The Dominion. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1935. PEACE AT ALMOST ANY PRICE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 71, 17 December 1935, Page 8

The Dominion. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1935. PEACE AT ALMOST ANY PRICE

Publication of the British White Paper completes the world s knowledge of the surface facts in the Anglo-French peace proposals for Abyssinia. The underlying reasons will not be known until the House of Commons debate on Thursday, and policy may dictate that they should not all be known them. His telegrams to the Ambassadors at Rome and Addis Ababa suggest that for some reason—presumably fear of war in Europe—the British Foreign Secretary is extraordinarily keen to reach a basis of negotiation with Italy. So much so that, although the proposals as published provide for cessions to Italy here, “rectification of frontiers” with contingent gifts of territory to Italy there, and the granting to Italy of monopoly exploitation rights over a large area in another part of Abyssinia, will, in return, only a meagre cession by Italy, of a corridor strip to give Abyssinia access to the sea—although this is the unequal exchange upon which peace is sought to be based, Britain and France are apparently so keen that peace should be achieved by some means, that they are willing to forgo the demand on Italy for the cession ot a corridor, and themselves to make grants of territory providing Abyssinia with a port on the Gulf of Aden. No British subject would object to the cession of a strip of British Somaliland for this purpose, but very many would object on principle to a gift the effect of which would be to make the peace bargain between Italy ano even more one-sided in favour of the aggressor. . , The telegram to Rome gives an assurance of Great Britain s anxiety (with France) “to take account of Italian aspirations in so far as these can be made compatible with the principles of the Covenant of the League of Nations . and respect for Ethiopian sovereignty.” If there were' only Italian “aspirations” with whic.l to deal, this would be quite all right. Unfortunately, Italy was not content to stop at aspirations, or to go before the Council of the League of Nations to state her aspirations. She went to war, and thereby the whole- aspect of the position was changed. For in making war Italy outlawed herself from the company of nations; and the only possible attitude now for a member of the League “compatible with the principles of the Covenant is to declai e Italy an outlaw, to take such steps by international agreement as may seem necessary to bring her to heel, and on no account, by offering sui render in the guise of peace, to appear to countenance and acquiesce in what she has done. Some settlement of the broad character of the present proposals, says Mr. J. L. Garvin, the distinguished editor of the Observer, “is the only way out.” He may be right, although.there have been occasions when even Mr. Garvin has been notoriously wrong. But if this should be the only way out, if competent statesmanship has nothing to put in place of the present proposals, then the League of Nations is finished, the rule of international law has broken down, and the world will be tossed back again into the jungle out of which it tried to fight its way with so much blood and suffering twenty years ago.