Letter from Frederick H. Boland to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)

The Delegation arrived on Thursday evening, having travelled by day from Paris. The President stood the journey well and was not too tired afterwards.

The principal matter which confronted us on arrival was the question of the presidency of the Assembly. The President's name had been freely mentioned during the previous four or five days, but the day before our arrival Mr. Cremins had been informed by a member of the Australian Delegation that there was some talk of electing Dr Beneš,¹ on the ground that as President Masaryk was likely to die during the year, and as Beneš would probably succeed him, this was likely to be Beneš's last time at the Assembly. It soon became apparent, however, that there were more concrete reasons for Beneš's candidature. It became obvious, in fact, that certain interests were anxious to have in the presidential chair a man who could be relied upon to suppress discussion in the Assembly if that course became necessary in the interests of what certain delegations conceived to be the proper conduct of the current Italo-Abyssinian negotiations. The interests behind Beneš were principally the Secretariat (You will remember that we have in the office information showing that Avenol's attitude with regard to the Italo-Abyssinian dispute is rather a peculiar one) and the French Delegation.

The extent to which the British supported Beneš and opposed the President is not yet clear. During Friday and Saturday, reports were freely circulated here to the effect that Eden had stated that Mr. de Valera would make an unsuitable President because he would be likely to make use of the Office to launch attacks on Imperialism generally, and had made other general remarks derogatory to the President's chances. In addition, Saturday's 'Journal de Gen?' carried a report, which was repeated in the Sunday morning edition, to the effect that Britain and certain dominions were opposing the President. On the other hand, we have more than a suspicion that whether or not the British were actively (as opposed to passively) working against us, the Czechoslovak Delegation exploited existing Anglo-Irish differences with a view to leading other delegations to believe that by voting for the President they would be committing an unfriendly act against Britain. This manoeuvre would not be so foolish as it might seem because, owing to her attitude in the Italo-Abyssinian dispute, Britain is rather popular here at the moment, and we have first-hand information to the effect that the Argentine and other South American delegations determined their own attitude with reference to that of Great Britain.

The position on Saturday was therefore that the spontaneous movement which had got up in favour of the President was momentarily checked by the appearance of a new candidate, namely Dr Beneš, backed by the big Powers and the League Secretariat. This being the position, the Secretary-General's private Secretary came to Mr. Cremins on Saturday and indicated that the Secretary-General was most anxious that Mr. de Valera's candidature should not be pressed and added that, if the President were prepared to withdraw, he could have any other post in the Assembly he liked. The answer which we returned to him, as to a number of other similar suggestions which were made to us, was that the President considered that the Assembly was entitled to express itself freely on the choice of its President and that he would not, by his own act, do anything to fetter the Assembly's option. Shortly after these démarches, we heard that Dr Beneš had definitely stated in public that he would not allow his name to go forward if there were any other candidate for the post.

On Sunday the Norwegian, Swedish and other northern delegations arrived. The information which we had received in the meantime was rather to the effect that the Beneš candidature was, thanks principally to the efforts of the League Secretariat, gaining ground. In these circumstances, the President went to see Mr. Sandler, the Swedish Foreign Minister, in order to obtain his views and his advice with reference to the election. The President explained to Mr. Sandler his views on the matter, namely, that he looked on the question as one of principle and as a matter involving the privilege of the Assembly itself. Mr. Sandler encouraged the President to go on for election and pledged his own support. From information we subsequently received, it is quite clear that the Swedish, Norwegian and other delegations did everything they could to foster our candidature.

Meanwhile, however, the President himself had rather come to the conclusion that, things being as they were, it would be necessary to provide for the possibility of his withdrawal and that it might be as well, in those circumstances, to ascertain the exact value of the Secretary-General's offer of the chairmanship of the Sixth Commission, and to keep the offer open for the President. Accordingly, on Sunday evening, Messrs. Cremins and Hearne saw the Secretary-General's private Secretary, by the President's direction, and as a result of their conversations with him, we reached the conclusion that if we did withdraw from the election for the presidency we would be certain of the chairmanship of the 6th Commission. The question that the President had to decide, therefore, was whether the certainty of this 6th Commission chairmanship was better than the chance of the Assembly presidency. He decided to postpone a decision on that matter until the following morning when the Assembly would meet and when we would be in a position to form a more precise estimate of our chances for the Assembly Presidency.

When the Assembly met the next morning, the usual last minute canvassing began. Messrs. Hearne, Cremins and myself, in cooperation with Hambro, Deak of Hungary, and others, tucked into the work. We met with a very gratifying measure of support. The Poles, Hungary, the Baltic States, Persia, and other countries pledged their warm support. It soon became apparent, however, that with a few exceptions the South American block was against us. A more serious handicap than this developed, however. We found that a rumour was being systematically circulated in the Assembly to the effect that the President had retired and that Beneš was therefore the only candidate. It seemed impossible to overtake this rumour which was calculated to have a most deleterious effect on the President's poll. In these circumstances, the President decided that he would not allow his name to go forward. Accordingly, he went over to Beneš and told him that he was not a candidate, taking advantage of the opportunity to give Dr Beneš some straight talking on the subject of the manner in which elections of this kind are managed here at Geneva. The election then took place, Beneš receiving all but four votes.

In the afternoon, Assembly Commissions met to elect their chairmen. There was no other candidate for the chairmanship of the Sixth Commission. The President was proposed for election by Osusky, Czechoslovakia, and the number of delegations which seconded him was so large that the Secretariat lost count of them. The President's Commission met for the first time this morning. Its membership includes Aloisi,² Herriot and practically all the foreign ministers present at the Assembly. Britain is represented on the Commission by Viscount Cranborne.³ The business this morning was of a formal nature and the President conducted it with great dispatch. Herriot was appointed Rapporteur of one of the questions on the agenda.

There are just one or two personal comments which I should like to add about the election for the presidency. Beneš's candidature was run from first to last by the League Secretariat, whose part in the proceedings was, in my opinion, very reprehensible. They stopped at nothing to secure their object. Apart from the systematic circulation of the rumour that Britain and certain Dominions were opposed to us, they exercised a general adverse influence on the press. An example will illustrate this. Mr. Cremins spoke to the editor of the 'Journal de Gen?' on Sunday night and told him that the President was allowing his name to go forward. The editor explicitly promised to give publicity to this fact. Yet the next morning, the paper mentioned Beneš as the only candidate. A comment made by the editor to Mr. Cremins is not without interest. He said: 'You have the Freemasons against you.'

I am afraid it would extend this report unduly if I were to attempt to describe the present position with regard to the Italo-Abyssinian dispute. While the general view is that it is inconceivable that the Assembly should adjourn without discussing the dispute, and while Sir Samuel Hoare is credited with the intention of referring to it in a speech to the Assembly tomorrow, a powerful effort if being made by what I may call the French block to keep the matter outside the Assembly entirely. His position as Chairman of the 6th Commission imposes certain restrictions on the President. He feels, for example, that if he were to make a speech with regard to the dispute in the Assembly now, the speech might afterwards be used as an argument why the dispute should not be referred to the 6th Commission. For the present, therefore, the President does not intend to make any speech of this kind, but he is keeping a completely open mind as to what action he would take if there were a deliberate attempt to adjourn the Assembly without referring the dispute to it.