Quote

The first condition of success for the League of Nations is, therefore, a firm understanding between the British Empire and the United States of America and France and Italy that there will be no competitive building up of fleets or armies between them.

This means that the search for a formula of European cooperation in connection with the League of Nations, far from weakening the authority of this latter must and can only tend to strengthen it, for it is closely connected with its aims.

Let us return, however, to the League of Nations. To create an organization which is in a position to protect peace in this world of conflicting interests and egotistic wills is a frighteningly difficult task.

You can suddenly have a series of countries waking up and saying, 'I want the same status as the Brits,' which will be, de facto, the dismantling of the rest of Europe.

There is no reason why agreement on particular points should not be both possible and advantageous to the so-called neutrals and to one or more of the blocs, either existing or in the process of formation, within the League of Nations.

It is a commonplace that the League of Nations is not yet-what its most enthusiastic protagonists intended it to be.

Nonetheless, we continue to be obsessed with finding or inventing a European nation which, as in the nation state, guarantees homogeneity and thus an appropriate form of democracy and centralized government.

All in all, the League of Nations is not inevitably bound, as some maintain from time to time, to degenerate into an impotent appendage of first one, then another of the competing great powers.

The countries that share this conception should be able to go further together, without excluding the others, since they can still live in a greater community of exchange and co-operation.

What we have to do is to find a solution that the interests of the national teams are respecting the interests of the clubs. And also the clubs they shall respect the interests and the aspirations of national teams.