\Repudiated Britain Among Nations Refusing to Be Bound If War Should Occur London, Feb. 17.
Great Britain, France, New Zealand and India' have informed the Secretary-General of the League of Nations that they cannot in future undertake to be bound in war-time by the general act for the pacific settlement of disputes drawn up at Geneva on September 26, 1928, but will subscribe fully to it in peacetime.
A White Paper gives as one of the principal reasons for the British Government's decision "the changes which have occurred in regard to the League of Nations and the position of its members in relation to their obligations under the Covenant."
The British Government, it adds, is ready to consider any proposals which might seem likely to secure general acceptance for revision of the act so as to bring it in conformity with present conditions.
Well-informed quarters in London attach no undue significance to the decision.
War, it is emphasized, is not envisaged as an immediate possibility the British Government merely does not wish to be bound by any undertaking which it might find impossible to keep under the changed circumstances now obtaining in Europe.
It is noteworthy that the Act in question has never been' invoked—Reuter.
That, he contended, showed that the vast majority of the unemployed was not a standing army. It also showed that 2,000,000 people were not decaying in idleness. Last year. Mr. Brown continued, nearly 3,000,000 men had been placed through labour exchanges The gravest section of the problem was rooted in the international situation and was connected with the three great exporting industries of coal, cotton and shipping.
There were fewer long-term unemployed than had been registered for years, the number having declined from 483,000 in May, 1933, to 289,000 at the present time.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.