“POWERS EMBARRASSED"

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19134, 1 October 1936, Page 15

“POWERS EMBARRASSED "

NEW ZEALAND ATTITUDE

LEAGUE AND ABYSSINIA

SYDNEY PRESS COMMENT

SYDNEY, Sept, 25

Commenting on the New Zealand attitude towards Abyssinia at. the Assembly of t.he League of Nations, the Sydney Morning Herald remarks, editorially: The newly-appointed New Zealand High Commissioner in London, the affable ‘'Big Bill” Jordan, attending the League Assembly fully charged with his Government's passion for international justice in the case of Abyssinia, found himself in a position to embarrass delicate plans for reconciliation of the lead'ing Powers of Europe, and boldly proceeded to embarrass them in this ethical cause. It is true that a. credentials committee differed on the -question of accepting the credentials of certain delegates, ostensibly for Abyssinia, but, since that country has been/ conquered midi its Gtovornmenl) lias departed, rather delegates for the moribund Aibyssinion cause.

But New Zealand, with Mr. Jordan’s bold demand before the League, to know “who denied the Abyssinian Emperor’s right to fight his case,” took the limelight : New Zealand, by count, of population the smallest State in the League and the remotest, .but by virtue of membership of the British Commonwealth able to arrest special attention. o*ur cable messages tell the story. Mr. Eden sat by, looking glum; French comment expresses bitterness and mortification at the offence given to Italy and the nndoing of much diplomatic work for the’ Locarno conference: Mr. Jordan suns himself in the satisfaction that his Government's Views are “endorsed by a majority of flic Assembly.” So Abyssinia enters the Assembly and brings friction anew in its train. An Abyssinian delegate in.Votkes the Almighty to strengthen tho League to make .amends for. its past errors; Italy will apparently remain outside with Germany, to damn the League and 1 all its works, its proposed' reform, and tho moves for a new European understanding. It may not go so far as. all this. Both Britain and France stall have diplomatic means of persuading 'both Italy and Germany to come to a conference which has nothing to do with the present League and its current pre-occupa-tion.

Meanwhile, we arc arrested toy the sight, of New Zealand in this unexpected limelight—at a moment, too, when our Australasian neighbour is about to replace this Commonwealth in a seat on tiie League Council; and wo recall Macaulay's prophecy, in one of his famous Essays, of the future day “when some travelling New Zealander shall, in the midst of a. vast solitude, take his stand on a, broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s." Is it destiny, or merely the price to be paid (and wliat a price!) for the satisfaction, to the last drop of European blood, of the equitable rights ot an unfortunate African community?