Evening star., 1932-04-21
Higghlights on the Wide World
Excerpts From Newspapers of Other Lands

| II it had only been determined, in CO.
operation with the United States of
America, to apply economic and f1nan-
cial measures against Japan.
THE question can, therefore, be
raised in all seriousness whether the
provisions of the League covenant are
adequate. In reality Article 16 places
the necessary means of coercion at the
disposal of the League, if the powers
behind it are really desirous of gaining
respect for the covenant. Article is
already involves a legal obligation for
the members Of the League Of Nations
to take action against an aggreSsor, not
only with economic, but also with mill
tary means. 1t should, therefore. be
considered sufficient to apply and de-
velop provisions of the covenant al
ready existing. Not that the League of
Nations, to possess sufficient strength
against all violators of the law, would
have to be backed by an enormous DO
lice force, which strange idea has been
seriously proposed by parties in favor
would simply substitute League mill
tarism for the militarism of Individual
states. and the League of Nations
would have to be really strong to use
it. A weak League of Nations would
soon find its army, if it had one, in the
power of exterior military forces.
But, though the object of the League
of Nations must be to carry on its work
without military means CT coercion, that
ultimate object may not be lost were
a League army to be modified for the
sake of alleged immediate advantages,
remembering that military sanctions
are at best only temporary expedients,
and that the best international secur-
ity rests upon the reform of political
and moral conditions within the League.
If it cannot be considered aiming at
tranquility by putting world police
man over an unjustly regulated order
Of things, at any rate 1t can be JuStl-
fled by the contemporary inability OF
the nations to agree in political, eco
nomic and military spheres.
What the League of Nations re-
quireS, then. is really not a permanent
international police force, but REIN
forcement of its political and moral
foundations, so that provisions of the
covenant already existing may be
strengthened and applied. The crea-
ton of permanent police force, how
ever, would be equivalent to the doubt
that humanity can ever attain to the
ideals of international harmony and
brotherhood without coercive warfare. "
\ X \
Famine Conditions
Revealed in Dalmatia.
La Macedoine, Geneva (Exterrito-
rial anti-governmental publications.:
The Croatian organ Domobran an
nounces that famine reigns in Dalma-
tia and that, in spite of the stocks of
wheat existing in Jugoslavia, bread costs
five dinars a loaf % cents, while in
Italy, which is not wheat-producing
country, in comparison with the crop of
Jugoslavia, large loaf is sold for two
dinars (3h cents). Because Of this
difference in the cost of bread, reports
the Domobran, several Croatian
peasants decided to cross the frontier TO
buy bread in Italy. This excursion,
however, cost some of the peasants
their lives, for upon their return home
to Jugoslavia they were fired upon by
the frontier guards without first receiv-
as;,v ing warning that they were under sur
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