The Auckland Star WITH WHICH AND INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 1936. RETREAT FROM SANCTIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 138, 12 June 1936, Page 6

The Auckland Star WITH WHICH AND INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 1936. RETREAT FROM SANCTIONS.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the ivrong that needs resistanoo, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The British Government is going to "stop sanctions." The intimation has come not from Mr. Baldwin or from the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Eden, but from Mr. Neville Chamberlain, and it has been made at a private meeting of Conservatives. These circumstances are significant. Since an Italian victory in Ethiopia became assured, British Ministers have been practically silent about foreign policy, and it is fairly clear that their silence has been due to indecision arising from a conflict of opinion within the Cabinet. But the time is approaching for the meeting of the League Council at which the question of sanctions must be decided, and some authoritative pronouncement of Britain's attitude is necessary. The fact that it is Mr. Chamberlain who has made it may indicate merely that Mr. Eden, the foremost prosanctionist Minister, felt that such a declaration would come ill from him; but it may indicate also that the division in Cabinet continues, and that the predominant Conservative forces, insisting upon having their way, have found Mr. Chamberlain willing to lead them. Such a declaration as he has made would not have been contemplated until he was sure of decisive support.

"It is now apparent," Mr. Chamberlain said, "that the policy of sanctions involves, if not war, at least the risk of war, and that risk must increase in proportion to the effectiveness of sanctions." For expressing just such a view Mr. W. M. Hughes was virtually dismissed from the Australian Ministry last year, but Mr. Hughes was right then, and Mr. Chamberlain is right now. Is Britain prepared to take the risk, and, if so, to what end 7® What can sanctions achieve now? If the pressure of sanctions were continued without relaxation Italy would be further weakened economically, and in the end Mussolini might be forced to yield to avert internal collapse. At the first sign of yielding he might find his own. and his party's ascendancy imperilled. But it is far more likely that neither he nor the Italian people would permit the "economic bleeding" to continue without striking a desperate blow against the Powers —or against one of the Powers —which were responsible for it. The ensuing war could hardly be localised,' and when it ended —would Ethiopia be better offi?

To use these arguments is not to admit that Britain "was wrong in taking the lead in advocating sanctions; it is to admit that the time when their success could be hoped for is past, because, in My. Chamberlain's Avords, "we have tried to impose upon the League of Nations a task beyond the powers of the nations which compose the League."