Draft despatch by the Department of External Affairs to J. H. Thomas
(London) on the Italo-Abyssinian dispute¹

Sir,

The Government of Saorstát Éireann had an opportunity of examining the memorandum on the Italo-Abyssinian dispute which, following the meeting held at the Foreign Office on the 29th July,² Sir Samuel Hoare was good enough to send to their High Commissioner.

2. For the present, and particularly pending the outcome of the negotiations now proceeding in Paris, my Government have formulated no final views either with regard to the future procedure which might be adopted by the League in dealing with the dispute, or with regard to its own attitude in certain of the eventualities mentioned in Sir Samuel Hoare's memorandum. The following observations represent, however, the present state of mind of my Government on these matters.

3. My Government are aware of the susceptibilities of the Italian Government with regard to League intervention in the dispute, and are fully alive of the importance of keeping Italy within the League so long as the Italian Government admits the possibility of a peaceful solution and refrains from actual hostilities. But the idea that the League of Nations could continue with Italy as one of its members, after that country had forcibly and with impunity annexed another Member of the League, is to my Government unthinkable. Great as the shock of such an eventuality would be to public opinion in countries strong enough to provide for their own security, it would be greeted first with ridicule, and then with alarm, by the people of Saorstát Éireann and the other smaller countries which necessarily look upon the League as an important element in the defence of their national existence.

4. The Government of Saorstát Éireann sincerely hope that the powers charged with the present negotiations with Italy will regard the maintenance intact of the League Covenant as the supreme object of their efforts. My Government are fully conscious in this connection of the misgivings of the French Government as explained in Sir Samuel Hoare's memorandum: they only hope that in due course active discussion at Geneva will reveal a consensus of opinion in favour of upholding the Covenant sufficiently great to convince the French Government of the supreme advantages to European peace and stability of a League of Nations capable of resisting successfully the threatened aggression in Abyssinia. In any case, that such a discussion should take place at Geneva, before the outbreak of hostilities and the volume of opinion against the threatened aggression thus be made apparent, appears in present circumstances to be the least of the evils enumerated in Sir Samuel Hoare's memorandum. My Government's attitude, both in any such discussion and with regard to any actions which come out of it, would be strictly determined by their obligations under the Covenant.