Evening star., 1936-04-19
RHINELAND CRISIS SEEN
DAMAGING TO LEAGUE
Bargaining Between Countries Regard
ed Inevitable as Settlement-Ceneva
Must Prepare for New Role.


stages until II Duce surrendered.
However Mr.. Laval, then prime
minister of France, resisted and de-
layed the movement for reasons which
need not be recalled here. Enforce
ment of the embargo upon oil. which
would have precipitated a decision,
was postponed, for various reasons and
accidents, until last month. Then
suddenly the main attention of the
governments concerned had to be
shifted to the violent step taken by
Adolf Hitler, to the summary destruc-
ton of Saint Locarno.
Henceforward, the undertaking OF
the League. as regards Eastern Africa
and the Mediterranean, must be Seri-
ously impaired. If Italy happens to
succumb in her colonial venture, this
will be the outcome of developments
outside Geneva-the lay of the land,
the fighting spirit of the Ethiopians
themselves, the arduous problem OF
transport and supply, The League
can claim to have quickened the
process of financial exhaustion in
Italy, but the achievement is out OF
all proportion to the means at the
disposal of collective action"
AS to the bitter international con-
troversy in the Rhineland-a contro-
versy attended with the most extreme
dangers to peace-nobody can fore
tell. vet, what its solution will be.
However, one fact stands forth very
strikingly. The League, as such, has
been pushed to the background.
Whatever settlement is reached very
likely will issue from the bargaining
between England, Italy, France, Bel
gium and Germany. And this bar
gaining has more to do with consid-
erations of political opportunism than
with the abstract rules Of the Cove
nant Let us merely observe that the
actual or projected military alliances
between England, France, Belgium
and Italy loom larger in the picture
than everything else put together.
Repercussions Of War.
There is something else that seems
never to have had due consideration.
In all the comments about article ~
of the Covenant-about the obllga-
tions which devolve upon the member
states of the League to safeguard the
territorial integrity and the political
independence" of every one of them
it has been pointed out many times
that it might prove an exacting duty
for a European power to go to the
assistance of Afghanistan or OF CHINA
But it has not been so vividly realized
that a war breaking out in a given
part of the world, apart from the
tendency to spread to neighborlne
countries directly or indirectly con-
cerned-which was fairly obvious
might also provide a power far from
the theater of hoStilities with ar
opportunity to carry out its own
designs.
For instance, the very fact that the
British squadrons must still be KEEP
in the Mediterranean and that the
long g-standing quarrel between thu
London cabinet and the Egyptian Ma
tionalists has been raised to fever
pitch: the consequent relative Cf tenn
porary) helplessness Of Britain IN the
north of Europe; the redoubled senS'
of its own military importance which
now pervades the whole United King
dom-these facts certainly account
for all the wobblings and vacillationi
of the foreign Office in its dealings with
France and Germany.
The Italo- Ethiopian conflict ha.
made it clear that the enforcement
of article 10, even in the most pro-
pitious circumstances, might be be.
yond the strength or the will Of The
Geneva association. But the conf1ict
in the Rhineland brings with it tn,
further lesson that anyhow the League
cannot be expected to face two situa'
tions calling for drastic measures al
the same time.
What will become Of u.s." said the
Yugoslav delegates only the other day
"if, having already waived our trade
with Italy for the sake of rescuins
Ethiopia, we are now called upon tt
stop our exchange of goods with Ger
many? Against the Hitlerian Reicf
we are quite ready to resort to mill
tary coercion, but we certainly ough
not to be urged to apply economic
sanctions!'
Let us suppose that, within the mex
two or three weeks, a new case o
territorial aggression Is reported. An!
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