ITALY'S CASE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 25, Issue 3760, 25 May 1936, Page 8

ITALY'S CASE

WHY WAR WAS MADE.

STATEMENT BY DR. DESSOULES Dr. M. Dessoules, Italian Consul in New Zealand, presented to members of the Palmerston North Luncheon Club last week the opinion of the Italian people on the Abyssinian question. If the public opinion of New Zealand was to be gauged from the observations of its Press and from the current of conversation, it was fully evident that Italy was, in this country, regarded as an aggressor country, said the speaker, a country which had been punished by the League of Nations, and which deserved its punishment. Conversely, public opinion in Italy regarded the sentiments expressed by the League as a violation of the letter and the spirit of the Covenant, and was convinced that there had been a great injustice done to the Italian people. The divergence between these two opinions was so extreme that it was difficult for people in -this country to realise how intense was the Italian conviction that theirs was a just cause and why Italy had taken the course on which she was engaged.

“Acts of Provocation.”

Was Italy technically an aggressor State? Geneva jurists held that aggression consisted of violation of Article 16 of the Covenant, but Dr. Dessoules affirmed that Italy did not stand convicted on this ground. Eminent diplomatists had said that aggression to constitute a breach of this article must be unprovoked. That was declared at Geneva only last year, and who could say that Italy had not been provoked against Abyssinia?- The lengthy memorandum which Italy had prepared for submission to the League clearly 'established proof of Abyssinia’s repeated acts of provocation against Italy, but no cognisance of this was taken by the League sitting as a tribunal on the dispute. The memorandum had cited numerous outrages on Italian life, property, and interests, culminating in the notorious affair at Walwal in December, 1934, which had been prepared for months by the Abyssinian authorities. This incident Italy submitted to arbitration, but it led to no results, although the arbiters could find no fault with Italy’s case.. On January 29 of last year Italy clearly indicated to Great Britain that, in view of the steady importations of arms into Abyssinia, the ocurrence of further incidents, and a definite menace to Italian interests in Eritrea, she would be compelled to put a stop to this contiunued provocation Shortly afterwards, during the Stresa negotiations, when pledges were being made

for the joint security of Europe, not one word was said to Italy regarding the Abyssinian question. Surely, then, Italy was entitled to assume that she could get satisfaction frpm Abyssinia, by peaceful means if possible, but otherwise if necessary. There had been no intention on Italy’s part, even after the incident at Walwal, of conducting a campaign, but this later became inevitable. He raggresion was not unprovoked, and she therefore could not be arraigned under Article 16. This inalienable fact was recognised even at Geneva. “But,” said the Consul, “I can show you that they took other steps to stab Italy in the back, using Abyssinia as a weapon.” The Decision on Sanctions. The decision branding Italy an aggressor, and on which the system of sanctions depended, had, to be legal, to be unanimous. As there were actually dissentient or abstaining Powers when the voting was taken, the whole sanctions machinery had never been judicially legal, and was not even now. Was it any great wonder, therefore, that Italy regarded sanctions as being in violation of the spirit and letter of the Covenant? And being condemned, instead of before, she had been asked if she had anything to say.

So convinced were those in authority at Geneva that Italy could not in any shadow of equity be defined as an aggressor under Article 16, that she was finally judged according to Article 12. Actually, she had submitted the matter to arbitration, as this article demanded, but had been denounced for not refraining from warfare for at least three months after the outcome of arbitration. She had opened the campaign one month after the conclusion of arbitration, and this was the sole breach which she had committed. Could Delay No Longer. “Yet circumstances were such that we could not possibly delay longer,” said M. Dessoules. The Emperor of Abyssinia had already given the order of mobilisation to 1,000,000 men, of whom 700,000 were armed, and 500,000 fully equipped. He had promised them Italian Somaliland and Eritrea as their reward for victory. The dangers were such that no nation could in sanity delay longer. Italy violated the form, not the spirit of the Covenant, that was all. The

real violation of the Covenant had been done at Geneva, and the League had used two weights and measures —one for Japan and one for Italy. “We Italians have a deep sense of injustice over the way our country has been treated,” said the speaker. “That is what .has made the Italian people as one man behind Mussolini, ready to fight against ail odds for a cause they know to be right.” Answering a question after he had traced further aspects of the political situation in his address, M. Dessoules said that Italy had not lost faith in the idealism of the League. She believed it must be possible to find a peaceful solution of-disputes, but not that they could be solved without due reference to the facts. None could pretend that the League to-day represented anything like a universal opinion. It has been made chiefly the protector of the status quo, but status quo meant stagnatiop. Life, on the contrary, was a principle of progress, and so the League uiust change, too. There were in it elements on which real justice could be built.