THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

Chapter
XI
L'AFFAIRE DU PALAIS MONDIAL
A FIRST DISPLACEMENT
From the beginning of 1922 troubles crowded thick and
fast upon the Palais Mondial. First came a proposal from the
Belgian government temporarily to resume occupancy of some
of the quarters being used by the Palais Mondial in order
to set up a commercial fair there. Otlet at once dispatched
an urgent letter to Nitobe seeking the intervention of the
League against the Belgian government. Nitobe, inevitably,
had to refuse to implicate either himself or the League:
You will understand the reasons why I hesitate. Of course, the Council
has expressed sympathy for some of your undertaking, but the so-called
moral patronage that was guaranteed did not commit the League
at all deeply in the affairs of the Union... Even if the Union were
officially placed, according to Article 24 of the Covenant, under the
direction of the League, I very much doubt that the League could do
much in a case such as yours. You have a legal existence according
to Belgian law, and though your work is entirely international, not
only is the juridical status Belgian, but the Belgian government
has subsidised and given the Union a location... Don't you think there
is a fear of your government regarding an action on the part of the
League as interference in its own internal affairs?. 1
Nitobe tried discreetly to get at the reasons for the
government's actions. «You speak», he wrote to Otlet,
of the Commercial Fair and the Colonial Exhibition and then you
speak of adversaries of the Union. What I most want to know is
whether you have given the government any handle for this sudden
step. If I may speak frankly, I have wondered if there was anything on
the part of the Union that could have given the government an opportunity
for withdrawal from their engagement. 2
Otlet seems not to have attempted to reply to Nitobe's
question and at this distance in time it is hard to know what
actually happened. An explanation is probably to be found in
the politics of the day and in Otlet's position in Brussels.
The coalition government of Leon Delacroix, formed after the
election in November 1919, was short-lived. Delacroix, who
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