NOTE TO NEW ZEALAND.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 29, 15 November 1935, Page 5

NOTE TO NEW ZEALAND.

PROTEST AGAINST SANCTIONS

ATTACK ON PROCEDURE. WELLINGTON, November 14. An Italian Note, handed to the Prime Minister to-day by the Italian Consul (Signor G. Formichella), dealing with the proposed imposition ol sanctions against Italy, says:— “The Italian Government has contested the foundation or the deliberations adopted at Geneva, in the ItaloEthiopian conflict and objects to the application of sanctions on the ground that the reasons set forth in the Italian memorandum to the League have not been adequately considered, and that the Covenant has not been applied in its dispositions. “Italy contends that the procedure adopted in the Italo-Ethiopian conflict while pretending strictly to abide by the letter of the Covenant had, m reality, kil'ed its spirit. The govern-r-ients of many States, through rigid and hasty developments, have been induced to consider and predispose he application against Italy of measures of pressure devised by a committee or co-ordination, which, is not at all an organ of the League of Nations, and which has been, and still is, cailying out its work without Italy being in any way apprised of it. Each government remains,. therefore, the individual judge of and is responsible for the measures adopted toward Italy, as well as of the legal justification. “The Italian Government draws the full attention of every member of the League of Nations to the gravity of the measures that the co-ordination committee proposes to apply against Italy and to the consequences they threaten, hot only to a great nation to which belongs an essential part in the work of reconstruction and collaboration, which is one of the main attributes of the League of Nations, but also to an already much distressed world.” “Very Existence of People.” Nobody, the note added, could contest the right and necessity in which the Italian Government would find itself to defend and ensure the very existence of its people. The Italian Government would thus he compelled to adopt economic and financial measures which might entail, among other things, substantial deviations of the present channels of exchange and traffic in order to provide all that was needed for the life of the nation. (Sanctions and counter-sanctions would finally bring forth very serious consequences of a moral and psychological order, provoking spiritual pert.ubation which might last long after the time when sanctions would have fulfilled their functions and achieved the result of increasing .the economic disorder of the world. The Italian Government, the note concluded, would; appreciate being advised as to how the New Zealand Government proposed to act with regard to the restrictive measures proposed against Italy.