Evening Post. FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 1933. BRITISH MISSION TO ROME

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 64, 17 March 1933, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 1933. BRITISH MISSION TO ROME

The last British Prime Minister to visit Rome officially was the late Lord Oxford, then Mr. Asquith, who went there after attending the 'Allies' War Conference in March, 1916. Signor Crispi was then the Prime Minister of Italy, and Mr. Asquith did not see Signor Mussolini, who was then unknown to fame, being nothing more than a Socialist editor serving his country as a volunteer in the trenches. In January, 1927, Mr. Winston Churchill visited Rome, had an hour's interview with the Italian Duce, and entertained him at the British Embassy, but, as the Italian Press said, the conversations, though valuable as showing the cordiality of Anglo-Italian relations, were without political significance. As a man of action as well as a man of words, and perhaps the only man in English public life who might have made a possible dictator, Mr. Churchill was doubtless better qualified personally than any. of his colleagues to interview the Italian leader. But if high politics had been in view the mission must have been entrusted to Mr. Baldwin as Prime Minister, or Sir Austen Chamberlain as Foreign Secretary, and not to the Chancellor of the- Exchequer. The political purpose of the mission to Rome, which is officially announced today, and its immense importance, are indicated by the fact that both the Prime Minister - and the Foreign Secretary are undertaking it. Under the threat of the storm cloud with which the result of Germany's General Election has overshadowed the nations <>l Europe they have turned, as usual, to British diplomacy as their main hope of peace, and Mr. Mac Donald and Sir John Simon have been labouring at Geneva to justify this confidence. A highly encouraging start has. been made in {he settlement of the fierce dispute between Poland and. Danzig which was threatening to unchain all the angry passions that beset the Polish Corridor, and in so doing to give the signal for- another Armageddon. -While Sir' John Simon has been complimented by the Council of the League of Nations on his special contribution to this blessed relief, Mr. Mac Donald's particular concern has been to organise an eleventh-hour effort to save the Disarmament Conference from collapse. It is nearly fourteen years since "the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations" was recognised by the Versailles Treaty as an obligation of the victors, and was virtually made a condition of the disarmament of Germany. It is more than . a year since the Disarmament Conference held its first meeting. In December the personal intervention of Mr. Mac Donald helped to save the Conference from a deadlock by a compromise on the equality issue which Germany had threatened to make a ground for withdrawing from the Conference. The German elections have now given a fanatical and reckless firebrand absolute power, and the very least mischief to be expected of him is that he. will carry out the threat previously uttered by much cooler leaders that if the other nations,, do not reduce, their armaments Germany will increase hers. The only way to prevent a renewal of the competition in armaments with its inevitable consequences is to prevent the Disarmament Conference from breaking up with nothing done. '

It is a most unfortunate thing that, at a time when Germany's state of chaos is exciting the fear of war on Iboth her eastern and her western frontiers, Mr. Mac Donald's proposal for removing the danger to which we have referred should be threatening dissension among the friends of peace. The official attitude of France to,his five-year plan has not yet been disclpsed, but the Paris newspapers, which are usually pretty safe :guides to the opinion of the Government, are reported to be' unanimously hostile, and to agree in the belief that "disarmament is definitely doomed." It is partial-' larly distressing that in their criticism of Mr. Mac Donald some of these papers should have described, him as "a go-between in the efforts of Germany, and Italy to blackmail France." On the other hand, the contention that "in the face of a united passionate Germany it is impossible to-reduce the only force in Europe capable of making an aggressor think twice" is, of course, entitled to serious consideration. There is«a margin of safety beyond which it will be impossible to go, and to build on the expectation that anything the Disarmament Conference can do will make Germany a safe neighbour for months, or even for years, to come, would-be to invite disaster. Where the safety line is to be drawn is a matter to be determined by cool calculation and argument and not by foolish and cruel recriminations. The confidence expressed by Mr. Churchill a few months ago in the size and efficiency of the French army as one of the strongest guarantees of .European peace is prob-

ably shared today by many more British pacifists than would care to own it.

These fears and suspicions of 'France must be very painful to the statesman who has probably done as much as any other British Minister to improve her relations both with his own country and with Germany, and he, of course, knows that they will be intensified by the mission he is about to undertake. But. there is nothing in either of these circumstances to makefile path of duty any the less clear. Mr. Mac Donald leaves Geneva tonight with Sir John Simon in order to accept Signor Mussolini's cordial invitation to go to Rome before returning to London. The object of the visit is, says the Geneva correspondent of "The Times,"

to seek Signor Mussolini's collaboration in his carefully conceived policy for rcstoringpeaee to troubled' Europe, but he _ has not the slightest intention of leaving Franco in the cold.

If Mr. Mac Donald's functions on this mission are those of a "go-between" it is France and Italy that he hopes to reconcile. Whether along the lines "of his disarmament proposals or of some quite different scheme, the co-operation of both these Powers with Britain is, under present conditions, essential to the peace- of Europe.

Italy is' the one independent Power that joined with Britain in the Treaty of Locarno to guarantee the frontiers of France and Germany from mutual aggression, but she has since drifted into a position of antagonism to France regarding which Britain has no interest except to bring the parties together. A combination of Britain, France, and Italy could' save the Disarmament Conference from disaster, avert the threatened race in armaments, and give.Europe a sense of security to which she has long been a stranger.