The Arms Embargo .
The decision of the Government to proclaim an embargo on the export of arms to Japan is to be cordially wel- comed. It is the obvious corollary of the unanimous vote of February 24th, declaring Japan to be an aggressor and a violator of the League of Nations Covenant. So far as the embargo applies equally to China it is impossible to justify it. There may be practical difficulties about sending arms to China. It may be that they will prove insuperable. If so, then 'China, for that reason and for that reason alone, must go without munitions from British factories. But that is a totally different matter from including Japan and China simultaneously in the same ban. To say that a particular country like
Great Britain cannot discriminate between the two com- batants is simple nonsense. Great Britain discriminated between them once for all a week ago by casting the vote that designated Japan as an aggressor and. China as the victim of aggression. From that everything else follows. The whole essence of the post-War collective system, of which the League of Nations Covenant is the considered expression, is that when the League's decision has once been given all League States shall, so far as practicable,. furnish aid and comfort to the victim and withhold it from the aggressor. No League State can be neutral in a conflict in which one party is a violator of the Covenant. Sir Jolm Simon's eloquence is ill applied in attempts to undermine that wholesome doctrine.
