Italy and Abyssinia

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21484, 28 May 1935, Page 10

Italy and Abyssinia

The League Council's record of achievement for the session which has just ended is an impressive one. It has induced Italy to submit hei most immediate point of disagieement with Abyssinia to arbitration, it. has reached a final settlement of the dangerous dispute between Jugoslavia and Hungary, and it has persuaded the Danzig Senate to accept the decision of an international legal tribunal on its charges against the League High Commissioner in Danzig. The compromise reached in the Italo-Abyssinian dispute is important not merely because it alleviates, temporarily at any rate, a situation which might easily lead to war but also because it is a reply to the frequently-heard jibe that the diplomatic triumphs of the League of Nations are always secured at the expense of minor States. In this case a great power has been persuaded, very much against its inclinations, to accept the principle of third-party intervention. The procedure agreed upon is an interesting one. In the first instance the dispute will be refei'red to four conciliation commissioners, appointed presumably by the Italian and Abyssinian Governments. If the commission fails to reach a settlement by July 25 it will choose a fifth member, a neutral, and resolve itself into an arbitration tribunal. The word arbitration is, it seems, used in a somewhat peculiar sense, since the tribunal is not bound to reach a decision by any pai-ticular date. If, however, there is no settlement by August 25 the matter will again be taken up by the League Council and probably dealt with according to the provisions in the League covenant for the pacific settlement of international disputes. There are two reasons, it may be surmised, why the League Council has preferred to delay the use of these provisions. The first is that the Italo-Abyssinian treaty of 1928 contains an arbitration clause. The second, and the more important, is that the council discovered, in its handling of the Sino-Japanese dispute that in their present form the clauses in the covenant providing for conciliation and for the restraint of an aggressor are so imperfect that it is best to avoid using them except as a last resort. This is particularly so when one of the parties to the dispute is a member of the League Council, since there are only a few matters in which the council can act on a majority decision. It remains to be noted that it is only the Italian claim for compensation arising out of the incidents at Ualuai that is being submitted to arbitration. The fundamental cause of the dispute, the imperfect demarcation of the frontier between Italian Somaliland and Abyssinia, is not covered by the present agreement. But. the meas-

ure of success which the council has already achieved, and the importance of the Abyssinian problem ho Great Britain and France as colonial powers, encourage the hope that if and when the Ualual affair is disposed of the boundary question also will be settled by international agreement and not by force of arms.