THE WORLD AND GENEVA
THE situation that faces first the Council and then the Assembly of the League of Nations is, in certain respects, astonishing. The machinery of conciliation and peaceful settlement is in full opera- tion. The procedure set up at the last Council meeting for disposing of the differences between Italy and Abyssinia has been duly and punctually carried out. The Commission appointed to deal with the incident at Wal Wal, which precipitated the whole crisis, has with the assistance of a fifth arbitrator, M. Politis, reached a unanimous report; and dis- posed of the affair by deciding that no responsibility can be laid on the shoulders of either country for the fracas. Mr. Eden and M. Laval, whose intention to seek a solution in concert with Signor Mussolini's appointed representative was announced at the last Council meeting, have reported the extensive economic concessions to Italy which they were prepared to press on the Emperor of Abyssiniapresumably not without some ground for believing that the Emperor was Willing to assent to them. And Signor Mussolini him- self at last conforms to the ordained procedure of the League, of which his country is a prominent mem- ber, and presents his indictment against Abyssinia in extenso at the League Council table.
All this is exactly as it should be. The alternative to war holds the field, and the danger, even the possi- bility, of war is to all appearance excluded: A State which sought to gain its ends by arms while submitting its case to peaceful arbitrament would be guilty of crime even more flagitious than a sudden attack on an unsuspecting neighbour. If Signor Mussolini is determined to put himself more irretrievably in the wrong than ever, and to rob even Italy's would-be friends of the last argument in her defence, he can achieve that by attacking Abyssinia at the very moment when he is submitting the case against Abyssinia to the League Council. By the act of sub-. mitting it he recognises the League's authority. By refusing to await; or to accept, the League's decision and going to war instead he would be declaring himself the foe, not of Abyssinia—that has become merely incidental—but of the League of Nations and the States composing it, and of all those principles and ideals in international relations which the League exists to proclaim and defend. • • But facts must be faced and illusions rejected. Italy's• methodical and deliberate preparations for war in East • Africa continue unchecked: Signor Mussolini, with a million men under arms and in the midst of manoeuvres designed to demonstrate his country's capacity to fight simultaneously in two continents if need be, seeks to deter the League from discharging its recognised duty by declaring that Italy will regard the imposition of sanctions as an act of war. A good deal of that may be dis-, counted. It will soon be easier for Signor Mussolini to display millions under arms than millions in his Treasury. And his reaction to sanctions will obviously depend on what nations unite in imposing them.: The League cannot and will, nut •he, !deterred!: by defiant words. It cannot be, for it is clear to everyone, that if it did its utility as :a political instrument in the international field would be at an end. This country might or might not continue its membership, —some of those who are its strongest supporters today would be the first to demand Great Britain's dissociation. from a piece of futile hypocrisy—but at the best all enthusiasm for the League would vanish and the country would be driven back on the desperate and disastrous policy of a hopeless attempt at isolation buttressed by a ruinous and equally hopeless attempt at predominance in armaments.
That, for Great Britain, is the issue at Geneva this week, and it . is very necessary for France and other League States to know with what gravity, and with what full comprehension of the possibilities the country is facing it. There are no illusions: It is a calumny to suggest. that talk • of sanctions. is no more than the light chatter of enthusiasts.
Some such irresponsibility there may be here and, there. But the truths emphasised by Sir Arthur' Salter on a later page of this issue--most valuably and opportunely emphasised--are fully present to the mind of every Cabinet Minister and of every' publicist in a responsible position who has ever discussed the situation at all. If this country does. feel driven in company. with others to commit itself to the use of sanctions against Italy or any other Covenant-breaker it will be under a profound sense of moral compulsion, and in the spirit of the exclamation wrung from King George at the moment when last his country felt constrained to pit itself.. against a pledge-breaker in defence of the weak, " My. Gods' Mr. Page, what else could we do ? " • • That, it may be repeated, is the single issue. • The League must be solicitous for its honour, but it can afford to disregard mere prestige. What concerns it is that the Abyssinian dispute should be settled. without war. If it is • settled outside Geneva, by, direct negotiation, or with the, help of countries like France and Britain as was attempted at Paris, the essential will • have been achieved. But since the prospect of a solution along those lines is.unlikely, it is well to recognise 'what the 'League stands to gain in this crisis as well as what it stands to lose. Senator Pope, who is now . visiting Geneva, has no official status, but he is a • representative Senator (incidentally a Republican) and a representative American. And when he states that if the League succeeds in preventing a war between Italy and Abyssinia it will start in his country a wave, of sentiment that would set America swinging back towards the ideal of world co-operation, he is voicing the spokew.or unspoken thoughts of nine men out of ten in the United States. Germany is watching in 'a different spirit, but her future attitude towards the League will be . determined equally by its success or failure now. • • .
But there is one danger at Geneva that may be hardest of all :to. cope with. Signor Mussolini, it still appears, is resolved on war at any cost and in violation of any pledge. But he may , be content with a • limited war, involving no more than revenge for the-forty-year-old defeat .of Adowa. .There will evidently be some temptation—there are plenty of signs of it in France—to allow him his hollovi triumph over a virtually unarmed enemy, and then Purchase his desistence from further slaughter by concessions going as far as those offered at Paris or further. That solution would be, very nearly the worst of all. Concessions extorted by the threat of war, or by war within circumscribed -limits, are as alien to the whole spirit and principle of international decency, expressed and defined in the League of Nations COVenant, as the war of naked rapine and annexation which the Italian papers arc acclaiming. The wisdom, the courage and the skill of British statesmen is being put to a stern test today. But Mr. Eden at Geneva, Mr. Baldwin in London, and Sir Samuel Hoare either there or here,. can rest assured that they enjoy the nation's full' confidence.
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