Evening star., 1935-10-21
Ten Days of Grace.

Anxious days of European tension ana
alarm have been succeeded by cooler
tempers in Rome, London and Paris. An
atmosphere now prevails which mini
mizes, if it does not entirely remove, the
danger of Anglo-Italian war, threat
ened breach between Great Britain and
France has been averted, and the way
reopened for conciliation in the Italo-
Ethiopian conflict While diplomacy was
moving swiftly to avert the supreme
crisis of a general conflagration, the
League of Nations marched to final
action respecting sanctions.
Most significant in these formal steps
to stop the war it could not prevent Is
the Leagues decision to allow ten days
to elapse before actually setting sane
tions machinery in motion. In effect,
II Duce is given until october 81 to
decide whether Italy should risk finan-
cial and economic war with fifty of the
worlds nations or avail itself OF the
opportunity of a negotiated peace with
Ethiopia. Many indications support the
view that craftsmanship will continue
its efforts to avert the incalculable con-
sequences of sanctions, which could lead,
in the last analysis, to blockade OF
Italy's coasts, recourse which would
almost automatically precipitate war and
could only end in Mussolini's downfall.
The League has now adopted the fol-
lowing punitive program: Cd An en-
barge on shipment of implements OF war
to Italy. plus the lifting of restrictions
on such shipments to Ethiopia; 90
complete credit boycott of Italy; CD a
''buy nothing" boycott against all Italian
products; "a refusal of League members
to sell to Italy key products required to
manufacture war materials, and 60
mutual assistance to League members
that suffer from trade stoppage. On
October 81 the Geneva Committee, which
formulated these sanctions, will decide
exactly how and when to put them into
force. The League will, meantime, well
come any communications the United
States and other non on-members care to
make, looking to air-tight sanctions.
Unless America, Germany and Japan
Join in measures to bring Mussolini to
his knees, sanctions will be lacking in
full effectiveness. President Roosevelt's
legal powers in the premises are restricted
by the neutrality resolution Of Congress.
He has already gone far in bringing
moral pressure to bear on American busi-
ness not to be lured into profitable trade
with the belligerents and thus handicap
collective efforts to restore peace.
The world will wait anxiously to see
whether reason descends upon the
Palazzo Venezia before it is too late.
That Mussolini possesses the sinews for
operations in Africa for some time to
come is doubtless true. But the Ethi-
opians have not yet really begun to fight.
Their strategy is to draw the foe farther
and farther from his bases into that
mountain and jungle terrain, where
guerrilla warfare can get in its deadly
work. Practically all authorities agree
that campaign completely to subjugate
Halle Selassie means months of fighting
for Italy. While it is going on, sanctions
will be having their strangling effect
upon distracted italian people. Sooner
or later it will be their very existence
that will be at stake, and, with it, the
life of the Fascist state and of the
Mussolini dictatorship. Those are
specters designed to give the Roman
war lord plenty of heart-searching dur
ing his ten days of grace.