ITALY’S “IRON HAND” IN ABYSSINIA

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 261, 31 July 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

ITALY’S “IRON HAND” IN ABYSSINIA

Bringing the Natives to ’ Heel MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE TO BE STAMPED OUT Italy is showing the strong hand in Ethiopia, says the Rome correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor.” An attempt against Marshal Graziani, the Viceroy, was followed by reprisals which have no precedents in Italian colonial history. Foriegn firms in Ethiopia have been ejected on the grounds that they were engaged in espionage. A group of American ami British missionaries has been expelled from Ethiopia, on a similar charge. Benito Mussolini feels strongly that Italian rule over the recently conquered territory will never be firmly established if Italy gave signs of weakness and the natives were not sufficiently impressed by Italy’s might. In justification of Italian policy. Fascist writers have been busy discovering “atrocities” in the past colonial history of Britain and France the implication being that Italy is not setting a new example in colonial matters. but merely following the footsteps of those who are now'accusing her of atrocities and high-handed action. Stirring Trouble? Further, Italy maintains that responsibility for incidents which have recently occurred in Ethiopia lies with foreign agents, alleged to be fomenting discontent among the natives. “Do not interfere with our subjects in Ethiopia,” the Italians tell the world, “and the country will be pacified in a few weeks, without the possibility ot further disorders.” . The latest of a long series of incidents which have provoked such strong reactions abroad is the expulsion from Ethiopia of American and British missionaries as “spies.” This has led the American and British Ambassadors in Rome to lodge protests to the Italian Government, ami to draw their attention to the virulent attacks made by the Fascist Press on the foreign missions. “These missionaries,” writes the Giornalc d’ltalia, “have been proven either agents of espionage and crooked business or the exponents of dangerous fanaticism and of that religious disinfegration of which the Protestant world to-day gives such abundant proof. These missionaries had become, proxocatite agents undermining the peace of the natives who scarcely having emerged fiom the trials of inter-tribal war have no need of being divided anew by conspiracies altercations and religious schisms brought to them by foreign propagandists.” , , No specific accusations are brought

against the seven missionaries of the Bible Churchmen’s Missionary Society and of the British and Foreign Bible Society, except that they were “mixed up in many mysterious undertakings,” that they were a disturbing influence engaged upon a “useless task,” and as creating “spiritual and political disorders.” Veiled Allegations. They are informed that “to convert by bribes of thalers some half-dozen Ethiopian boys does not mean that any permanent glory is being won either for the Church or for the men. but merely results in creating spiritual and political disorders calling for the repression of the Italian authorities.” Store concrete charges, on the other hand, aro made against three women missionaries of the American Bible Missionary Society, which is described in Rome in insulting terms as an eclectic sect founded six years ago in Pennsylvania. The three missionaries, Ruth Shipley, Bertha Domermuth and Helen French, went to Ethiopia in 1934 and are alleged to have entered into “close relations” with one Colonel Sandford, formerly attache at the British Legation in Addis Ababa.