EUROPEAN EVENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 128, 2 June 1938, Page 6

EUROPEAN EVENTS.

AN AMERICAN VIEW

CHOICE BETWEEN IMPOSSIBLES

(By JOSEPH AT.SOP ami ROBERT KINTXER.) WASHIXGTOX. March 21. Tn Europe a savage amateur presentation of VFa-rnerVs '"Twilight of the Gods" is now in progress. Here in the United States a horrified audience watches the drama, almost unanimously desirous of continuing' in the spectators' seat.;, and almost unanimously convinced that parts in the drama's last act are reserved for it.

Until the Xazification of Austria and the onward purge of Franco"* Moors and foreign mercenaries became facts, most people here in Washington could not believe they would occur. Even in the State Department the beetinformed men continued to hope against hope. They can scarcely be blamed, eince their selfdeception seems to have been accurately paralleled hy the self-deception of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, that eminent "realist," Mr. Neville Chamberlain. Xot so many days ago there was presented the official State Department view that the fall of Mr. Anthony Eden represented a triumph of faotfaeing, and ivas the prelude to a general appeasement. How foolish that view was hae been tragically demonstrated.

Unpleasant Alternatives. Xow that the traffic ironies of Chamberlain "realism" have been brought brutally to everyone's attention, the State Department has had to reviee it? views. In hie recent speech, the Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, said, in effect, that the American course would be based on a continued inektence on the preservation of international law, coupled with a continued refusal to become more than orally entangled in the affairs of Europe. What is important in the American couree is the new vision of American foreign problems which lies behind it. The vision is a pretty gloomy one. The outcome of the European eituation is impossible to foresee, but many of the most foreskrhted among the State Department's high officer* believe that the choice lies between a general European war and the Xazilication of most of Europe and Italianisation of the Mediterranean. The effect of a general

European war on the American economy, already suffering as it ie from a major depression, can well be imagined. The effect of the N'azilication of most of Europe and the Italianisation of the Mediterranean would be scarcely lees pleasant.

A triumph of Fascism all along the line would certainly do irreparable damage to the reasonably free capitalism which is the American Furthermore, America would be left in a state of desperate isolation in foreign affairs. As one official put it, unless Hitler and Mussolini are stopped, '"England will be reduced to the status of the Xetherlands." and this country will not have have a friend left in Europe capable of important joint action.

Thus economic disruption at home and humiliation abroad are the agreeable prospeeUs held out before the United .States. While the country's internal commerce attempts to function in a world where the free market* have been closed, it* foreign policy will have to be carried on, notably in the Far East, with nations which have no inducements to heed American protests.

Not Joining a Fire Brigade. The argument is, of course.' advanced that the way to avoid the conscience of a Fascist triumph is to join an international lire brigade to put out the Fascist conflagration on tha spot. But. in the tirnt place, the State Department realises that Congress and the country would never stand for such an expedition, and. in the second, even tlw most belligerent department officials doubt such an expedition's utility.

The way the thing adds up is a choice between two impossible alternatives —the same ones which seem to have afflicted British foreign policy with a creeping paralysis. Yielding to the Fascist nations means, four chances in five. :i general collapse. But war, in the opinion of those who have inspected the alternatives carefully, offers live chances in live of a general collapse.

Moreover, with our protecting oceans, our chances of avoiding involvement in tlie general collapse are better than those of democratic nations in Europe. We are bettor able to wait it out against the Fascist nations. At tlie moment they may be strutting like so many cocks on manure piles. But their conquests are huge and indigestible. Tho intoxication of a mad nationalism will not lull their conquered peoples into forget fulness of oppression and want. Their now empires must, sooner or later, disintejßrato. and then the United States can breathe again.— (Copyright: X.A.X.A.)