=MANNERS AND MODES.=]
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=GENF AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.=
"Genf," like "Genève," is the Swiss for "Geneva." It was selected,
nearly two years ago, as the seat of the League of Nations. In a few
days the League arrives; and I doubt if any person, firm, company,
corporation or league, having provided itself with a seat, ever waited
so long before it came and sat upon it.
You will remember a learned treatise of mine in these pages on the
subject of Lucerne, written in August last, when our PRIME MINISTER
came and sat there. I make my living by writing up the towns of
Switzerland as one by one they get sat on. As there are not more
than half-a-dozen eligible towns in Switzerland, and as we shall have
exhausted two of them in less than half a year, the living I make is
a precarious one; in other words I shall soon be dead. Well, well! A
short life and a merry one, say I. You must admit a touch of subtle
merriment in that word "Genf."
To get to Geneva you provide yourself with a passport, a book of rail
and steamer tickets, a ticket for a seat in the Pulman car, a ticket
for a berth in the sleeping-car and a ticket for the registration of
your luggage. In short, by the time you are in France you will have
had pass through your hands one passport and eleven tickets; and the
first thing you will do upon settling down into the French train is to
compete and intrigue to get a twelfth ticket for your lunch. You will
find that this useless ticket will follow you all the way to Geneva
and will always assert itself when you are accosted by a ticket
inspector. I even know a traveller who arrived eventually at the
Swiss frontier with no other paper of identity or justification; for
a passport which should have given his name, address, motive for
travelling, shape of mouth, size of nose and any other peculiarities,
he could only tender documentary evidence of his having eaten the
nineteenth lunch of the first series of the day before.
Two things catch the eye about Geneva. In the first place it is on a
lake, and in the second place it is always brimful of International
Unions, Leagues, Congresses and Conferences. The lake is navigated
in the season by a fleet of sizeable steamers, and one of these, a
two-hundred tonner, used to call every morning of the season at the
little pier outside my house to take me to business, and brought me
back again every evening. By the pier rests an old, old man whose
only duty in life it is to catch the hawser as it is thrown from the
incoming liner. Twice a day for four months that hawser was thrown for
the old man to catch, and twice a day for four months he missed it. I
spoke to him about this on the last day, and he showed a fine courage
which nothing can depress. Next season he means to try again. As he
will be out of a job in the interval I am plotting to secure for him
the post of naval expert to the League.
Turning from the lake to the international delegates, who abound
in Geneva, it is to be noted that the last lot here were the
International Congress of Leagues of Women. Their main agendum was to
pronounce their complete independence of men. One of these delegates
went for a row on the lake and fell in. She was pulled out again by a
man.
You will find that Geneva was nominated as the seat of the League in
the Peace Treaty of Versailles. Ever since, the people of Geneva have
been busy conjecturing what the League of Nations will do upon its
arrival in Geneva. It will do exactly what you and I would do in
similar circumstances. Stepping out of the station exit it will hurry
off to its hotel. But when Leagues go to hotels they buy the darned
things outright. I don't know what they do about notices on the walls;
alter some and remove others, no doubt. The international delegates
will be requested to ring once for the political expert, twice for the
military expert and three times for the naval expert. If my old man
gets the last-named job they will have to ring rather more than three
times if they want him to come up _at once_ and discuss schemes for
readjusting the various oceans.
As to the other usual decorations of hotel bedroom walls, the notice
will be removed which informs all concerned that the management will
not be held responsible for valuables, unless these be deposited in
the office safe, though this will not be intended to indicate that the
new management has doubts as to the safety even of its own safe.
The "Hôtel National," which is the hotel in question, was in process
of complete reconstruction when the purchase took place. A bathroom
has been annexed to every room. Presumably every international
delegate will have a suite allotted to his nation. The question I ask
myself is this, Will he put himself in the room and his secretaries
in the bathroom, or himself in the bathroom and the secretaries in the
room? And the answer I make to myself is as follows: The delegate will
appoint the room to be his room and the bathroom to be his bathroom
and will leave his secretaries to make the best of things out in the
corridor. The suggestion you will probably make is that there are more
suites of rooms than nations; that I must leave you to work out for
yourself. The number of suites of rooms is ascertainable, but no one
seems able to inform me how many nations there are. Personally every
time I pick up a newspaper I seem to discover a new one. However that
may be, the nations are now all formed into their League, and may the
best one win the Cup Final, say I!