¹ At the same time, the International Labor Office employed 424, and the Registry of the Permanent Court of International Justice 24, officials.

² “Administrative Problems of International Organization,” Barnett House Paper No. 24 (London University Press, Humphrey Milford, London, 1941).

³ Naturalization of international officials in Switzerland was practically precluded by the fact that the officials of the First Division enjoyed diplomatic status and were, therefore, neither Swiss taxpayers nor residents in the legal sense.

⁴ The term “First Division” was used in keeping with the British administrative practice. According to the Report of the “Committee of Thirteen” (1930), this Division “comprises the staff which directly gives effect to the resolutions of the Assembly, the Council, and the organs of the League and carries out the preparatory work on which their decisions may be based; it consists of the present members of the Section and officials occupying higher posts.”

⁵ The following quotations are based on the March, 1932, issue of the Staff Regulations. The innumerable amendments introduced by the Secretary-General, especially after 1937, have been neglected, as a rule, because they were less dictated by the normal evolution of the international administration than by the exigencies of a growing emergency.

⁶ While restricted in their circulation, the Staff Regulations are not a confidential document. No breach of any official secret is therefore involved in the publication of these excerpts.

⁷ As a matter of fact, Soviet Russia never claimed more than one post in the Secretariat, that of an Undersecretary-General—a purely political position. Russia showed no desire to participate in the various activities of the Secretariat. The official explanation given for this attitude was that Soviet Russia could not spare a sufficient number of qualified administrators to fill other positions within the Secretariat. The powers in Moscow probably feared that, removed from control and close supervision, some of its citizens might fall victim to capitalist contagion and begin to doubt the superiority of the Soviet system. Another explanation is that the Kremlin by this attitude wished to indicate its disinterestedness in all but the political aspects of the League work. The fact that the Russians, in spite of considerable encouragement, never presented candidates for any position within the International Labor Office lends weight to this interpretation.

⁸ The Geneva experience proved that the “insular” British, with their alleged inability to learn other languages, were as a rule much more adroit in handling French than the French in acquiring the minimum knowledge of English needed in a bi-lingual administration.

⁹ While the bombardment and seizure of Corfu in 1923 clearly illustrated the dangers inherent in Fascist foreign policy, the subsequent evacuation of that island under the pressure exerted by the Conference of Ambassadors suggested a willingness on the part of Rome not to force issues and to avoid any breach with the Allies of yesterday.

¹⁰ With two exceptions, all of the previous German League officials made their peace with the Nazis. Some attained even a kind of unsavory celebrity, amongst them Cecil von Renthe-Fink, German minister to Denmark at the time of the German invasion of that country, and the gentle Dr. Nolda, whose sinister rôle in the German invasion of Norway has been exposed by Carl J. Hambro in his record of the invasion of his country.

¹¹ Contrary to a widespread belief, such League passports did not exist. An attempt to obtain authorization by the Assembly to issue such travelling documents failed. This led, in the thirties, to the absurd situation of officials who had lost their nationality through denaturalization enjoying diplomatic privileges in their capacity as members of the League Secretariat, but possessing no valid passports.