SESSION OPENED

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 70, 19 September 1936, Page 9

SESSION OPENED

LpAGUE COUNCIL x VISIT TO ITALY ■"■. v ' ■ ' _ ■ " - M. AVENQL'S REPORT (British Official Wireless.) (Received September 19, 11.50 a.m.) RUGBY, September 18. The ninety-third session of the Couricil of the League of Nations opened this evening at Geneva under the presidency of Senor Vicuna, of Chile. The Council, Which met in private, adopted its agenda and decided, in accordance with a request by, the Governments of Iran and Irak, to remove from it a question relating to the frontier dispute between those two countries. . ■•'■ ■■■■.■:". . It was decided to forwa.d to the Assembly communications received from 18 Governments,regarding the application of the principles of the Covenant. A Geneva message says that the Secretary-General, M. .Avehol, then made a statement on the circumstances in which he recently visited Italy, and that he informed the Council of his conversations in Rome with the' Italian Foreign, Minister and the head of the Government. He informed the Council that Signor Mussolini made it a condition of Italy's participation in the work of the present Assembly that no Abyssinian delegation should be present, and reported that he had told Signor, Mussolini that this was a question to be decided by the Credentials Committeeof the Assembly.

The Council held no discussion on this point. > MISSING DELEGATES 1 ■'■■ -___ ■■ TWO PROMINENT MEN REPRESENTATION QUESTION GENEVA, "September 18. A large number of delegates have already assembled'for the League Council meeting this afternoon, the 'first in the new £1,000,000 League building.- : Two of' the League's most promin- 1 ent figures, Senor de' Madariaga (Spian) and M. Titulescu (Rumania), will be.missing, the former on account of the Spanish civil war and the. latter because he has been dropped from the Rumanian Cabinet and is at present .seriously ill at St. Moritz, a fact which has given rise to groundless rumours that he has been poisoned. M. Litvinov (Russia) travelled via Warsaw and Vienna to avoid crossing German territory. , •' ■ ■ The Spanish Foreign Minister has arrived at 'Marseilles en route to Geneva. He flew from Madrid in a Government aeroplane with several bullet, holes in its wings. •',' , The Geneva correspondent of "The Times", says that'the very composition of the Council is in the melting pot. There has long been deep dissatisfaction with the system' of permanently excluding certain ungrouped Powers from representation on the Council, and the creation of an extra non-per-manent seat, is not regarded as going sufficiently far. , : - ■ '.-

The Guardian's" Geneva correspondent says that there has been much comment on the mysterious lastminute addition tq the agenda of the League of the question of prohibiting under the provisions of the Covenant the supply of arms and war material to belligerents.. Everyone is asking why the question has suddenly been taken up after two years of inaction •and, at whose.instance, it.- has been raised.,

A WAY OUT ABYSSINIA TANGLE LEGAL EXPERTS' SOLUTION (Received September 19, 12.30 p.m.) " ' GENEVA, September 18. The League's legal experts are. reported to have found a way out of the Abyssinian tangle. Undfftr the proposal, Abyssinia will remain a full member, the League not recognising the Italian conquest, but Abyssinia not being allowed to send a delegation owing to her credentials beipg invalid, as the Emperor and the Government who signed them are no longer in ' Abyssinia.

L.N.U. RESOLUTION (Received September 19, 9.15 a.m.) LONDON, September 181 The League of Nations Union passed a resolution trusting that Britain will resist any proposal depriving Ethiopia of the right to representation at the League meetings. ETHIOPIA'S CASE APPEAL TO INTERNATIONAL COURT LONDON, September 17. Haile'Selassie's solicitors have telegraphed the Permanent Court of Inter-: national Justice asking that they be authorised to apply for the convening o? an extraordinary session-to hear the case of Ethiopia in the matter of the breach of international law by Italy.