ITALY AND ABYSSINIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 110, 12 May 1938, Page 8

ITALY AND ABYSSINIA

Senator Borah asks: "What is thi difference between seizing a natioi and endorsing its seizure?" By "en dorsing its seizure" he means recog nising the annexation; i$ other words he means that certain other Govern ments should maintain non-recogni tion, and, if they do not, they are ai guilty as the Government that did thi seizing. He mentions specifically the cases of' Austria and Abyssinii (Ethiopia). In the case of Austria not one Government has shown an) intention of using the weapon o non-recognition (if it can be callec a -weapon), and there has been no in dication whatever from Washingtoi that the United States Governing :akes' that For all practica purposes, Senator Borah's'own Gov irnment "endorses" \ in the Borah us< jf the word) the seizure of Austria \s to Abyssinia, the original attemp :o free Abyssinia by economic sane ions was undertaken by the Leagu< >f Nations, which palpably failed eaving as a residue the policy o' ion-recognition. Non-recognition ii n no real sense a weapon; if it is a )olicy, it is a purely passive one: t has failed to restore TVlanchukuo t< ]hina. Against the doubtful value o ion-recognition (as an aid to Abys sinia) let us now set the peace values :laimed for the Anglo-Italian Agree nent. That is the practical stand joint from which to approach th( fuestion put before the League o Stations Council by Lord Halifax British Foreign Secretary. He facet tn inevitable charge of inconsistency vith a Realistic comparison of th< leace prospects of one course witl he war prospects of the other course )n one side of the balance -he pu ion-recognition as a cure for aggres ion; on the other Anglo-Italiai ippeasement as a possible preventivf )f a Mediterranean war involving al Curope. Lord Halifax's reference to ' th< vider field" of (primarily) th< Mediterranean and (secondarily] Curope implies that, even in making i settlement with a Covenant-breaker ome regard must be had to the re ative proportion of things. Cai ion-recognition restore Abyssinii md repair the breach in th< Covenant? Can peace be preserve< >y declining to make any treaty witl my treaty-breaker? If so, not man) reaties will be made, aifd the drifl 3 war will have nothing to check but several non-recognitions—one

in Asia, one in Africa, and one (perhaps) in Europe (not Austria but possibly Spain). The world s list of non-recognitions might grow in number without, effecting one practical step in the direction of reversing wrong done. The forcible prevention of aggression, -wherever it occurs, is clearly no obligation of a nation; it was conceived as a job for a League of Nations. If Senator Borah's attack on Britain and France is driven home it reaches the first Great Power that stopped away from the League of Nations —his own country, which shares the double honour of being the first to propose i a League and the first to abandon The seeds of League failure in 193536 were sown then. Senator Borah's argument that there is no difference between seizing a nation and recognising the seizure proves too much. It proves the United States guilty in Austria. And in any case a nonrecognitionist is only a pale shadow of the champion of international boundaries as embodied in the Woodrow Wilson idea that America rejected.