AXIS EXPLOITS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 84, 11 April 1939, Page 9

AXIS EXPLOITS.

Italy's Excuse For Invasion

Ridiculed.

DICTATORS' FURTHER PLOTS?

LONDON, April 10

"The British Cabinet is not wasting time on the Italian pretext that the oppressed Albanians invited the invasion," says "The Times" in a leading article. "The exploits of the axis have exalted the junior partner to much more than the patentee of the totalitarian idea, and it was time to gratify Italian pride.

"Albania was small enough to offer a dramatic coup with little risk, yet the Duce has disastrously undermined his good repute in quarters to which he was not indifferent.

"The Pope's allocution is not obscure. The revulsion of Moslem opinion at the seizure of a Moslem dominion cannot be a light matter to 'the protector of Islam' (as Signor Mussolini once called himself). "Nor is it profitable to provoke Mr. Cordell Hull's denunciation.

"The British Cabinet may assume that Good Friday's offensive is a step toward a more substantial objective to which both dictators are parties. Albania is the bridgehead to the Balkans, enabling pressure to be put upon Yugoslavia and Greece in order to prevent concerted measures for security. Such a manoeuvre, if successful, would not be the last. Rumania and Turkey lie beyond.

"Britain must speedily and decisively pursue her momentous departure in foreign policy, in furtherance of which Ministers must consider that the threat to Yugoslavia now comes from two sides. The first objective of British diplomacy must be the achievement of a common understanding on resistance to domination."