A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
APPARENTLY the famous Article XVI of the League of Nations is to be invoked first by Italy herself, for Signor Mussolini is credited with the intention of present- ing his case against ;Abyssinia at the League Council and proposing that the Council take the unprecedented step of expelling that country from the League. The only passage in the Covenant under which such action could be taken is the last clause of Art. XVI, which reads : " Any Member of the League which has violated any covenant of the League may be declared to be no longer a Member of the League by a vote of the Council concurred in by the representatives of all the other Members of the League represented thereon."
One of the earliest and most flagrant violations of the Covenant was committed by Italy in 1923, when Signor Mussolini ordered the bombardment and occupation of Corfu. Any shortcoming of Abyssinia in the matter of suppressing slavery are trivial compared with that, and it will be astonishing if the proposal to expel Abyssinia secures a single vote except Italy's. The clause was obviously meant to apply to the kind of defiance of the Covenant which would warrant the 'application of economic and perhaps military sanctions: * * * *
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