THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1935 APPLYING THE COVENANT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22225, 27 September 1935, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1935 APPLYING THE COVENANT

In the course of the League Council's discussion of the East African trouble, it has been intimated fxx>m Geneva, there will be reference to the steps to be recommended in the event of failure to settle the dispute by conciliation. This may seem to be premature, for until negotiation has been finally ineffectual and a breach of tho peace has been committed tho Council will be under no necessity to name the aggressor and recommend action "for the maintenance of right and justice." But the question of such action, particularly in the form of sanctions, has so obtruded itself already that any report other than one detailing a settlement would be incomplete without some indication of what is to be done. And this must all the more be the subject of considered statement because a crisis has arisen in the career of the League. It is impossible to place too much emphasis on the fact that right through the recent weeks of tension the question for third parties in tho League, not excluding Britain and France in spite of their treaty relationships with Italy and Abyssinia, has been that of collective action under the Covenant, in the event of aggression by either of these two. Naturally, perhaps inevitably, sympathy is felt with one or other of tho disputants, and 'should either of them make an unprovoked assault there would be, at least in mind, a taking of sides. But that is not the way in which the third parties in the League are expected to align themselves. They are all, if alive to their responsibilities, morally briefed for the League, not for either of the immediate parties to the quarrel. That attitude, it is well to note, has been properly maintained by Britain, and feeling in Italy was vastly mistaken in resenting British action as offensively partisan. Let it be supposed that Italy invades Abyssinia in defiance of the Covenant; then the measures to be adopted against Italy will not be planned to achieve a victory for Abyssinia but to deal with the Italian onslaught as a blow at the League the guardian of world peace. In practical effect, no doubt, the cause of Abyssinia as a covenantobserving nation would be defensively served, and rightly so, but the action taken would primarily be related to the interests of peace, not those of Abyssinia.

This being the principle, the task for i:he Council and possibly the Assembly certainly for everyone concerned about the crisis for the League—is to think in terms of the Covenant, not of the quarrel as such ; and thus arises the necessity to appeal to the various clauses that apply or may be applied. These have been specified in the course of much public comment. They must be taken as they stand, not as they might have been phrased and doubtless would have been had there been a suspicion in 1919 that a League of limited membership, and particularly without the full co-operation of several front-rank Powers, especially the United States, would have to shoulder the task. The relevant clauses have been much discussed since the League was formed. Attempts have been made to implement them with express means to make them fully effectual—to furnish them with a better set of teeth in defence of peace. The draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance, finally abandoned in 1923 as such a means, was too ill-defined and too complicated ; it left dangerously open a door by which there might be a return to the bad system of uncontrolled alliances, and it offered nothing in the way of collective security achieved, in part, by disarmament. The Geneva Protocol of 1924 had a like fate, for different reasons. This added compulsory arbitration, supported by sanctions, to the principles of security and disarmament, but it had a fatal weakness—it made no provision for action by the Council in determining and directing repressive operations, Each signatory State was to be left to decide how IE would carry out its obligations, and British statesmen were quick to see and say that, as things then were and indefinitely might be, the Royal Navy would probably have to bear alone the brunt of necessary conflict. The rejected protocol marked the end of elaborate efforts to fill gaps in the Covenant. France still stood for the creation of an "international police force" by the League, but this idea made no headway against the inescapable fact that the League is not a super-State. To regional pacts—for example, the Locarno agreementsthought turned with better hope, and to consideration of a plan of general disarmament; however, the present trouble has come upon a League unfurnished with additional means to ensure obedience to its judgment on aggressors. This is not to say that the League is entirely impotent. It possesses great potential usefulness as a keeper of the peace. Those that cite to the contrary the failure of the League to curb Japan's high-handed action in Manchuria, from which Signor Mussolini has evidently taken his cue, ignore the fact that, of the three important Powers upon whom should have fallen the onus of implementing sanctions there Britain, Russia and the United States —

Britain alone was a member of the League. Considerations of local interest ought not, of course, to weigh in all dealings with aggression, but the instance in the Far East was one in which active co-operation by other League members in enforcing sanctions was beset with extraordinary difficulty. Not so in tho present instance, providing France assists, in making even commercial and financial sanctions effective. Other Powers are already declaredly willing to co-operate. The Council, it is true, has no easy task either in furthering negotiations or in mapping out a course of action should Italy, regardless of Abyssinia's agreement with tho findings of the Committee of Five as a basis of settlement, prove obdurate and determine on war. But it can be trusted, since French support of Britain is more firm and explicit, to uphold the obligations of the Covenant and to encourage the great body of League States to live up to them.