THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

In de Leon's view there were two possibilities: to elevate
the existing UIA, as Otlet and La Fontaine hoped, to the
status of a technical organisation attached to the League,
or to create a new organisation. To take either course, however,
seemed to de Leon to raise two serious considerations.
One was the problem of whether nations were ready for «an
enterprise similar to the International Labour Bureau», the
model upon which its advocates would have the new organisation
based. But the greater difficulty was posed in de Leon's
view, by the problems of financing the creation of a new organisation
«not to speak of maintaining it on a scale commensurate
with its high purpose». Moreover, he went on, «the
record of the Union of International Associations shows that
voluntary efforts can achieve great results and we believe
that it can do more in future. Would it not be a mistaken
policy to hinder these voluntary efforts by turning them into
an official channel?» Other difficulties were raised by various
similar proposals presently before the Council and he suggested
that these matters should be referred back to the Secretariat
of the League for further study and that a report be
made to a subsequent meeting of the Council.
The day after the adoption by the Council of de Leon's
report Nitobe wrote a long letter to Otlet and La Fontaine
marked «strictly confidential*, a letter which suggests that
Nitobe himself may have been an influence against the Belgian
plan:
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The result is just what we expected ...But, as I have said before, as
the secretary charged with drawing up a plan with an immediate
practical end, I frankly confess your scheme of intellectual organisation
strikes me still as a little in advance of time, and in talking with a
number of people who know the signs of the time better than I do,
I have found none who spoke in favour of adopting it at present.
I think you will have to wait perhaps three or four years longer for
realisation, and in the meantime let us do everything in our power
to make the idea more generally known. To return to the decision of
the Council, I rather looked forward to some expression of interest
in, if not support of, your views from some of the members, but the
only mention that was made by them was a mere reference to a letter
you wrote to some of them. This is no reflection upon their interest
in the scheme, I believe, but like the rest of us I think they keep
silence because they think the scheme is a little premature. I hope
this gloomy report will not cause you despair because I am sure that
in your long concern for the cause of internationalism you have had
many occasions of a more discouraging nature... I believe in some
form the question will be resuscitated and grow in the near future.
Speaking of gleams of hope... I believe the Council is quite prepared
to continue its sympathy for the work of the university, and I imagine
that it may be inclined to go a step further in assenting to give
its patronage ... The Council is not ready to advise the Assembly to
create a new technical organisation, but even here there is ultimate
hope.
At yesterday's meeting, the Council decided to take under the authority
of the League even private international bureaux. Of course some