Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 1930. MUSSOLILNI AND PEACE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 124, 28 May 1930, Page 10

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 1930. MUSSOLILNI AND PEACE

The spate of bellicose rhetoric which, after a considerable interval of comparative calm, Signor Mussolini released about a fortnight ago continues in full flood. At Leghorn he warned the enemies of Italy that in the event of an attack he would launch the nation "like a thunderbolt against our aggressors." "We await them at the crossing" was the message which he dispatched to these same people in a speech at Florence a few days later, rubbing it in with a eulogy ,of "machine-guns, ships, and aeroplanes" as even more beautiful things than the most beautiful words. At Milan a week ago Signor Mussolini expressed his surprise that these speeches of his had "set all the geese of Europe cackling," presenting' "such a spectacle of human hypocrisy" as the world had never seen before. Yesterday he was reported to have said at the same place that his Florence speech had been "meditated for a long time before it was pronounced," and that his purpose was

not to allow the Italian people to be lulled to sleep by bleating- sheep which were really wolves.

As'though designed to point the significance of this speech, a London message' informed us at the same time of a statement made to the Press by Sir Augustus Bartolo, the Maltese Minister of Education.

Speaking with full responsibility, he said, I say there is not a shadow of a doubt that Italy has cast very hungry eyes on Malta. If the oft-mentioned scheme of a revival of the old Roman Empire means anything, Malta is designed to be the pivot.

In spite of this statement, which only confirms officially .what has been known unofficially for years,, we do not suppose that anybody in London will suspect Signor Mussolini of waiting for an excuse to launch against Malta his beautiful warships and aeroplanes and his Blackshirt thunderbolt. London is better able to discount his words than Paris, and it is primarily for the benefit of Paris that he has been indulging in all this bombast. But, despite the present coolness between London and faris, which is in part the outcome of the Naval Conference and in part the cause of its partial failure, we are also as intimately concerned in the broader issues of French foreign policy as we were while the Entente still stood. France is obviously the Power at which Signor Mussolini has been principally talking. It is in France that the geese of Europe have been cackling most vigorously. And though the attitude of the French at the Naval Conference has not to the British observer resembled that of "bleating sheep," it is doubtless the contrast which M. Briand's honeyed words at Geneva, and his vision of a "United States of Europe" present to the military and naval preparations of France, that has inspired Signor Mussolini's reference to the "blearing sheep avhich were really wolves."

This deplorable friction between the two States whose mutual suspicions limited the fruits of the London Conference to a Three-Power Treaty may at least increase one's thankfulness that, after cutting down Britain's cruiser strength to the very minimum demanded by the security of the Empire, if not below it, Mr. Mac Donald did not in effect reduce it still further by undertaking to place cruisers enough in the Mediterranean to keep the peace between France and. Italy. That was the real meaning of the "Mediterranean Locarno" which France demanded as, * the condition of curtailing her huge naval programme and participating in a Five-Power Limitation Treaty. But, though Britain has escaped that formal liability, her interest in European peace is still as deep as ever, and it is very doubtful whether even under a Government as firmly pledged to peace as the present one she could possibly remain a passive spectator of a large-scale European war. Her freedom in the Mediterranean gives her at any rate a better chance of so doing than if she had accepted the obligation proposed by France. But, even as matters stand, Britain is still, as we have said, deeply concerned in maintaining the peace of Europe, and she has a special concern in improving the relations of France and Italy which ,are threatening to disturb it. The contributions which Signbr Mussolini's warlike speeches are making to the insecurity will appear doubly remarkable if one remembers that under his Government Italy has become one of the guarantors of European "peace in respect of the region which has been a perpetual source of war. The Mediterranean Locarno has not been realised, but the Treaty on which it was to have been modelled still stands, and under that Britain and Italy are co-guarantors' of the Franco-German frontier against the aggression of either of the nations which it divides.. But, while Italy thus guarantees France against German aggression, Signor Mussolini talks so fiercely of the fate in store for some un-named aggressor* of Italy that France has sought for another Locarno to protect her against Italian aggression, and one can hardly blame her. When the policeman threatens to turn burglar, what is the unfortunate householder to do? Who is lo (

guard him against the guardians of his peace? Comedy and tragedy are closely tangled up in the position which the Italian Dictator threalens to develop. . The moral of it all is, according to Signor Mussolini himself, that '"if everybody is arming, Italy must arm too," and though M. Tardieu does not talk so freely we know, that he has drawn a similar moral. But the statement of Signor Grandi, the Italian Foreign Minister, that the remedy is in disarmament, which "can only be settled through the League of Nations," is one which is more in accordance with British ideas. Mr. Henderson, of course, expressed his complete agreement with Signor Grfhdi, and it is hardly necessary to say that the talk was all in the same direction at the meeting of the Wellington Branch of the League of Nations Union on Monday night. We are glad to take the opportunity of congratulating the branch upon the success of its eighth annual meeting and upon the absence of that discordant note which on some previous occasions has alienated public sympathy. The parent Union is not a pacifist or an anti-Imperial organisation, and New Zealand is the .last place where any organisation affected with that taint would expect to flourish. The plain talk of Mr. H. F. | Johnston, K.C., who addressed the meeting by invitation, drew a plain statement on the point from the Rev. Dr. Gibb which should do the Wellington Branch much good:—

Ho wished it to be quite clearly understood that the League of Nations had never '.advocated other than pan passu disarmament, not a general removal of the armaments of tho British or any other people, but a,step by step reduction of the huge burdens which all nations wero carrying.

Total disarmament is a great ideal, but even a partial disarmament would be disastrous if it were one-sided and unconditional.