PLIGHT OF ETHIOPIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22412, 7 May 1936, Page 15

PLIGHT OF ETHIOPIA

Sir, —The greater part of "Leonardo da Vinci's" letter in the Herald of May 5 again deals with past history and is quite irrelevant to the matter under discussion—the present plight of Ethiopia and the atrocities committed by the Italians. Your correspondent infers that the International Red Cross exonerated Italy —such was not the case. That body refused to furnish the League with information, and by so doing protected Italy from the scorn which would have been poured on her had the information been made public. His main assertion appears to be that the Italians are the salt of the earth, and that I claim for the British people a moral excellence to which foreigners in general are strangers. I maintain that recently the British people gave striking evidence that they were imbued with Christian principles when they wholeheartedly rejected the iniquitous Hoare-Laval peace plan. Today, one fact is that as a nation Italy is only nominally Christian: the majority of the people worship the god of material might. Another fact is that when the Italians realised that thej' could make no headway, although they had tanks, aeroplanes, flamethrowers and machine-guns against a practically unarmed but heroic l'oe, they employed poison gas and were solidly behind Mussolini in demanding the annihilation of these defenceless people. C. W. H. Pickering.