ITALY IN ABYSSINIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23500, 14 May 1938, Page 12

ITALY IN ABYSSINIA

In the exchange of Notes that accompanied the conclusion of the Anglo-Italian agreement specific assurances were given by the British Government on the question of recognition of Italian sovereignty over Ethiopia before the League of Nations. With the object of securing the removal of obstacles which might be held to impede the freedom of member States of the League as regards recognition of Italian sovereignty the British Government undertook to raise the issue at a meeting of the League Council. This was done by Lord Halifax when the Council met on Wednesday, in the presence of the exiled Emperor Haile Sellassie. It is undoubtedly true, as The Times suggested when

commenting on the agreement, that the British Government, in consenting to sponsor the movement for Italian recognition before the League, had to consent to a difficult sacrifice of principle. Great Britain, although now deeming it expedient, in the larger cause of world peace, to accept the fact of a new Italian empire in Africa, has never been prepared to condone the methods by which Abyssinia was brought under Italian dominance. Lord Halifax appears to have dealt very frankly and very logically with the whole problem of recognition when elaborating his rejection of Haile Sellassie’s contention that Italy does not in fact control the occupied territory. The British Government’s information, he said, was that no organised native authority and no central native administration remained in Abyssinia, and that the Italian position could not be altered except by concerted military action, “which was unthinkable.” The dispassionate observer will find it difficult to deny the realism of the British view, though New Zealand has, through its representative on the League Council, condemned it as “ a return to the law of the jungle.” The League judgment on the unwarranted nature of the Italian action stands. Italy violated her pledges under the Covenant, and was rightly condemned for so doing. The member States were not prepared to take stronger action to enforce the Covenant or to deprive Italy of the fruits of her African adventure. The whole history of that enterprise, and of the League’s part in it, justifies the view recently expressed by Mr Chamberlain that the League, as at present constituted, cannot use and cannot be expected to use the powers taken in the Covenant, and that the nations which remain in the League “must be saddled neither with liabilities nor with risks which they are not prepared to undertake, nor must other nations expect that the League will provide that security which it was once hoped it would provide.” Mr Chamberlain believes implicitly in the future of a reconstituted and revitalised League. In that respect British policy remains where it was before Mr Eden’s retirement from the Government. In the meantime, however, it is the Government’s determination to face facts as they are. Recognition of Italy in Abyssinia is regarded as an essential step toward European appeasement, and that step Mr Chamberlain has not hesitated to take.