Evening Post. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1936. THE THIN FABRIC OF PEACE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 62, 10 September 1936, Page 8

Evening Post. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1936. THE THIN FABRIC OF PEACE

For the second time within twelve months the Mediterranean Sea will witness the- transport of an army. The ordering of a British division to Palestine, following so rapidly on the understanding and alliance with Egypt, constitutes a test of Egypt's friendship under the new dispensation, -and also a test .of Mohammedan friendship in the Middle East and in India. Already, it is stated, Arab propaganda has penetrated as far East as the country of the Mohmands, and there is apprehension at Peshawar. At the moment no friction, apart from the tightening of British rule in Malta, is apparent in the relations with Italy, but it seems to be beyond doubt that Arab and Mohammedan unrest has owed much, in the recent past, to Italian propaganda. What is immediately confronting both Britain and Italy at the present moment is guerrilla warfare, in Palestine and in Abyssinia. There is, of course, the tremendous difference that Britain is acting under a League mandate, and Italy in defiance of the League. Italy is pursuing territorial conquest, and Britain is trying to find a way of reconciling Arab and Jew in circumstances of extreme difficulty, not as an armed overlord but as a trustee who is being forced by bloodshed to send an army in execution of his trust. The contrast between the Jewish policies of Germany and Britain is one of the great facts of the Western world. But East of Suez Mohammedans are inclined to look on it through the spectacle's of the Arab, n«t of the Hebrew. The mediatory attitude in Palestine of the Mohammedan rulers of Arabia is a redeeming feature.

En route to Palestine the British division will pass Spain, where the civil war now wears a long-time look, and Portugal, where a naval mutiny in favour of the Spanish Government has just been reported. The British . transports will pass through waters^ where the Spanish Government and the Spanish rebels are actually at war, though the Spanish Government does not recognise the rebels as belligerents. The fact that blood is flowing at both ends of the Mediterranean—in Abyssinia and Palestine, copiously in Spain, and to some extent in Portugal—ne*eds no emphasis. It is not without reason that the United States Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, considers the fabric of peace to be perilously thin, and tells a conference of civilian power engineers that power diplomacy is confiscating to Mars the triumphs of the scientist and the technician. Since crisis developed in the Levant as well as in the Western Mediterranean, guesses as to the diplomatic meaning (if any) of King Edward's visit to the Yugoslavian Adriatic, to the Greek Aegean, to Turkey, and to Bulgaria and Austria (not apparently Rumania) have increased. A "Daily Telegraph" writer seems to think that there was no diplomatic intention, but that there will be a diplomatic result. Prior to the outbreak of war in 1914 the Germans paid remarkable attention to Turkey, and the war historian Liddell Hart says that the German Ambassador Marschall yon Bieberstein, a commanding figure, quite outshone the British Ambassador in Stamboul, where prestige counts for much. Even so, Turkey was "jazzed into the war" in 1914 by German trickery over the cruiser Goeben. It is not likely that under Kemal Ataturk history will repeat itself.

Further news of the reported diversion of Rumania from the Little Entente to the German camp has been awaited with keen interest; it has not come. Instead, the cablegrams have emphasised a strengthening of French ■ Polish - Czechoslovakian alignment. The Polish General Rydz-Smigly, a veteran of the wars and now Polish missioner to Paris, will visit Venice to cultivate Italy, with "an assurance that the FrancoPolish alliance does not weaken France's sympathy with Italy." Also he will carry from the French Foreign Minister, M. Delbos, a message of good will to Italy. These cabled statements, if authentic, are important in that they suggest the continuity of French pro-Italian policy under' the Radical-Socialist Government of M. Blum. Unlike M. Laval, M. Blum has to hold the affections of Italy in the face of the Franco-Russian Pact, which would be bought at a high price if it threw the Duce into the hands of the Gorman dictator. The French aim now is to hold Italy and—it is also

said—lead her back into the League of Nations, over the corpse of Abyssinia. If M. Blum and M. Delbos can successfully adjust things with the Fascist Government in Rome, the anti-Fascist Governments in. Madrid and Moscow, and the French Communist anti-Fascist party, their diplomatic agility will be almost the most remarkable on record. Yesterday it could have been said that no small credit attaches to them for the suspension of French popular disorders, and the apparent banking of French inter-party fires. But today's Paris cablegram reporting gold weakness and renewed strikes is not so reassuring. Contrast that French report with Herr Hitler's latest proclamation on wages and devaluation, in which he deprecates strikes and wage-fixing by workers; and promises, instead of a rise in wages (with devaluation), a new "four years' plan," and a building up of self-sufficient German industries to absorb the workers who will be idled when re-armament can no longer be financed. There is yet no sign of answers to the questionnaire. Germany's "military measures" will be "according to necessity." Herr Hitler's renewed demand for colonies must be connoted with the forthcoming meeting of the League Assembly and with Mr. Eden's statements thereon. The Nazi Congress now in session may deal out further shocks, but at least it is promised that Danzig will not send Herr Greiser to Geneva. Not the least of the moves on the chessboard is the attendance at the Russian Red army manoeuvres of a British military mission, for the first time since Tsarist days.