16 APRIL 1937, Page 2

M. Titulescu's League Plan Though M. Titulescu, the former Foreign

Minister of Rumania is at present out of office, no one doubts that he will again be a force in his own country and in international affairs. Considerable importance therefore attaches to his views on a reformed League of Nations, as outlined in a lecture given on Monday at Cap Martin. His fundamental principle was universal economic sanctions coexisting with regional military sanctions, together with an international economic agreement, which he regards as the indispensable basis of peace. No " reform " of the League, it may be observed, is needed to give reality to this plan. Universal economic sanctions are already mandatory for League members, and military sanctions, which are not, can be provided for in agreements accessory to the Covenant, like the old Locamo Treaty or the treaties binding members of the Little Entente. The plan, in fact, broadly represents the policy of the British Government, but if it is to be of any value it is essential that the economic sanctions shall be drastic—Marshal de Bono's singularly naive narrative of the Abyssinian campaign shows how completely the situation would have been changed if the sanctions ban had covered petrol, as it should have done—and that while definite military obligations may be only regional there shall be no suggestion that that necessarily means abjuring joint military action against an aggressor elsewhere. But the Titulescu plan needs one addition. Means must somehow be found of making the League an effective instrument of peaceful change.

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