OIL SANCTIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 142, 12 December 1935, Page 11

OIL SANCTIONS

HOW FAR TO GO?

POSER FOR POWERS

LESSONS OF RECENT MONTHS

(British Official Wireless and United Press : Association.) (Received December 12, 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, December 11. In the House of Commons today Mr. Hugh Dalton asked for a further statement regarding the proposals submitted on behalf of the British and French Governments for settlement of the war in Abyssinia. The Prime Minister, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, said there was nothing to add to statements made in yesterday's debate. He repeated that it was impossible to publish the proposals, and said, in reply to a supplementary question, that it was impossible to say until Mr. Eden got to Geneva whether the Committee of Five or the Committee of Eighteen would take the matter in hand. "We may have to consider again the whole question as to how far sanctions may go," said Mr. Baldwin. "Some people speak as though it were the simplest thing to stop oil going to Italy. Really it is not. It is extraordinarily complicated. You must be sure your prohibition is going to be effective. "We are learning and have learned a great deal in the last three months," he added, "as to what is possible in the world and what is not. We may well have to consider in the light of what we have learned what we may he able to do for furthering the League's work in the future." REPORTS BY EXPERTS. A Geneva message states that the League experts who are studying the application of sanctions against Italy met today to examine the answers received from Governments since the last meeting. They will prepare an interim report on the whole subject for submission to the Committee of Eighteen, which meets on Thursday. It is understood that the experts find that a certain number of South American States have not yet taken the i necessary measures to put sanctions into force. According' to present arrangements the M'tiister of League Affairs, who is also acting for the Foreign Minister in the absence of Sir Samuel Hoare, will leave London tomorrow afternoon to attend the Committee of Eighteen.

The immediate business of the meeting of the Committee of Eighteen is to give further consideration to the proposal to extend the list of key products the export of which to Italy is prohibited, by the Covenant-enforcing States.