URGED TO ACT

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 25 July 1935, Page 5

URGED TO ACT

BRITAIN AND ABYSSINIA “Slaughtering of Africans for Glory of Fascist Empire” JAPANESE OPINION STIRRED BLACK v. WHITE MENACE? iUnited Pm* AMKxaation —By Bectxio Tetogimpb Copyright). Received II a.m. to-day. LONDON, July 24.

The National Council of Labour, emphasising tlie .supreme importance of the issue, challenges the Government

to declare its intentions in connection with Abyssinia. “It is now clear that Fascist Italy employed the Italo-Ethiopian negotiations to circumvent the normal League procedure and dispatch troops to Abyssinia to prepare a war of conquest in order to make Abyssinia an Italian colony,” says the council. “The British Government should make immediate proposals to an open meeting of the League Council in order to define t.he responsibilities under the Covenant of Italy and Abyssinia. No foreign loans should be made available to facilitate the slaughtering of Africans for the glory of a new Fascist empire.”

SOCIETY URGES ACTION. As a sequel of the anti-Japanese outbreaks in the Italian Press, the Black Dragon Society lias urged Japanese Premier and t.he War, Navy and Foreign Ministers to take steps to settle the Italo-Abyssinian dispute. The society was largely responsible for Japan’s declaration of war against Russia in 1904 and the withdrawal from the League in 1933. The society’s leaders sent a cable denouncing Italy’s pressure on Abyssinia as flouting international justice, and urging Signor Mussolini to withdraw his' troops. No Japanese Government dare suppress the Black Dragon Society, which is centuries old. “Lc Temps” correspondent at Djibouti attaches critical importance to the spread of Ethiopian propaganda ■in Somaliland, Kenya, Uganda and tlie Soudan, directed to conduct a defensive war of blacks against whites. The propagandists point out that writes gravely menace the last independent black country. For that reason each African, if Emperor Selassie is compelled to wage war against Europeans, must do his bit. N A TON 1 Aid SM AWAKENED.

The correspondent considers that African nationalism is being awakened for the first time since Kitchener captured Khartoum. . , ■ , France will support Britain s efforts to keep the Italo-Abyssinian dispute within tlie League of Nations jurisdiction, says the Paris correspondent of The Times. Signor Mussolini is sobered by his general staff’s anxieties, tlie difficulty of keeping the lire on the gold standard and Japanese opposition. He may not deliver the irreparable blow until every otlici possibility is exhausted. Japanese agents are rushing quantities of arms and ammunition to Djibouti, the French Red Sea port, realising that treaty arrangements with France will guarantee freedom of traffic. “ACT OF HOSTILITY.”

Signor Virginia Gayda, editor of the Fascist paper 11 Giornale d’.ltalia, declares that if England permits the export of arms to Abyssinia Italy will remember it as an act of hostility. Italian experts declare that the suspension of the gold cover on the lira does not amply devaluation, says the correspondent of The Times at Rome. The Italian Government intends to reconstitute its gold reserves at the earliest possible moment and will meet all its engagements. The lira, which depreciated to 63 J following the news of the Italian Government’s decree regarding the note cover, later rallied and closed at 61 11-16th s. Article fifteen of the Covenant of the League of Nations, on which the League Council’s action regarding the Italo-Abyssinian dispute is expected to be based says the political correspondent of’ The Times, provides for the submission to the League by both parties to a dispute of a full statement of their respective cases. It is hoped the Italian Government will be persuaded of the advantage of making such a statement. CRITICAL SITUATION. The Manchester Guardian’s political correspondent points out that, though Britain strongly holds that the Council should consider the dispute as a whole and not merely the "Walwal incident, France has not yet accepted this view, though there is reason to believe that M. Laval shares it. “When the dispute comes before the Council,” the correspondent adds, “Italy will be hound by article 12 of the Covenant either to accept arbitration or inquiry by the Council and refrain from war for the time being. If she refuses she will have defied the League, causing a critical situation, for the League will then have to decide what steps, if any, shall he taken to uphold the authority of the Covenant.” The Daily'Mail assorts that the prevailing British Cabinet view Is that a settlement would more easily be reached after hostilities had staited.