(3 of 5)
After the report is in, if it be accepted by one disputant (say Ethiopia) and rejected by the other (say Italy), then if, but only if, the rejector makes war upon the acceptor, the whole constellation of League States is bound under Article XI to take action "deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations."
"Sanctions Mean War!" Such action is called in League parlance "invoking sanctions." In law a sanction is any measure applied to a wrongdoer to make him comply with what the community has made right and legal. Sanctions contemplated by the Covenant of the League are of four kinds: 1) moral and diplomatic measures, such as recalling all diplomats accredited to the wrong-doing State; 2) financial and economic measures, such as refusing further credit; 3) international boycott, to deprive the wrongdoer of all trade; and 4) force, or the declaration of war on the wrongdoer by League States.
Both super-pacific Sir Austen Chamberlain, onetime British Foreign Secretary and Nobel Peace Prizeman, and super-militant Benito Mussolini have loudly declared in the present crisis that ''Sanctions mean War!" Once the League's nicely calculated scale of penalties begins to be applied, tempers must soon be lost all around and blood will begin to flow. Last week, though the first step toward sanctions had been taken under Article XV, alternative possibilities were more numerous than neophytes not familiar with League loopholes could imagine. For example the Committee of Thirteen could draft a report such that Ethiopia might reject. Italy accept and the League be compelled to let Italy and other States conduct a war of sanctions against Ethiopia in the role of aggressor or Italy could withdraw from the League, as Japan did when threatened by a Council report, also under Article XV (TIME, April 3, 1933).
Friend Britain. Obviously, despite the efforts of British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to have the League of Nations appear to be taking all important actions in the Ethiopian crisis last week, those actions were being taken by His Majesty's Government.
This notably appeared at Mocha, Red Sea port of the Arabian land of Yemen. Its ruler, the Imam, has been pressed by Italy for weeks to permit Mocha to be used as a port for hospitalization and convalescence of Italian soldiers stricken with tropical diseases in Eritrea. Last week an Italian Naval flotilla sailed into Mocha to exert further pressure, whereat the Imam, wasting no time in appeals to Geneva, begged directly for British help. In a few hours British war boats from Aden raced into Mocha, overawed the Italian flotilla which withdrew. The British returned to Aden. Two days later the Italian ships were back, the Imam again yelled for British help, and again His Majesty's war boats from Aden dispersed the Italians.
Naval experts called Britain's continued Naval demonstration in the Mediterranean last week the world's greatest massing of sea power since the Battle of Jutland. From Gibraltar the colossal British war boats Hood and Renown had moved down last week to Alexandria within shooting distance of the Suez Canal, supported by 14 squadrons of British battle planes on the aircraft carriers Glorious and Courageous. At Aboukir. where Nelson routed Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile, arrived 170 more British war planes.