Geneva, Sept. 20.
HE Council of the League of Nations has decided to comply with China's request for application of Article 17 of the League Covenant.
The Council are to send a telegrame to Japan, inviting her to accept the League's jurisdiction in the Sino-Japanese dispute.
The despatch of a neutral commission to China to collect facts on the use of poison gas and the bombing of populous cities was then proposed by Dr. Wellington Koo, chief Chinese delegate, at a meeting today of the League of Nations Assembly. Dr. Koo also asked for an embargo on the supply of planes and oil to Japan, and a general conference on aerial and gas warfare. On behalf of Great Britain, Captain Euan Wallace, requested the Assembly to take action to humanise aerial warfare.
Capt. Euan Wallace recommended the adoption of a resolution declaring, among other things, that International bombing of civilian populations is illegal.
Targets aimed at from the air must be legitimate objectives capable of identification, and Any attack on a legitimate object must be made in such a manner that the civilian population in the nelgh-Lourhood will not be bombed through carelessness.
Captain Wallace said that human-italian customs and usages of war on land and sea, which had grown into international law, had taken time to develop. The problem was to extend to air warfare the same humanitarian considerations.
The Council today approached Japan under the provisions of Article Although it is reported from Tokyo that the Japanese Cabinet will consider the invitation tomorrow, Japanese observers here predict a reject tion.
If, after such a refusal, the League fails, as it is expected to do, effect an automatic caplication of Article 16, this well be the first official repudiation of the Article.
Some Chinese circles in Geneva believe that one of the effects of the Council's decision will be to induce the United States to apply the Neutrality Act against Japan.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.