IN THE EVENT OF WAR.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 300, 2 October 1935, Page 5

IN THE EVENT OF WAR.

THE AIMS OF THE LEACUE.

COLLECTIVE ACTION ISSUE

LONDON, September 30,

“The Times” examines what should be the proper attitude of the nations of the 'League in the event of an outbreak of war. Their policy, it says, should be guided clearly -by four main, principal purposes :—. ■ (1) Their own solidarity, now stronger than ever, should oil no account be impaired. (2) Tlieir action should be directed first and foremost to restricting the spheres of hostilities. (3) They must try to bring hostilities to an end at the earliest possible moment.

(4) They must see that the settlement, when it comes, is as fair as can be made in the circumstances.

“The Times” adds: “The considered views of the League on the Abyssinian problem are on record. The nations comprising the League will be in a strong position to revert to them if, in the meantime, they maintain their close cohesion, and it may well be that Italy may be convinced at the last that she is faced by disinterested hatred of war and not by some Imperialist or anti-Fascist motive, and realise that there are tangible disadvantages in the role of the bad neighbour.” The “Daily Telegraph” remarks that there was no need for Signor Mussolini’s reassurance given in the Rome communique on Saturday that Italian policy neither is, nor will he, aimed at > infringing British rights in Abyssinia, for Britain had no apprehensions on that head. Such interests as she has there are well known and strictly limited in character, and it was not on account of these, but on wider international grounds, that she framed her policy at Geneva. That policy is defined in the Note to France with all possible exactitude. Drawing attention to the passage of the Note in which Sir Samuel HoaVe repeats that at Geneva he spoke .of steady and collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression, . the “Daily Telegraph” associates itself with the assertion that there is a world of difference between a negative act of failure to fulfil the terms of a treaty, and some positive act of unprovoked aggression. Another typical newspaper comment is that of the “Daily Herald,” which suspects that tlio Italian appeal to Britain is designed for subtler ends. “It is meant to foster the impression that the dispute is purely an Anglo-Indian matter, but there can be no AngloItalian negotiations, and there are no neutrals. Signor Mussolini is challenging not Britain but the League of Nations, and from the League a collective answer will certainly come if the challenge is pressed.”