LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Evening Star, Issue 22454, 26 September 1936, Page 15

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

OPENING OF ASSEMBLY ' SPEECH BY MR EDEH Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright GENEVA, September 25. (Received September 26, at 1.30 a.m.) A packed Assembly heard Mr Eden open the general debate. He began with the statement that Britain did not want to see the nations divided into two camps. Nationally controlled propaganda and controlled criticism had stifled thought. There had been a general weakening of confidence. “ We should not allow anyone to wrest our democracy from us,” he said. There must bo toleration and international order. The two essential elements are the League machinery and the will to work it. The recent failure was due to the lack of more energetic and more effective League intervention in the early stages of the crisis.” BRITAIN’S POLICY REGIONAL PACTS FAVOURED. GENEVA, September 25. < Received September 26, at 10 a.m.) Mr Eden, at the League Assembly, ; aid the members of the Council should early show how far they were prepared to intervene in the cause of peace. It would be a powerful deter rent when military preparations were afoot if regional pacts could be . devised to strengthen the Covenant. Britain was resolved to negotiate such a pact in Western Europe. Britain would persist in her rearmament until the nations reached a limitation agreement. Not only weapons, but war mentality, must be laid aside. Senor Del Vayo, Spanish Foreign Minister, described the non-interven-tion agreement as a juridical monstrosity, amounting in practice to intervention on behalf of the rebels and a blockade against the Government. The policy of non-intervention had been entirely advantageous to the rebels. The embargo had not deprived them of anything. DEMOCRACY STILL ALIVE NEED FOR LOYALTY TO THE . LEAGUE. RUGBY, September 25. (1 jeived September 26, at noon.) Air Eden, addressing the League Assembly, said nationalism was strong and its antagonism violent. ) The standard of Jiving might'be sacrificed for the standard of armament. After centuries of experience democracy appeared to he not effete, hut enduring. Almost every.nation had repudiated war as • a means-of -settling disputes. He recommended enlargement of membership of the League, which needed' the unqualified loyalty of its members. They must facilitate the adaptation of the League machinery to new developments. He pointed to the illogicality of the rule concerning unanimity in the Council and the fact that it was necessary to have a unanimous vote before the Council was able to make a recommendation. It was important that the raw materials problem he fully discussed. If disarmament was to be real it must not only be military. He favoured the taking of immediate steps to advance the re-estahlishmeut of normal financial and economic dealings between the nations of the world. A nation did not increase respect for its own form of government by pouring scorn on those of other countries. The first rule of an ordered life between nations was faith in one’s own national tenets and tolerance of those of others. ADMISSION OF ABYSSINIA — \ LONDON, September 25. (Received September 26, at 1.5 p.m.) Mr Noel Monks, ex-Anstralian war correspondent, in Abyssinia, interviewed Haile Selassie, who said; “I' am amazed at the countries which I harcDy knew—for instance, Australia and New Zealand—which rallied to Abyssinia’s side in the League’s decision.”