Evening star., 1938-01-28
Article XVI on Trial.

Article XVI OF the League Covenant
which provides for sanctions and which
mad share in Keeping the United States
from ratlfying the Treaty of Versailles.
IS now on trial for its life at Geneva.
whether to retain, dilute or abolish If
Is the principal business before the one
hunoredth session of the Council Only
Gay or two ago, in the maiden pro-
nouncement of his reconstructed cab-
NETS foreign policy, French Premier
Chautemps described it as the question
essential to the very future of the
Covenant"
Article XVI became an acute issue in
1882, when Japan went into Manchuria:
again. Tour years later, when the AS
sembly branded Italy an aggressor in
Ethiopia, and finally in 1887, when Japan
once more violated Chinese territory. In
none Of these cases were sanctions in
voked and enforced 100 per cent. Be-
cause OF British refusal to act on the
stlmson proposal of united action on the
Manchurlan occasion, that fragrant de-
nance OF international law was virtually
ignored, though Japan, resenting even
Geneva's later mild chastsement in the
form OF the Lytton report, subsequently,
left the League. Italy's Ethiopian ad-
venture led to certain economic sane
tions, but, as they did not embargo oil
and were not adhered to by several of
her continental neighbors Mussolini's
military operations suffered no vital
hindrance. Japans present war on
China has proceeded without sanctions,
inside or outside the League.
Three Geneva Council members
Poland, Rumania and Switzerland-ar
nov moving to draw the teeth" of the
League by doing away with sanctions.
They expect to be supported by other
states, including Austria, Hungary.
Yugoslavia. the Netherlands and Sweden.
Great Britain and France, anxious to
perpetuate even a pusillanimous League
for their own balance of power purposes,
are bent on preventing emasculation of
the Covenant by amputation of Article
XVI. To that end Foreign Secretary
Eden and Foreign Minister Delbos are
maneuvering desperately at Geneva.
They are reported to have worked on
their Polish and Rumanian colleagues
with such effect that sanctions may be
kept and the Leagues precarious ex-
istence prolonged, If not preserved.
Ominous is the fact that Geneva's
fortunes are in the descendant not only
among its sworn foes, Japan, Germany
and Italy, and their satellites, but
among the Leagues avowed friends, like
the Swiss. the Dutch and the Scandi-
navans. The underlying cause of
threatened detection is the demonstrated
failure Of the real Geneva powers, Britain
and France, to make sanctions effective
in practice. The countries which would
scrap Article XVI evidently have made
up their minds that mere paper pledges
to exercise military force or economic
pressure dsdlASt an aSSTeSSOr mlgnC as
well go into the basket reserved for
waste paper. Another reason is that
small states adjacent to Germany and
Italy frankly shrink from counting the
fate Of Belgium in 1914, in case the
League should ever go to war to punish
an aggressor.
Comnronnise Geneva's g time tried ran,
edy in distress, may be invoked in the
form Of a proposal to let each country
do what it pleases about sanctions. That,
Of course, would be only one way of
killing them altogether. 1t might save
the face of the League, but 1t would de-
stroy the soul.