responsibilities, no liabilities outside of the Empire except in relation to the Anglo-Saxon race". He supported the "limited liability" rearmament under which the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy were built up at the expense of the British Army as the rearmament program in best accord with his own foreign policy ideas. In 1935, Beaverbrook campaigned against the Peace Ballot, an unofficial referendum organised in 1935 by the League of Nations Union, as the "Ballot of Blood". He was concerned that if Britain should be obliged to enforce the collective security policies of the League of Nations against aggression, it could involve Britain in wars where no British interests were at stake. In a leader in the Daily Express, he wrote the collective security policy of the League "will drag you and your children into a war" caused by "the ambitious and unscrupulous powers" that were the other members of the League (Beaverbrook failed to mention that to activate collective security required the approval of the League Council, which Britain was a veto-holding member of). Beaverbrook stated that his readers should not take part in the Peace Ballot and wrote: "Tear up the ballot paper. Throw the pieces in the waste paper basket. Turn away from Europe. Stand by the Empire and Splendid Isolation". During the crisis caused by the Italian aggression against Ethiopia, Beaverbrook was opposed to the policy of imposing sanctions on Italy under the banner of the League of Nations as he argued that the Italo-Ethiopian war did not concern Britain. In a leader, he warned that the sanctions on Italy might cause a "world race war" as he stated that Ethiopia was not worth fighting for as it was an African nation. Likewise, when Germany remilitarised the Rhineland on 7 March 1936, violating both the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Locarno, Beaverbrook used his newspapers to argue against Britain taking action to enforce the treaties it had signed. Beaverbrook maintained good relations with Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador in London, writing to him in 1936 about his "...friendly attitude towards your Great Leader" and he was "determined that nothing shall be said or done by any newspaper controlled by me which is likely to disturb your tenure in office". Beaverbrook concluded "while I am free, and my newspapers in the attitude I take to the Russian leader, I must say I admire and