"Italy wants to rule over Abyssinia instead of allowing the black people to govern their own country. This, of course, is what used to happen in the old days. Strong countries like England used to capture other people's countries and that was how we got Australia, Canada and India. No one could stop us. We just did it because we were the strongest country. But now that we have got a League of Nations in the world, all the countries have promised not to do that kind of thing any more, and nearly every country, including Abyssinia, whether it consists of white people or black people, has joined the League of Nations. In future if any country feels angry with another country, like Italy does with Abyssinia, it must not go off on its own, like Francis Drake used to, and capture that country. It has to come to the League of Nations and say: "We are angry with our neighbours." And then the League of Nations goes into the trouble and tries to make up its mind who is right and who is wrong, just like a Judge does in our own country when two people have a quarrel."
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Clifford Allen to his daughter, Polly, during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War (19 November 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Plough My Own Furrow: The Story of Lord Allen of Hurtwood as told through his own writings and correspondence (1965), pp. 343-344
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League of Nations
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