TODAY'S DISCUSSIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 105, 30 October 1935, Page 11

TODAY'S DISCUSSIONS

RESUMPTION AT GENEVA

REPORT ON SANCTIONS

REPLIES

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received October 30, 11 a.m.)

RUGBY, October 29.

The Minister for League of Nations Affairs, Mr. Anthony Eden, leaves London tomorrow to represent Britain at the meetings on Thursday of the League's Committee of Eighteen and the Co-ordination Committee of 52 which a fortnight ago respectively approved and recommended to the States Members in a series of five proposals measures to be applied under the League Covenant in view of the Italian resort to war in Abyssinia. The Committee of Eighteen will have before-it a draft report prepared on the basis of the replies of- the States Members in regard to the proposals for the prohibition of the export from League States to Italy of certain products of importance to her in the prosecution of her military 'campaign and for the prohibition of all imports into League States from Italy. DECISION ON A DATE. In passing the report to the Coordination Committee the Committee of Eighteen will have to suggest a date to be appointed for concerted application by the League States of these measures. It is thought likely that the discussion in the Co-ordination Committee may last two days, and during this period Mr. Eden will be joined in Geneva by the Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare. In the meantime, it is understoodthat proposals which emerged during the recent Franco-Italian diplomatic exchanges, and which might have provided a basis for conciliation to bring the hostilities in Africa to an end, have been the subject of closest examination in London from the point of view of determining whether they ottered any hope of fulfilling the conditions repeatedly stated by the British Government as in their view essential, namely, that they should be in consonance with the spirit of the League Covenant and acceptable to Ethiopia as well as to Italy. These conditions are a matter of common agreement between the French and British Governments, and recent proposals which have also been submitted to joint study of the British and French technical experts in Paris are not regarded as conforming to these essential requirements. FULLEST BRITISH CO-OPERATION. Possible terms for an agreed settlement such as the French and British Governments would feel able to bring to the notice of the League as suitable for recommendation to the parties to the dispute have therefore not emerged from the recent exchanges, and stories in circulation connecting the Foreign Secretary's visit to Geneva with such possibilities may be completely discounted. Sir Samuel Hoare's decision implies the desire of the Government to put the fullest weight behind the British co-operation at Geneva with the other League Powers in establishing a loyal and united effort to make effective action under the Covenant on behalf of peace and to shorten the war between Italy and Abyssinia.