The Assembly Hall was, as seen from the Press Gallery, a study in black and white. White sheets of paper laid on the desks, black coats, white or black heads.
Young and old, black and white, the delegates stood and walked about the hall, waiting for the session of the League of Nations Assembly to begin. The hum of talk rose up and filled the hall; it was as if a swarm of bees were hiving. What a very great deal, thought Henry, had the human race to say, always! Only the little Japs at the back sat in silent rows, scores and scores of them (for Japanese are no use by ones), immobile, impassive, with their strange little masks and slanting eyes, waiting patiently for the business of the day to begin. When it began, their reporters would take down everything that was said, writing widdershins, very diligently, very slowly, in their solemn picture language. There was something a little sinister, a little macabre, a little Grand Guignolish about the grave, polite, mysterious little Japs. The Yellow Peril. Perilous because of their immense waiting patience, that would, in the end, tire the restless Western peoples out. How they stored their energy, sitting quiet in rows, and how the Westerners expended theirs! What conversations, what gesticulations, what laughter filled the hall! The delegates greeting one another, shaking one another by the hand, making their alliances and friendships for the session, arranging meals together, kindly, good-humoured, and polite, the best of friends in private for all their bitter and wordy squabbles in public. The chief Russian delegate, M. Kratzky, a small, trim little ex-Bolshevik, turned Monarchist by the recent coup d'État, was engaged in a genial conversation with the second French delegate. France had loudly and firmly voted last year against the admission of Russia to the League, but when the coup d'État restored the Monarchist Government (a government no less, if no more, corrupt than the Bolshevik rule which had preceded it, but more acceptable to Europe in general), France held out to her old ally fraternal arms. The only delegates who cut the Russians were the Germans, and among the several delegates who cut the Germans were the Russians, for, as new members, these delegates were jealous one of the other. The Turkish delegates, also recently admitted, were meanwhile delightful to the Armenians, as if to prove how they loved these unhappy people, and how small was the truth of the tales that were told concerning their home life together. The two Irish delegates, O'Shane from the Free State and Macdermott from Ulster, were personally great friends, though they did not get on well together on platforms, as both kept getting and reading aloud telegrams from Ireland about crimes committed there by the other's political associates. This business of getting telegrams happens all the time to delegates, and is a cause of a good deal of disagreeableness.
On this, the first morning of the Assembly, telegrams shot in in a regular barrage, and nearly every delegate stopped several. Many came from America. The trouble about America was that every nation in the League had compatriots there, American by citizenship, but something else by birth and sympathy, so that the Ukrainian congregation of Woodlands, Pa., would telegraph to request the League to save their relations in Ukraine from the atrocities of the Poles, and the Polish settlement in Milwaukee would wire and entreat that their sisters and their cousins and their aunts might be delivered from the marauding Ukrainians, and Baptist congregations in the Middle West wired to the Roumanian delegation to bring up before the Assembly the persecution of Roumanian Baptists. And the Albanian delegate (a benign bishop) had telegrams daily from Albania about the violation of Albanian frontiers by the Serbs, and the Serbian delegate had even more telegrams about the invasions and depredations of the Albanians. And the German and Polish delegates had telegrams from Silesia, and the Central and South American delegates had telegrams about troubles with neighbouring republics. And the Armenians had desperate messages from home about the Turks, for the Turks, despite the assignment to Armenia of a national home, followed them there with instruments of torture and of death, making bonfires of the adults, tossing the infants on pikes, and behaving in the manner customarily adopted by these people towards neighbours. There is this about Armenians: every one who lives near them feels he must assault and injure them. There is this about Turks: they feel they must assault and injure any one who lives near them. So that the contiguity of Turks and Armenians has been even more unfortunate than are most contiguities. Neither of these nations ought to be near any other, least of all each other.
Meanwhile the Negro Equality League wired, “Do not forget the coloured races,” and the Constructive Birth Control Society urged, “Make the world safe from babies” (this, anyhow, was the possibly inaccurate form in which this telegram arrived), and the Blackpool Methodist Union said, “The Lord be with your efforts after a World Peace, watched by all Methodists with hope, faith and prayer,” and the Blue Cross Society said, “Remember our dumb friends,” and Guatemala (which was not there) telegraphed, “Do not believe a word uttered by the delegate from Nicaragua, who is highly unreliable.” As for the Bolshevik refugees, they sent messages about the Russian delegation which were couched in language too unbalanced to be made public either in the Assembly Journal or in these pages, but they would be put in the Secretariat Library for people to read quietly by themselves. This also occurred to a telegram from the Non-Co-operatives of India, who wired with reference to the freedom of their country from British rule, a topic unsuited to discussion from a world platform.
All this fusillade of telegrams made but small impression on the recipients, who found in them nothing new. As one of the British delegates regretfully observed, “Denique nullum est jam dictum quod non sit dictum prius.”
But one telegram there was, addressed to the acting-President of the League, and handed in to him in the hall before the session began, which aroused some interest. It remarked, tersely and scripturally, in the English tongue, “I went by and lo he was not.” It had been despatched from Geneva, and was unsigned.
“And who,” said the acting-President meditatively to those round him (he was an acute, courteous, and gentle Chinaman), “is this Lo? It is a name” (for so, indeed, it seemed to him), “but it is not my name. Does the sender, all the same, refer to the undoubted fact that I, who shall open this Assembly as its President, shall, after the first day's session, retire in favour of the newly elected President? Is it, perhaps, a taunt from some one who wishes to remind me of the transience of my office? Possibly from some gentleman of Japan ... or America ... who knows? or does it, perhaps, refer not to myself, but to some other person or persons, system or systems, who will, so the sender foresees, have their day and cease to be?” The acting-President was a scholar, and well read in English poetry. But, as his knowledge did not extend to the English translation of the Hebrew Psalms, he added, “It reads, this wire, like a quotation from literature?”
One of the British delegates gave him its source and explained that, in this context, “lo” was less a name than an ejaculation, and would probably, but for the limitations of the telegraphic code, have had after it a point of exclamation. “The telegram,” added the British delegate, who was something of a biblical student, “seems to be a combination of the Bible and Prayer Book translations of the verse in question. The Revised Version of the Bible has again another translation, a rather unhappy compromise. I believe the correct rendering——”
“It is sarcasm,” interrupted a French Secretariat official, “C'est l'ironie. The sender means that we are of so little use that in his eyes we don't exist. C'est tout. We're used to these gibes.”
“I expect it means,” said another member of the Secretariat hopefully (he was sick of Geneva), “that the fellow thinks the League will soon be moved to Brussels.”
“Is Maxse visiting Geneva by any chance?” inquired one of the delegates from Central Africa. “It has rather his touch. But then Maxse would always sign his name. He's unashamed.... I dare say this is merely some religious maniac reminding us that sic transit gloria mundi. Very likely a Jew.... Look, I have a much better one than that from the Non-Alcoholics....”
So they proceeded in their leisurely, attached, and pleasant way to discuss these outpourings from eager human hearts all over the globe.
But the second French delegate, after brooding a while, said suddenly, “Ce tÉlÉgramme-lÀ, celui qui dit ‘j'ai traversÉ par lÀ, et voici, il est biffÉ!’ les Boches l'ont expÉdiÉ. Oui, justement. Tous les Boches veulent dÉtruire la SociÉtÉ des Nations; ils le dÉsirent d'autant plus depuis que l'Allemagne est admise dans la SociÉtÉ des Nations. C'est une chose tout À fait certaine.”
The French would talk like that about the Germans: you could not stop them. They had not, and possibly never would have, what is called a League mind. Central Africa, who had remonstrated gently but to no effect, pointing out that Germans would probably not be acquainted with the English version of the Psalms, either Prayer Book or Bible. To prevent international emotion from running high, the acting-President caused the bell to be rung and the Assembly to be summoned to their seats.
