INTERNATIONAL: World Waltz

With the stately rhythm of two pachyderms learning to waltz the U. S. State Department and the Council of the League of Nations edged around and around the Sino-Japanese crisis (see p. 20), vastly pleased to discover last week that they can waltz together without treading on each other's big white diplomatic toes.

Statesman Stimson hesitated to ask Mother League to dance. His first idea was that she alone should soothe howling China and spank obstreperous Japan. In his note to Geneva fortnight ago Stag Stimson firmly put his white-gloved hands behind his back with these words: "It is most desirable that the League in no way relax its vigilance and in no way fail to assert all the pressure and authority within its competence toward regulating the action of China and Japan" (TIME, Oct. 19).

Boiling Crisis-Met the League Council last week, expressly summoned for no other purpose than to deal with China & Japan. It was Spain's turn to preside, but there was Heaven to pay in Spain (see p. 19). Spanish Foreign Minister Alejandro Lerroux could not leave the boiling religious crisis at Madrid to go to Geneva. Thus it became M. Aristide Briand's turn to chairman the Council.

M. Briand, famed "Master Parliamentarian of Europe," knew well enough that what Mr. Stimson had called "all the pressure and authority" of the League is not enough to coerce a Great Power like Japan. Also, the Japanese Cabinet was already showing fury at Mr. Stimson's use of the noun "pressure" and the verb "regulate." There was only one smart thing for M. Briand to do: stall. But how? As the Frenchman wracked his agile brain in Geneva, Mr. Stimson provided the thing needed.

He rang up the U. S. Consulate at Geneva. Ruminating over the radio telephone with Consul General Prentiss Gilbert, he authorized him to attend Council sessions on the Sino-Japanese crisis, if invited. That was enough for the Master Parliamentarian.

Within a few hours Brer Briand, abetted by British Foreign Secretary the Marquess of Reading, had transformed the issue before the League into: Shall the U. S., which has always refused League membership, have a temporary Council seat? To U. S. observers this question proved roughly eight times as interesting as what happened to China or Japan. Despatches speculating on whether President Hoover (a onetime Democrat) was "trying to enter the League by the back door" were slapped under front page headlines three columns wide. Despatches datelined Tokyo, Nanking, Shanghai and Mukden were boiled down to second-page squibs. Even the Papal daily edited by a Papal count wisecracked: "The United States, a nonLeague member, refuses to enter the door. Why not try the window?"

"Unanimously, Except!" In Japan the