SANCTIONS

Barring a miraculous peace settlement, which can be achieved only after Mussolini's return to sanity, the League of Nation's sanctions will go into effect on November 18. Assuming Mussolini remains mentally in status quo, and refuses to capitulate until the actual end is in sight, the Italian people are in for as uncomfortable a few months as one could wish his bitterest enemy.

Deficient as she already is in key raw materials, at a disadvantage as she already is in obtaining food for her teeming millions, Italy is going to suffer acutely from a food shortage, from telescopic prices, and probably eventual inflation. Ironical enough, these will all result from the efforts of the League to bring about peace. Can there be peace in an organization when one of its members is simultaneously acting like a two-year old and cutting its throat? As the lines become more clearly drawn, it is obvious that the League can maintain its prestige only at the sake of the Italian people.

What would the League's founders have thought of the present situation, seemingly such a contradiction in terms? With an car to the ground, does one hear rumblings caused by Wilson's revolving in his grave? Or are those ethereal whispers the gasps of the Paris statesmen, wondrous that the League is doing what it is, amazed that for the first time in history an overwhelming majority of nations has been able to agree on the aggressor, and not only condemn but attempt to restrain its actions?

Such questions, so easy to raise, are well-nigh impossible to answer. Only the historian will be able to pass final judgment on the events now transpiring in Europe. But is all too clear that however fine the fact that the League is at last acting according to its Covenant, the Italian people are going to lose far more than they can possibly gain from their leader's private war. To just what extent a people may be held responsible for the acts of their statesmen is a nice philosophical point. All we in America can do is to avoid condemning the Italians themselves. For without tolerance, no real settlement of the Ethiopian or any other war is possible.