The Indefensible Embargo The maintenance of the British embargo on
the export of arms to Abyssinia will have attained almost the dimensions of an Unforgivable sin, even if, as is likely; the embargo is removed before these lines appear. For the plain and shameful fact is that Abyssinians fighting against a declared violator of the Covenant have for the past week been dying because the British Government has for two months been 'denying their country the means . of self-defence. : The embargo was not iinposed as any part of a general League policy. It was based on some private understanding with France. It con- stituted in effect (even though the embargo applied to both parties) an utterly indefensible discrimination against a small country threatened openly and over a period of more than half a year with lawless aggression by a Great Power. Whatever the grounds alleged for the imposition of the embargo, it ought to have been removed the day the first Italian soldier crossed the Abyssinian frontier. That might have been too late to help Abyssinia much, but it would at least have done something to 'clear the British Government of the one serious reproach attach, ing to it in its handling of the whole dispute.
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