ITALY AND ABYSSINIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22142, 22 June 1935, Page 12

ITALY AND ABYSSINIA

A fresh appeal to the League to take cognisance of Italy's treatment of Abyssinia has been made by the latter. The grounds of the appeal are new only in their scope: explicit reference is made to events since the League Council reached a decision at the beginning of May. That decision, it is true, was only tentative; no finality .is possible until a boundary commission has made a detailed recommendation concerning frontiers. Italy is undisguisedly seeking a junction of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, in order to administer them as one continuous territory, and this project involves actual possession of a strip of Abyssinia where its north-eastern limits are defined in practice less effectively than on the map. The term "border troubles" has, consequently, a perilously loose application at present, and each party to the dispute has alleged vexatious transgression by the other. For the past six months discussion has proceeded with little prospect of a settlement, save for the interim resolutions of the League Council in May. The purport of these was that as soon as the existing differences, arising from charges and countercharges of aggression, were settled by peaceful understanding, the permanent demarcation of the frontier should proceed. It was the best that could be done at the time, and it promised well, as both parties gave an assurance of amicable intention and willingness to facilitate an ultimate settlement. An end was thus put, apparently, to the series of "incidents" provocative of retaliation and threatening open war. However, the appeal now sent by Abyssinia to the League, together with the protest of Italy against violence by a member of the Abyssinian Air Force, indicates a resumption of intense hostility. Ttaly, it seems, continues to press for strategic advantage regardless of the League's intervention, and Abyssinia, while claiming to have observed the terms of the intervention, is itfi no mood to remain inactive. In the earlier stages of the quarrel Signor Mussolini was averse to League conciliation, and the British and French Governments expressed a hope that the parties might themselves reach an amicable settlement. But, as matters have progressed, good reason has arisen for sending a neutral commission to investigate all factß.