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After the dangerous jamboree was over, His Majesty announced with relief that he had "demonstrated to skeptics that the Imperial Ethiopian Government exercises complete control over the supposedly restive warriors, who have exhibited a degree of obedience which has confounded their critics and surprised their friends."
Cocktails & Sanctions. Ever since President Woodrow Wilson's ideals congealed into the League of Nations its best friends have rated it brittle. Fearing their cherished instrument would snap like an icicle if used against a Great Power, League statesmen have pussyfooted for 15 long years. They let Poland conquer a good third of Lithuania and seize its then capital Vilna, which Poland still holds. They let Japan master four rich Chinese provinces. No sanctions were imposed to stop bloodshed between Bolivia and Paraguay. Though the League's own charter or Covenant is part of the Treaty of Versailles, the League played dead when Adolf Hitler violated the Treaty's military clauses (TIME, March 25), played deader when Britain and Germany united in tearing up its naval clauses (TIME, June 24). But last week, the Mediterranean having been filled with British war boats, the League sprang to life against Italy at the resurrecting torch of Might.
Earlier this year, when Italy was making the larger show of Might, Geneva weaseled around all Ethiopia's appeals, clear up to the ingenious decision by League Arbiter Nicolas Politis on the original Italo-Ethiopian armed clash at Ualual (TIME, Sept. 16) that neither side and nobody was to blame. Last week Might tipped Geneva's scale against Italy at a secret conference of League bigwigs ending at 11:10 a. m. At 11:40 the Council of the League was to make in public the decision reached in private. Two minutes before this public session began, Italy's delegation, led by eagle-bald Baron Pompeo Aloisi, ceremoniously retreated. Retiring to the League's bar the Italians each grasped a cocktail, formed themselves into a stiff circle and grimly upped bottoms in a silent toast, then withdrew to their hotel.
Meanwhile the voice of Might was gracefully made audible to the Council by Britain's handsome young Captain Anthony Eden. Said he simply, "We are now working under Article XV." These seven words perhaps opened a new volume of world history in which the League may prove to have the courage of its Covenant.
In the Council's movements last week there was more than one deft finesse,* but by acting under Article XV the following trains of events were made possible. First, the Council, sitting as a Committee of Thirteen (the Italian Councilman and the Ethiopian Delegate being excluded), must draft a fresh League report on Italy & Ethiopia, and last week Communist Councilman Litvinoff of Russia said candidly that he will try to have it made much harsher toward Fascist Italy than the previous report of the Committee of Five (TIME, Sept. 30).
Technically the Committee of Thirteen has until next spring to draw up its report and under Article XII all League States, including Italy and Ethiopia, are bound not to go to war in a given dispute until three months after the Council has rendered its report. Councilmen said last week that they expect to report within a fortnight.