Geneva, Switzerland
September 13, 1935

16th Session

HIS HIGHNESS THE AGA KHAN'S ADDRESS AT THE LEAGUE ASSEMBLY

The President: His Highness the Aga Khan, first delegate of India, will address the Assembly.

The Aga Khan (India):  On the one subject that is dominating the mind of this Assembly there is much that I could say, but I am a man of few words and I shall be very brief.

In India, criticism of the League of Nations is growing. India is troubled by the League's lack of universality, the incompleteness of its composition and the tiny representation of Indians in its organisations. She is troubled by the great preponderance, as India sees it, of the energies the League devoted to Europe and European interests. She is troubled  by the magnitude of her own contribution to the League Budget, large in itself, for it is larger than the contribution of any non- permanent member of the Council, disturbingly large when placed side by side with the poverty of so many of her many, many millions. She is troubled by the League's failures, troubled by the Disarmament Conference, long drawn out and infructuous -- and here I can speak feelingly as a member of the Disarmament Conference from the beginning -- whereas the rearmament of States is in full swing. She is troubled above all by the wars, declared or undeclared, that have been waged between members of the League.

Now a fresh trouble greater than any is on the horizon. Should the worst come to the worst -- which Heaven forbid -- who dare foretell the evils, world-spread, age-lasting, that might follow? India's criticism of the League is directed to its shortcomings, not to the ideals of which the League was the outcome and which inspired her being and the best thought of the world. On the contrary, those ideals spring from the same source as India's own philosophy and idealism, and the conception of collective security is appealing with ever growing force to my countrymen as the only alternative to international anarchy. The world is to-day at the  parting of the ways. Let wisdom guide her choice.