The Lie

Two loyal Britons close to Captain Anthony Eden are the Undersecretary General of the League of Nations, Mr. Francis Paul Walters, and the Director of its Financial Section, Mr. Alexander Loveday. Last week they made world headlines by informing correspondents that Adolf Hitler's Geneva Consul General, Dr. Wolfgang Krauel, had just made to them a most epochal demarche, nothing less than an intimation that the Nazi Reich, although a nonLeague State, was about to join League States in sanctions against Italy after Nov. 18.

To the rest of the world this was front page stuff but to Italians it was panic. If Mr. Walters and Mr. Loveday were telling the truth, Dictator Mussolini was being knifed by Dictator Hitler. In Rome shaking fingers reached for the telegraph tape clicking off from Berlin: "FOREIGN NEWSPAPERS HAVE PUBLISHED REPORTS CONCERNING STATEMENTS OF THE GERMAN CONSUL GENERAL AT GENEVA TO A HIGH OFFICIAL OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS THESE REPORTS ARE UNTRUE THE POINT OF VIEW OF GERMANY CONCERNING NEUTRALITY AND NONPARTICIPATION IN SANCTIONS HAS BEEN IN NO SENSE MODIFIED." "Resist!" Two days later a solid trainload of German coal clattered over the Alps, cheered Italians by arriving in their midst with Nazi exhortations chalked on the freight cars in German and Italian: "Resist! Resist! Resist!'' At Berlin the neutrality policy of the Realmleader was said by his aides to be approximately that of President Roosevelt and absolutely distinct from the League of Nations. Since she is rearming herself as rapidly as possible, Germany has no arms to sell to others; but coal, pig iron, steel, basic war materials of which she has a surplus, she will continue to seil to whoever will buy. Last week Adolf Hitler let it be known that he will stand no nonsense from Capitalists attempting to make speculative purchases in Germany of material the Fatherland needs for its own war machine, with a view to selling at a profit to Italy. Brazil Blanketed. From a world news standpoint the effect of Geneva's lie was to blanket and distract attention from the arrival in Geneva that day of by far the most negative note received by the League of Nations since it asked nonLeague States to declare themselves on sanctions. Cabled the United States of Brazil, largest South American state: "NOT BEING A MEMBER OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS BRAZIL DOES NOT PROPOSE TO PARTICIPATE IN MEASURES NOW ADOPTED BY THAT BODY." Re-Export Risk. Before adjourning for the week the League Sanctions Committee decided at Geneva that League States, even if bound not to sell directly to Italy after sanctions are applied, may sell to nonLeague States, even if the seller knows that the ultimate destination of the goods is Italy. Even this did not satisfy Rumania. Fortnight ago she received huge publicity for "endorsing sanctions at a heavy sacrifice." Last week the League's news corps tucked into the tails of their dispatches a discreet reservation by the Royal Rumanian Government that, notwithstanding any present or future sanctions obligations, Rumania will continue to sell oil to Italy as long as any other nation in the world does. Whipping himself up to land a racy and readable Geneva story on U. S. front pages United Pressman Wallace Carroll cabled: "Italy's bombing planes grounded for lack of gasoline, her terrifying scooter tanks stalled in the Ethiopian mountains without fuel, her battleships tied to their docks with cold boilers, her war-industries closed for lack of pig iron and steel to mould into munitions--these are the objectives of League of Nations penalties approved by the economic subcommittee today."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.