VERY IMPORTANT DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 109, 4 November 1935, Page 9

VERY IMPORTANT DAY

A GREAT ACHIEVEMENT

"REAL STIMULUS TO PEACE"

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received November 4, 11.20 a.m.)

RUGBY, November 2.

The Foreign Secretary (Sir Samuel Hoarc) and the Minister for League of Nations Affairs (Mr. AnthonyEden) both returned to London

today after yesterday's meeting of the Co-ordination Committee of the fifty-two League States which appointed November 18 as "the date for the concerted application of economic sanctions'against Italy.

In a speech broadcast to British listeners before he left Geneva last night, Sir Samuel Hoare said, "Today has been a very important day in the history of the League." The meeting of the Co-ordination Committee had given a clear and satisfactory answer to doubts which had arisen in some minds whether collective action might be smothered under a mass of technical details and special reservations. It was a great achievement that 50 Leaguer-States had promised support to League action, and he congratulated them.

"The result has been due neither to British pressure nor Franco-British pressure," he said, "but to the common effort of many States, great and small, representing many different interests. Secondly, the League has given its blessing to the efforts that we and the French Government are making for peace. Speech after speech was made this afternoon wishing these elforts every success. There was. no question that we are going behind the bade of the Council. It was clear that every member had one object only in mmd —to bring to an end_ at the earliest possible moment the horrors of war and to help on a settlement acceptable to the three parties, to the controversy—the League, Italy, and Abyssinia. It was in this spirit that I had a series of very helpful talks with M. Laval and other French Ministers. It was in the same spirit that I myself had a free and frank conversation with Baron Aloisi this morning."

Time, patience, and understanding would be required for reconciling the divergent interests, and when or whether the League would succeed he could not say, ,but they, were encouraged by the work done.

"As a result of the collective action of the fifty nations—a remarkable event in the history of the world— the League lias shown, its vitality," he declared. "It has given a real stimulus to peace both by its. aisplay of collective solidarity and its determination at the same time to encourage every honourable effort to make an end to the risks and horrors of war."