SANCTIONS AGAINST ITALY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22710, 24 October 1935, Page 10

SANCTIONS AGAINST ITALY

A Bill which affirms in effect the adherence of New Zealand, as a member of the League of Nations, to the application of economic and financial sanctions, under the Covenant of the League, against an aggressor nation was passed through all its stages in the House of Representatives yesterday. It was passed, moreover, by the unanimous assent of the House. It had already been made known by the Minister of Finance that the Govern ment had taken the Labour Opposition into its confidence respecting the authoritative information which it had received on the subject and respecting also the course which it proposed to adopt. It was not, however, until yesterday afternoon that the Opposition, which does not generally hesitate to express its opinion upon international any more than upon national affairs, disclosed its altitude towards the application of sanctions against Ttaly. " Labour's passion for peace," Mr Savage said, " renders it necessary for us to support the collective action of the League." By this declaration, the Labour Party in New Zealand aligned itself with the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, the political leader of which said, in impressive terms, in the House of Commons on Tuesday that the overmastering matter was the vindication of the rule of law against the rule of force and the protection of an international system nerainst a relapse into anarchy. Precedingl Major Attlee in the debate in f he House of Commons, Sir Samuel Hoare, Foreign Minister, had made another of his speeches that will be memorable, in the course of which he said that neither the League of Nations nor civilisation could condone

a multiple breach of treaties and survive. And emphasis was justly placed by him on the collective responsibility of the members of the League of Nations to fulfil their obligations under the Covenant. It is because of the existence of this collective responsibility that New Zealand must proclaim her adherence to the Covenant. With the measure that is now before Parliament, with this end in view, there should be the widest possible agreement throughout the Dominion.