SIGNOR MUSSOLINI'S CHALLENGE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 284, 28 August 1935, Page 8

SIGNOR MUSSOLINI'S CHALLENGE

In effect the statements attributed to Signor Mussolini in an interview accorded to the Daily Mail constitute a definite refusal to abandon Italian policy in Abyssinia, and a challenge to the League of Nations to do its worst. He plainly does not believe that there is the required unanimity of purpose among the members of the League to lead it to take up the challenge. It is unfortunately the case that, he is tn a position to remind the world in general—-as he does in the interview —of two previous challenges to the principles of the Covenant in which the League defaulted, and he can hardly be blamed for thinking it will default again. But Signor Mussolini does not only challenge. He “Whoever applies sanctions against Italy,” he declares, will meet with her armed hostility.” The League’s rejoinder to that could be the compulsory measures authorised in the second paragraph of Article 16 of the Covenant, namely, that it shall be the duty of the Council . . . to recommend to the several Governments concerned what effective military, naval, or air force the members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used to protect the covenants of the League.” It is thus clear that if the League wete so minded it could force Italy to give way. Here again Signot Mussolini challenges the League to be so reckless as to expand a colonial campaign into a European war costing tens of millions of lives.” Having measured all these possibilities and discounted, their probability, he adds one more, rather significantly. A unanimous vote against him at Geneva, he says, must include France. Obviously he is banking, among other things, on French reluctance to extreme measures. . With regard to his assertion that the closing of the Suez Canal against Italy would be a breach of the Versailles Treaty, in which, he says, a canal statute prohibiting blockade is incorporated, this refers to the Suez Canal Convention of 1888, which, with a large number of other’existing treaties and conventions, was reaffirmed by incorporation in the Versailles Treaty. The convention provided that the canal should “always be free and open, in time of. war as. in time of peace, to every vessel of commerce or of war without distinction of flag.” To the British signature was attached a reservation that the provisions of the convention should only apply so far as they were compatible with the situation in Egypt, then in an unsettled state. By an Anglo-French agreement in 1904 this reservation was modified, Britain adhering to the stipulations. Hence the Russian fleet en route to the Far East in 1904-05 was allowed to pass through the canal, but in the Spanish-American War of 1898 the Spanish ships were refused passage. In the Great War the canal was closed to Germany’and her allies, and it is quite probable, that in the event of extreme measures being considered necessary it would be closed to Italy in spite of Signor Mussolini’s challenge on that point. His whole statement, in fact, is a series of challenges, which, in effect, he defies the League Powers to take up. He challenges the League to apply the sanctions; he challenges it to start a European war; he challenges France to support the League: he challenges it to close the Suez Canal. And he knows perfectly well the tremendous responsibility that will rest upon the League Powers if they decide to take up his challenge. On the other hand the world realises as. fully what will happen to the League if they fail to deal effectively with the situation.