faithfully with Article 18 of the Covenant, which concerned the publicity of treaties. The British Bolshevist always had Article 18 a good deal on its mind.
The Times said that these strange happenings showed the importance of keeping on frank and friendly terms (the Times often used these two incompatible adjectives as if they were synonymous) with France. They served to emphasise and confirm that entente of which the British people were resolved to suffer no infringement.
The Daily News thought that the enemies of disarmament and of the various humanitarian efforts of the League were responsible for these assaults.
The Manchester Guardian correspondent said that at last the Assembly, formerly a little dull, had taken on all the interest of a blood and thunder melodrama....
[35]
The days went by, and the nights. Why dwell on them, or, in detail, on the strange—or rather the now familiar, but none the less sinister—events which marked each? One could tell of the disappearance, one after another, of the prominent members of the Council—of the decoy of Signor Nelli, the chief Italian delegate, by messengers as from Fiume with strange rumours of Jugo-Slav misdeeds; of the sudden disappearance of Latin Americans from the Casino, whither they had gone to chat, to drink, and to play; of the silent stealing away of rows upon rows of Japanese, none knew how or why; of how Kristna, the distinguished Indian, was lured to meet a supposed revealer of a Ghandi anti-League plot.
As full-juiced apples, waxing over-mellow, drop in a silent autumn night, so dropped these unhappy persons, delegate by delegate, to their unguessed at doom. And it would indeed appear as if there were some carefully deliberated design against the welfare of the League, for gradually it appeared that those taken had, on the whole, this welfare more at heart than those left; their ideals were more pacific, their hearts more single, their minds more League.