Quietly effective League of Nations has done much to improve the world says Japanese delegate

London 4 October 1922 – The League of Nations has made no ‘sensational’ decisions but has quietly done much to improve the state of the world, Japan’s Ambassador in London, Baron Hayashi, has claimed.

‘It is quite a mistake’, he told a Reuters journalist today, ‘for the public to expect sensational decisions or developments, but the League has accomplished some very useful and even valuable work.’

‘My faith and belief in the possibilities of the League have been strengthened at every meeting I have attended, and I am more than ever convinced of the desirability of referring to it questions which, for various reasons, it is difficult for independent states to settle.’

The Ambassador was not sure that an annual assembly was necessary, but rather a willingness to gather and deal with any difficult questions that arise. He also addressed the issue of force, or rather the lack of it.

‘It is true… that the League has nothing in the way of actual force behind it, but it has, after all, what is an ultimate force – namely, the strength of public opinion. The influence of the League in this respect is growing very considerably.’

Footage of the first meeting of the League of Nations in Geneva in 1921

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]