Silence Makes Sanctions

In avoiding the blockade of economic sanctions imposed by League states, Italy had to think first of buying war materials from Germany, the great League outsider in Europe, and, secondly, of importing them across Switzerland and Austria.

Last week the Soviet secret service smelled in Berlin quiet British efforts to obtain by means of concessions to Germany the co-operation of Realmleader Adolf Hitler in boycotting Italy. This discovery threw the Soviet Union overnight from high gear into low so far as the League is concerned. Soviet Foreign Commissar Litvinoff, whose voice at Geneva has been loudest against Il Duce, abruptly decided not to attend the League Assembly last week when it met to approve sanctions, sending instead Vladimir Potemkin, Soviet Ambassador to France. In Moscow leading Government newsorgans charged that Britain was attempting to "bribe" not only Germany but also Japan. Since these two countries are Russia's mortal enemies, Soviet statesmen feared that the bribes might be British promises of aid and comfort should they attack the U. S. S. R.

When news reached Moscow that Manchukuo troops under Japanese officers had just attacked the Soviet frontier and killed several Red Army guards, the Soviet Press jittered anew against England. Russians read bug-eyed that the Greek Republic has been friendly to Dictator Mussolini, that last week's coup to restore George II is a cunning move by the Government of his kinsman George V to alienate Greek friendship from Italy (see p. 29).

Pflueql and Upheaval. At Geneva last week the Delegate of Switzerland, her one-time President Giuseppe Motta, inserted a small but fateful wad of gum into the League machinery by making clear that Switzerland, no matter what engagements she assumes or has assumed as a member of the League, will preserve as paramount to her safety "the historic principle of Swiss neutrality." This was a high-flown way of saying that bantamweight Switzerland must and will let middleweight Italy buy from or across her whatever Dictator Mussolini imperatively demands.

Austria was represented at Geneva last week by eloquent old Herr Emeric von Pflueql. Referring to Il Duce's prompt massing of Italian troops on the frontier of Austria, which prevented the backers of Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss' assassins from seizing the Government (TIME, Aug. 6, 1934), snowy-haired Delegate von Pflueql cried: "Austria will never forget that at a fateful moment in her history it was Italy who, in the best spirit of the League Covenant, helped by her attitude to safeguard the integrity of another League member, my country. Our friendship with Italy, destined to endure throughout time to come, is increased by the debt of gratitude that duty places upon us. My Government does not find itself in a position to associate itself with the conclusions reached by other members of the League."

Since swashbuckling Premier Field Marshal Julius Gombos of Hungary was just back from a hurried round of personal conferences with Hitler, Goring and Germany's Army leaders, the declaration at Geneva last week of Hungarian Delegate Laszlo Develics was of special interest. Said he: "Exclusion of Italy from the outlets of Hungarian trade would lead to complete upheaval of the economic and financial equilibrium of Hungary." So, in self-protection, the Hungarian Government decided to keep Italy as a good customer.

France Is Paying. In Paris the fact leaked out that Suez Canal tolls on Italian troop ships and war boats have thus far been paid entirely by French banks which apparently have been extending credit to Il Duce. Undenied in Paris were reports in fiscal journals of a joint credit to Italy totaling 750,000,000 francs ($49,500,000), by the Banque de I'Union Parisienne and the French House of Rothschild.

This situation underlay curious British efforts at Geneva last week which at one time took the guise of asking Delegates privately whether the League Assembly might not do well to give His Majesty's Government "some form of mandate" to supervise the entire League machinery of sanctions against Italy. When this British trial balloon plopped, Captain Anthony Eden, British Minister for League of Nations Affairs, took upon himself informally the chore of attending to sanctions by announcing that he will settle down at Geneva "for the duration. . . ."

No other country has a special League Minister. Their Premiers and Foreign Ministers mostly returned this week to their capitals. With lavish British diplomatic funds at his disposal, swank Captain Eden prepared for a jolly good time and if possible sweet revenge upon the Italian Dictator who lately made him appear in England a fool.*

Last week Captain Eden's toughest job was to keep French Premier Pierre Laval, who favors Italy in every possible way behind the scenes, publicly on the rails of sanctions. In this he was aided by the anti-Fascist bloc of French Radical Socialists whose potent Edouard Herriot not only trailed the Premier to Geneva last week but was physically at his side every minute. Thus M. Laval could not repeat his previous maneuver of strolling about arm-in-arm with Italian Chief Delegate Baron Pompeo Aloisi while echoing England in his public remarks (TIME, Sept. 23).

After a speech by the Fascist Baron last week which the Assembly heard in dead silence, Aloisi on the way back to his seat stopped near the French Premier for what he doubtless hoped would be half a minute of publicly friendly chat. With M. Herriot watching, M. Laval chatted unsmIling for just ten seconds.

Eden's Day. In Geneva, last week was glorious for Anthony Eden. He had planned a crushing roll call of over 50 League States, each of which was to rise in the person of its delegate and condemn Italy. On Mr. Eden's tip this roll of condemnation was announced by correspondents 24 hours in advance. It received world publicity, made no small dent in public opinion. Then the nimble young Briton who plays tennis and publicity even better than diplomacy had to content him self with quite different procedure. The roll call of denunciation was never held. Instead, 51 League States made no objection, thus giving "silent consent," to the League Council's decision earlier in the week which found Italy guilty of "Aggression and so made application of sanctions automatic under the League Covenant (TIME, Oct. 14).

It remained for the Assembly to decide what sort of sanctions to apply. On this crucial issue the Assembly appointed a Committee of 51, so deliberately unwieldy that it must be dominated by a few Great Powers, and thereupon adjourned last week, leaving Anthony Eden on top of the League of Nations, as Premier Laval was forced to rush home to his political fences.

"Proposal No. 1." With British skill the first move of the Committee of 51 was to enmesh the U. S. psychologically in their procedure. Fortnight before President Roosevelt had issued an embargo list of goods which the U. S. will not sell to either Italy or Ethiopia (TIME, Oct. 7). Snatching up this list and adding "powder and explosives,'' which the President did not think worth mentioning, the Committee recommended to all League States that they refuse to sell to Italy anything on the list, and that they sell to Ethiopia whatever that Empire wants.

Thus the U. S. and the League were made to appear to act in concert last week, an impression U. S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull strengthened by snatching from a honeymoon Hugh Smith Gumming Jr., his Executive Assistant, and planting the bridegroom in Geneva, apparently also "for the duration. . . ."

Many States will soon act in the sense to which the League Assembly gave sIlent consent, but sanctions actually applied last week were somewhat picayune. When the British Post Office was asked to relay a speech by Baron Pompeo Aloisi to U. S. listeners via their radio equipment, His Majesty's Government, despite their vaunted devotion to the right of free speech, refused, and Italy's spokesman was shushed.

On their own, thousands of British shopkeepers spunkily imposed sanctions on buyers who looked to them like what King George's newest Governor-General calls "Dagos". When London's No. 1 "Dago," the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Royal Italian Government, tried to buy 100 shells for his skeet gun last week, the London sporting goods shop patronized by His Excellency icily refused to sell them.

Proposal No. 2. Tempers snapped at Geneva as Captain Eden tried to exclude even the League Secretariat's minor functionaries of Italian blood from proceedings and pushed attempts at secrecy so far that other delegates in retaliation slipped to correspondents in one day eight copies of the "secret draft resolutions." Arriving on the scene, Russia's Litvinoff snorted that nations were slipping in so many "reservations" to what they purported to approve that realities were growing dim. The British whipped through in some sort of shape "Proposal No. 2'' recommending a credit crackdown upon Italy which British bankers organized informally weeks ago. Captain Eden's entourage said he was "out to break the lira."

Work on "Proposal No. 3" led British and French experts into a contest over what sort of economic sanctions should be advised which became so involved that a chuckling minor delegate called it "an intellectual treat." In general the French tried to blunt whatever sanctions the British proposed, but in particular whatever trade sanctions would favor France were admitted by the French to have merit, while the British fought exclusively for sanctions favoring Britain. In this venal contest Italy appeared at times all but forgotten and Christian Leaguophiles observed with sorrow that money changers seemed to dominate the Temple.

*In one of the most fateful encounters of modern times Mr. Eden rushed to Rome and offered to settle the Ethiopian crisis by a procedure which involved some cession of British territory (TIME, July 8). In effect Il Duce told his caller that the young man was a fool if he thought the House of Commons would cede the remotest scrap of British territory for such a purpose. Such was Benito Mussolini's contempt that when Minister Eden left no Italian of rank equal to his came to the station to see him off. This Eden could have borne had not the House of Commons, when he reached London, behaved exactly as the Dictator had thought it would, thus piercing the fastidious young aristocrat's pride to the quick.

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