NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE meeting of the League Assembly at Geneva has been, and could not but be, a melancholy affair. The abandonment of sanctions was made inevitable by the declared views of Great Britain and France, supported on Wednesday by Russia and Canada, and while there will be widespread emotional sympathy with the strong pronouncement of the South African delegate, Mr. Te Water, in favour of the continuance of sanctions at any cost, it has to be recognised that past mistakes cannot be retrieved at this eleventh hour and that nothing short of direct military action would get the Italians out of Abyssinia and re-establish the Emperor Haile Seilassie. It may well be true that, as the British Minister, Sir Sidney Barton, observed on Wednesday, all that Italy actually holds effectively is two narrow strips of the country, but the whole national prestige has been engaged, and League States which would not use all the means and economic pressure at their disposal when they might could have no hope of making their power felt without military action now. The Emperors own speech could not have been heard by the Assembly without humiliation, and there was only the most limited consolation to be derived from Mr. Eden's declaration that the original verdict on Italy's aggression stood, and that there could be no recognition of the annexation of Abyssinia by " this Assembly." The question whether " this " in such a context denotes time or place is of the first importance.
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