LEAGUE UNDER TEST

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 56, 4 September 1923, Page 7

LEAGUE UNDER TEST

ITALY'S DIRECT CHALLENGE

ENGLAND'S RELATIONSHIP.

LONDON, 3rd September. The "Morning Post's" Geneva correspondent says that directly the Greek protest was received the delegates recognised that the League was facing its first really important crisis, and its whole future depended upon the action now taken. It is freely asserted that Italy has directly challenged the authority of the League by occupying Corfu, and has committed an act of war; has, in fact, declared war against the fiftyone States in the League, and automatically set in motion the machinery of Article 16. Feeling hardened when it was known that the killed included Greek and Armenian refugees from Anatolia. The correspondent states that the position is obscure. It is difficult to believe that England will consent to sever economic relations with Italy or turn an ally into a deadly enemy. If England refuses to participate the League will brandish its thunderbolt in vain.

Article 16 of the League Covenant is as follows:—Should any member of the League resort to war in disregard' of its covenants under Articles 12, 13, or 15, it shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other members of the League, which hereby undertake immediately to subject it to the severance of all trade or financial relations, the prohibition of all intercourse between their nationals .and the nationals of the coverant-breaking State, and the prevention of all financial, commercial, or personal intercourse between the nationals of the covenantbreaking State, whether a member of the League or not. It shall be the duty of the Council in such case to recommend to the several Governments concerned what effective military, naval, or air force tho members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used to protect the Covenants of the League. The members of the League agree, further, that they will mutually support one another in the financial aTid economic measures which are taken under this Article, in'order to minimise the loss" and inconvenience resulting from the above measures, and that they -will mutually support one another in resisting any special measures aimed at one of their number by the covenant-break-ing State, and that they will take the necessary steps to afford a passage through their territory to the forces to any of tho members of the League which are co-operating to protect the Covenants of the League. Any member of the League which has violated any Covenant of the League may be declared to he no longer a member of the League by a vote of the Council concurred in by the representatives of all the other members of the League represented thereon.