Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 1936. THE LEAGUE CRISIS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18991, 16 April 1936, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 1936. THE LEAGUE CRISIS

Current developments continue to demonstrate the difficulties confronting the League of Nations in its attempt to act as an effective force in the settlement cf disputes between nations, and the situation has now so far deteriorated as to hold out faint hope of the immediate success of collective action. The principles for which the League stands remain unchallenged and unchallengeable but they can only be enforced if they have whole-hearted and almost unanimous support. In dealing with the Abyssinian dispute this has not been forthcoming and it is feared that it is now too late, to undo the harm that already has been done. It, is reported that Great Britain is convinced that the economic sanctions against Italy have not been effective and that the action already taken can only succeed if it is reinforced by the application of military sanctions. This can only mean tho end of sanctions, for if it is impossible for the League Powers to agree on the imposition of economic restrictions against an aggressor how much less possible will it bs to reach agreement on any form of military action 1 ? If this great te?t of the League's powers does fail, however, it will not be because of any inherent weakness in tho machinery but because of the unwillingness of certain members to play their part to the full. In such circumstances as those confronting the Lcrguo, half-moasures were bound to fail and every delay that was permitted inevitably weakened the prospects of success. Had it been decided from the outsat to apply complete economic sanctions there can be little doubt, that Italy would have been compelled to yield to pressure, but such steps as were taken had little more than an harassing effect and served, more than anything else, to show the difficulties of securing unanimity of action and to encourage Hignol Mussolini in the belief that if lie persisted long enough he would be able to "call the bluff" of those who were making such a half-hearted show of opposing him. The League and its members have yet. to pay the full price of their vacillation and procrastination. The protraction of the war and the continuation of the Italian advance will undoubtedly lead to more extravagant demands on the part of Italy, and the League, if it still attempts to exert its influence, will find it no easy matter, to draft

acceptable peace terms. In the meantime, the Italian methods of warfare have become more and more barbarous and the League, by refraining from action, has implicitly acquiesced in the, bombing of Red Cross units and helpless women and children and the employment of poison gas. If the League is powerless to prevent such atrocities in a comparatively isolated campaign, what hope can there be of preventing the use of similar methods in any future wars on a larger scale? More far-reaching, however, is the effect of the Italian action and the League inaction in other countries. Despite its past weaknesses, the League has had some restraining influence, but now that its impotence has been so effectively demonstrated the whole international outlook is pregnant with dangerous possibilities. Germany has openly broken her pledges and blatantly challenged the League, Austria, following her example, has reintroduced conscription and commenced to rearm, Turkey demands the return of the Dardanelles, and Japan has warned the rest of the world not to interfere with her expansionist, ambitions. If these countries persist in their demands and their avowed intentions what, in the absence of some definitely established system of collective security, is going to prevent, the world from becoming embroiled in an upheaval worse than that of twenty yeans ago, a war in which all the most ghastly of modern weapons will be used and which can only bring ruin and destruction to this so-called civilised world? If might alone is to decide the issue between Italy and Abyssinia, then it must also be the deciding factor between Prance and Germany, between Japan and Russia, and even between '.he British Empire and whatever nation or combination seeks to challenge its supremacy. These are the possibilities which may arise from the failure, if failure it finally is, of the League of Nations to stop hostilities between Italy and Abyssinia, and they are so grave that even at this Lite hour they demand a superhuman effort to establish recognition of some form Of international law which, if once established, may be recognised for all time. The statesmen in Geneva are fighting, not merely for peace in Abyssinia, but for the future peace of the world, and if they fail then •the only alternative before the nations will be to look to their own defences and prepare for the survival of the it test.