ARBITRATION OR FORCE?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 48, 26 February 1935, Page 6

ARBITRATION OR FORCE?

Who is the humorist that says Mussolini is embarrassed by the younger Fascists demanding , war? The younger " Fascists arc the creation of Mussolini. Who has glorified war and sought to revive enthusiasm for the Roman Empire? Who has described peace as an illusion and declared, in the best pre-war German manner, that "war alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it?" Who has developed all tho heady ceremonial of Fascism, and put all male Italy, from the age of eight, into uniform? Mussolini himself. If he does not put the brake on enthusiasm for war with Abyssinia it is not because he cannot, but because he does not wish to do so. The position is clear enough. There is a dispute over the frontier line between Abyssinia and Italian Somaliland. The Abyssinians say the particular plaec in dispute is sixty miles on their side of the frontier. The Italians say they have occupied this plaec for years past. Very well; why not arbitrate? The parties are under two separate contracts to resort to arbitration. They are members of the League of Nations, and as such are pledged to prefer peaceful settlements to settlements by force. And they are parties to a separate agreement which provides that frontier disputes shall be referred to arbitration. The Italians say they have repeatedly urged the Abyssinian Government to define the frontier, but without success. Why not, then, invoke the aid of the League?

It has been suggested that it may be more than a coincidence that this trouble with Abyssinia should have arisen at the same time as Mussolini's confiscation of foreign exchange holdings. The financial position of Italy has become worse of late, there have been grumblings about the standard of living, and it may be that Mussolini is resorting to a device of autocrats for distracting attention from domestic difficulties. Be that as it may, the situation is serious in more than one respect. It is significant that Britain is doing her utmost to settle the dispute iwithout recourse to the League. Both Britain and France feel that Italy is too important in other European negotiations to risk offending her by bringing her before the League as a suspected delinquent. Italy might follow (he example of Japan and Germany and leave the League. So delicately poised are the fortunes of the peace movement.