Loudon Letter RATHER HYSTERICAL TIMES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 174, 20 April 1937, Page 9

Loudon Letter RATHER HYSTERICAL TIMES

Europe’s Easter Crisis FIRST REAL CHECK TO FASCIST POWERS (By J. A. Mclgan ami G. S. Cox.) [By Air Mail.] London, April 3. Tlie very uneasy feeling of tension which existed in Europe and in this country particularly over the Easier week-end seems to have lifted for the moment, leaving not the promise of better things to come, but. merely a relaxation and absence of anxiety for the time. There was a very definite crisis, similar to though not quite so alarming as that of December, 1035. The sudden slump in Italian fortunes, magnified by the Press in this country and in France, accentuated by Mussolini's hurried return to Home and by the blunt threats of his ambassador at the Noh-Intervention Committee, gave rise to the most alarming conjectures. It was the same feeling which existed all through the sanctions period, that the dictator might carry the game one stage further and risk everything on some desperate Mediterranean gamble. England dispersed for a holiday week-end not without some thoughts of a similar bank holiday in August, 1014. (Holiday time is also well recognised now as Hitler's favourite season for denouement; alarmist references are already frequent to a central European coup in Coronation week.) In effect, the week-end of Easter was quiet and undisturbed. Franco gathered up his Italians and waited for good weather; Mussolini said nothing and England's Cabinet Ministers went on their fishing holidays. Rout of Italians It is perhaps a symptom of rather hysterical times that the rout of a few thousand Italians in the Spanish civil war can occasion so much disturbance. But it was the first real check that the Fascist Powers have received for some time. As such it was hailed with delight and magnified in the democratic countries. Even Conservative and pro-Franeo opinion in England and France is apt to be strongly antiItalian ; for the Left it was an occasion of great rejoicing. Then, too, it is generally realised that Fascism depends to a great degree on prestige, that a reversal of fortunes, however slight, can be serious to the regiyne and may be countered by a desperate bid elsewhere. .We learn on good authority that strong naval precautions were taken by the French two weeks ago in anticipation of any such movement. English reactions to even so faint a hint of a war situation as this are interesting. They have changed greatly sihee IS months ago, when the idea that Mussolini would bomb the fleet if oil sanctions were imposed was enough to cause many strong supporters of the League of Nations to become strong isolationists. Now there is a greater fatalism, a tendency to look for lesser evils rather than to try to avoid them altogether. Anti-Italian Feeling More important than this is a very strong anti-Italian feeling shared by all classes and parties with very few exceptions. England, of course, is far from being militant —she has too much to lose. But the everyday sentiment is, “If we are going to war, I hope it’s the Italians.” It is not too much to say that a war, if provoked by Italy, would be a popular war. Most of this is a reaction from the Abyssinian humiliation, but it is aided by a dislike of Italian methods and ambitions and a moral disapproval of the Addis Ababa massacres which occasioned protest meetings throughout England. Also, as the cynics point out, there is not Ihe same fear of Italy as there is of Germany, and it would be a war fought mainly by the navy and air force in the Mediterranean. The most popular strategy in England to-day is one that X’ses itself on these two fighting services and avoids any commitments which involve sending an expeditionary force abroad.

Interpretation of Foreign Policy

How far is this wide popular feeling represented in British foreign policy? Not to a very great extent. Stories of the Left that the “Gentlemen's Agreement” with Italy included the sending of her military forces to Spain, seem to have little foundation; but there is no doubt that the British Foreign Office is still trying to reconstruct the Allied front of the last war and to have Italian troops either neutral or on the Brenner Pass if the greater trouble with Germany ever comes. Externally, this policy seems fantastically unreal while the muchvaunted “Rome-Berlin axis” dominates Europe. As a policy, it is probably based on the assumption that Italy, as in the last war, would go to the highest bidder. It is a most unpopular policy in England at the present time. An American Conference

We made a passing reference some time ago to rumours which were circulating about a world conference sponsored by the'United States of America, to lie held in one of the Scandinavian countries, and to try and got nearer Io world peace by discussing world economics. Early in the year Mr. W. Runciman, President of the Board of Trade in this country, went on a special mission to Washington; this week Lord Tweedsmuir (John Buchan), Canada’s Governor-General, has been interviewing Roosevelt; ami now in London is Mr. Norman Davis, ostensibly to attend a sugar conference, but he is well known as America’s “ambassador-at-large” and seldom travels without some diplomatic purpose. Cynics say that Mr. Runcimnu went to explain to America how the last war debt could be paid if another one could he incurred; that Lord Tweedsmuir is an adept at publicised speech-making; and that Mr. Norman Davis is no more effective than were Messrs. Page and House in their unofficial diplomacy before the war. Neither Roosevelt nor the United States of America as a whole want to have any share of European troubles, but they would like a more settled Europe and chances of freer trade, and there is no doubt that Roosevelt has all Woodrow Wilson’s belief in the message that the New World has for the Old.

Britain will probably bo a reluctant attendant at any such conference, particularly if it is under- the auspices of Ihe United States of America. The world economic conference of 1933 proved such a depressing failure —and was, in fact, largely torpedoed by Roosevelt himself —that there is little optimism about another. Coronation Activities

While the price of wheat rose again (it is now twice the 1934 price), and

bread grows dearer; while England a little gloomily regards as certain a rise in income tax to 5/- in the pound ; and the first strikes caused by these rising prices—one in a large armament factory—are occupying industry. Coronation preparations go on merrily, with flags on every car and the first bunting and illuminations in the streets. A picked detachment of Australian troops marching “kangaroo”-hatted down the Strand proved a good advertisement for the Dominions.

Press stories that they regard their quarters in the Wellington barracks as unnecessarily uncomfortable caused some uneasiness in those who remember how extra military police had to be drafted to their camp on Salisbury Plain during the war. But on the whole there is great cheerfulness, on the basis of a feeling that Coronation tourist traffic will pay for a lot of things—even for a, part of rearmament.