New Zealand in the League of Nations

Gerald Chaudron, in this present book, sets out to show that New Zealand’s involvement in the League of Nations was very different from that of the other Dominions. Whereas their nationalism, greatly stimulated by the Great War, found expression first in insisting on signing the peace treaties and then in becoming members of the League, Wellington opposed policies which it feared would compromise the unity of the British Empire and the security which New Zealand had as a part of it. Prime Minister William Massey considered separate representation at Geneva a mistake. He became reconciled to it mainly because of the need to protect his country’s position as the mandatory power for former German Samoa. The Department of External Affairs was created mainly to deal with that question. Until the mid-thirties, New Zealand showed little interest in developing a League policy, and devoted few resources to it. Cabinet ministers seldom went out to Geneva. The High Commissioner in London usually served as the representative. The first of these, Sir James Allen, campaigned vigorously for economies which might save New Zealand tax-payers hundreds of pounds. Nevertheless, he was hard-working and eventually earned considerable personal respect at Geneva. On high policy, Wellington readily followed the lead of the Lloyd George coalition and of subsequent Conservative administrations in Great Britain, but baulked at some of the pro-League policies of the Labour governments of 1924 and 1929–31

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