The Evening Star SATURDAY, JULY 20. 1935. ITALY AND THE LEAGUE.

Evening Star, Issue 22086, 20 July 1935, Page 14

The Evening Star SATURDAY, JULY 20. 1935. ITALY AND THE LEAGUE.

In discussing the dispute between Itply and Abyssinia one of the leading London journals said that the weather and not the efforts of British statesmen was keeping the peace. This is a highly significant statement. It means that in the meantime Signor Mussolini, without giving anything away, is willing to continue diplomatic discussions, but that in September, when the climatic conditions in Ethiopia are more suitable for a military campaign, he will launch an offensive. That is taking the most gloomy view, but in the light of events in the last few weeks such apprehensions are not ivithout justification. What‘Mussolini says in effect is that he will uphold League principles provided that he gets his own way in the present trouble. A smoke screen is being used to cover Italy’s ambitions. Dr Gayda is conducting the propaganda from Rome. His latest assertion, which is regarded as semi-official, is that Italy does not desire to proyoke the League’s destruction or refuse to recognise its system of peace and confidence in international relations, but this system, with its rights and duties, applies only to civilised nations and excludes, slavery', raiding, and traffic in men. The Ethiopian emperor counters this declaration with the remark that slavery; is not limited to. Abyssinia, but flourishes in the adjoining Italian ; colonies of Tripoli and Eritrea. In the Red Sea areas of Africa slavery has always flourished, hut it has been a diminishing traffic since the present emperor, co-operating with the League, took vigorous steps for its suppression. During a discussion in the House of Lords this week the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is never afraid to speak his mind, said that it was only fair to remember that'Haili Sellassie 1., in spite of the difficulties, was trying to suppress slavery, and .this remark was endorsed' by two peers who had had personal experience of the conditions m Ethiopia.

But, in any case, this is altogether irrelevant to the main argument, which is as to whether League principles shall prevail in international affairs or whether they are to be observed by a major Power only when they are in agreement with its policy. That is clearly the line that Italy is taking. Thbugh Ethiopia is a member of the League ami has been true to the conditions of membership, and though Italy is bound by a treaty to submit all disputes with that country to arbitration, and is a signatory of the Kellogg Pact renouncing war as an instrument of national policy, Mussolini’s attitude reveals that unless he obtains his desires these solemn obligations are to be thrown overboard. This is a sad commentary on the Duce’s sincerity in his peace declarations made on many occasions. Yet he receives absolution from France, which cynically takes the lino that it does not matter what happens to Abyssinia so long as the newly-formed Franco-Itah’an friendship is not strained, for ip the eyes of the Quai d’Orsay this is an important partnership in the case of unfavourable developments in Germany. Abyssinia’s conquest by Italy, in the French view, would be a lesser blow to the League than the Italian exit from Geneva. It might have been thought that Britain, in offering Italy, an outlet to the sea through Somaliland, was going to extremes in order to placate Italy. It should not have been considered necessary, but it was done to preserve the League’s integrity. Possibly Mussolini will still listen to the voice of reason, and'abide by League principles, but the outlook at the moment is not hopeful. The dictator of modern and enlightened Italy is rattling the sabre, while the emperor of what has been described in Rome as a barbarous country seeks the way of peace and adheres faithfully to League and other undertakings having for their object the avoidance of war. The suggestion is strong that there is substance of truth in Haili Sellassie’s declaration that Mussolini “ wants to exclude a peaceful solution. He wants a bloody settlement of the old Adowa affair,”

PROVIDENT FUND AND PENSIONS. The National Expenditure Adjustment Act of 1932 included so many harsh measures whicli only the state of the national finances could justify that one breach of contract included in it incurred only the least comment at the time. It is receiving more now, and that is not surprising in view of the completeness and the shabbiness of this particular breach, the least required and promising, in an immediate sense, the least advantage. Correspondents have set forth the facts, which are simple. When the National Provident Fund was established twenty-five years ago to protect the old age of smallsalaried contributors, one of the inducements to join it was a clause in the Act that allowances received unde'r the scheme when its pensions matured at the age of sixty years- would not count as income to the detriment of a possible old-agp pension. By a clause of the retrenchment law before referred to this provision was repealed, with the result that a contributor may pay into the fund for years, and on becoming eligible for an old-age pension (generally five, years after the maturing of his contributions) find himself deprived of any benefit whatever, because what he gains on the swings can be lost on the roundabouts. This is the possibility at its worst. The consequences may not be so extreme. If the contributor has no other income the allowances that will be due to him from the National Provident Fund probably will not exceed the £4l a year that is allowed as an exemption to everyone under the Old Age Pensions Act, and he will not be harmed. If, however, he should earn anything for himself or be the recipient, say, of sick benefits from a friendly society, his old-age pension will be prejudiced to the amount that his total income may be raised above the exemption by the Provident Fund’s weekly return. Some contributors to the latter scheme may never be eligible for an old age pension. And it is improbable that many contributors who are eligible are drawing their allowances yet. It is true also that if receipts from the Provident Fund were derived from any other sort of insurance they would operate against the old-age pension, but then it was specially provided, las an inducement to join the Government’s philanthropic scheme, that returns from that source would not do so. The Government might have chosen another way of effecting the same economy at the expense of the same victims—and others, by cutting the old age pensions still harder than it did. That would have been, for obvious reasons, a more unpopular course. It would have imposed more actual hardship, but there would have been no breach of contract. Pensions that are not based on contributions can be increased or reduced as the funds of the State suggest. The old age pension was increased at intervals; since then it has been lowered; the reduction made by the National Expenditure Adjustment Act has since been in part restored. Cuts in salaries have also been partly restored. The Labour claim to merit for having opposed the clause that is now aSsailed need not 1 be taken over-seriovisly. The Labour Party opposed all the retrenchments of which the good effects are now being felt.

The fact that the Government might* have acted more harshly, without breach of any contract, for the achievement of its purpose does not palliate the breach that was committed. Yet when the suggestion was made recently to the Hon. Mr Masters that he should restore the clause which made an inducement to investment in the National Provident Fund, he replied that its repeal was in direct accordance with the recommendation of the National Expenditure Commission, and that it was not considered that the reversal of that action was warranted at the present time. The function of the commission, however, was merely to advise. 'he Government was not bound to follow any of its recommendations —it did not, in fact, follow them all—and there would have been no objection to the course adopted in this instance if it had been confined to new contributors. It is a fair contention that the unusual concession, making a special attraction for the National Provident scheme in the eyfes of small contributors, never should have been promised. Since it was made part of the contract it should be honoured, so far as contracts which it influenced are concerned. At the earliest opportunity clause 24 of the National Provident Fund Act, as' affecting those contracts, should be restored. A GREAT IRISHMAN. The death of the Irish writer, Mr George William Russell, better known as “ A.E.,” demands something more than a bare recording of his passing. Mr Stephen Gwynn, who knows his country and his countrymen and also their history, has described him as “ one of the most remarkable persons that Ireland has produced.” For the last thirty years his name, never associated with faction, has been prominent whenever Irish affairs have been discussed, and his opinions were held in the greatest respect alike in Great Britain and Ireland and in America. He worked for Irish culture, and for all that promised to be most peaceful and useful in Ireland’s development. It was when the late Sir Horace Plunkett was preaching to Irish farmers the doctrine of agricultural co-opera-tion that he first made the acquaint-. . ance of Russell through the poet Yeats, The man who was to be his ally in his great ’ crusade, rather than campaign, was then a young shop accountant, known to some few as a mystic and poet, writing under the initials A.E. Around these two personalities there came into being a group of men and women, occupied with generous ideas and also very largely occupied with literature, who developed the economic and co-operative programme which was associated with Sir Horace Plunkett’s name. The movement was a fruitful centre of culture, drawing together

men and women from opposite camps. Russell’s share in the propaganda was done through the ‘ Irish Statesman,’ which he edited for seven years till it ended five years ago. He was a poet also, second only to Yeats in his fellowpoets’ esteem A.E.’s verses can easily be too visionary and vague and sounding for “ human nature’s daily food,” but he could be direct and concrete when he had a lesson to preach, as m his lines ‘ On Some Irishmen Not Followers of Tradition ’: We would no Irish sign efface. But yet our lips would gladlier hail The firstborn of the Coming Race Than the last splendour of the Gael. No blazoned banner we unfold— One charge alone we give to youth, Against the sceptred myth to hold The golden heresy of truth. “ Never lay thy rapture down,” was the ending of one of his loveliest lyrics. “ To dream with romance and to work with reality,” it has been said, “ is not within the power of many. But A.E. has nobly done it.”