HOPE NOT ABANDONED

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 9, 10 July 1935, Page 11

HOPE NOT ABANDONED

PEACEFUL WAY OUT

BRITAIN'S ANXIOUS EFFORTS

(British Official Wireless.) (Received July 10, 11 a.m.) RUGBY, July 9. The Secretary-General of the League of Nations, Monsieur J. L. A. Avenol, called on the Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, and the Minister for League of Nations Affairs, Mr. Anthony Eden, today and discussed with them various questions which will be dealt with by the League Council and the Assembly in the near future. Hopes of a peaceful settlement of the Italo-Abyssinian dispute are -not yet abandoned by the British Government, which throughout has recognised that grave alternatives would arise failing such a result, and it is assumed that this was one of the subjects discussed in the conversations with the League Secretary. Reports from The Hague indicate that the Italo-Abyssinian Conciliation Commission, set up under Article V of the Treaty of Amity of 1928 to arbitrate on frontier incidents at Walwal, has subsequently met with difficulties. The Commission has suspended its sittings and reported to the two Governments. QUESTION IN COMMONS. The consistent and anxious efforts of the British Government to assist the interested parties to compose their differences were the subject of an< incidental question at question time in the House of Commons, a member inquiring what action the Government proposed to take in view of the abandonment by the Abyssinian Government of its objections to a concession for Lake Tsana. ■Mr. Eden replied that on May 10 the Abyssinian Government had invited his Majesty's Government and the Governments of Egypt and.the Sudan to a conference with the object of concluding an agreement on this question. His Majesty's Government did not, however, wish to take any step which might aggravate the unfortunate controversy between Italy and Abyssinia at a moment when they were using their best endeavours to secure a solution. They had therefore informed the Abyssinian 'Government that they favoured a postponement. He added that the Government were fully mindful of the interests of Egypt and the Sudan in the upper basin of the Nile, but these interests had been recognised in the past both by the Abyssinian Government and by the Governments of France and Italy.