Evening Post. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1936. THE SILENCE OF BERLIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 132, 1 December 1936, Page 8

Evening Post. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1936. THE SILENCE OF BERLIN

With each new move on the part of ihc Dictatorship States and Japan —anti-Comintern pacts and parades of air strength—can it be said that the British Government's search for "a new basis of European peace" grows hotter or colder? "Cold, very cold" is the verdict of the Italians. The Rome view of the unanswered questionnaire addressed by Britain to the German Government is summed up in a cartoon which shows a very old, venerable, whitebearded gentleman (England) in the waiting-room of the Foreign Office at Berlin—he has grown old with waiting for an answer to the questionnaire. At last his presence is rediscovered by Official No. 2, and Official No. 2 says to Official No. 1: "That old gentleman is still in the waiting-room; what shall I do with him?" Official No. 1: "Oh! .. . er—give him a comic paper to look at!" This devastating comment on British diplomacy and Germany's reaction to it, as viewed by a Rome cartoonist, has point if not depth. The Hitler silence cannot last for ever, and the old fellow in the wait-ing-room still has time on his side. But the hold-up of British diplomacy in Berlin is too good an opportunity for the cartoonists qf the Fascist State to miss; and their obvious yet shallow opinion of the unanswered questionnaire has its lessons for Britons as well as its joke for Continentals. Now follow the joke from comic papers into the columns of editorials. The "Morning Post" seems to see, at any rate for the present, complete deadlock of the Baldwin-Eden effort to induce Germany to stale what she wants —the reason being that Germany wants just as much as she can get, by means fair or foul. She cannot tie herself down (in writing) to demands that are meant to be elastic, and which are intended to rise and fall with the occasion. But the "Morning Post" is quite certain about the central and dangerous fact that Herr Hitler's price for peace in the West is a free hand in the East. The "Morning Post" is t tired of waiting in German. anterooms, and declares: "Everybody knows by now that Germany will not agree to a new Western Locarno unless it is absolutely dissociated from Eastern Europe." In other words, France must abandon her Soviet Pact and cut asunder from Russia before Germany will enter into a guarantee system on, the lines of a new Western Locarno. Any analysis of the European situation that finds freedom to attack Russia to be an axiom of Hitler policy is tantamount to a verdict for war. Herein lies the chief threat to European peace; and the positive opinion of the "Morning Post," while by no means the last word on the subject, is one more portent that the Abyssinian and Spanish wars are but a prelude. Within the last few days Berlin has heard the British Foreign Secretary state that "British armed forces might, and, if occasion arose, would, be used for the defence of Fiance and Belgium against unprovoked aggression, in accordance with Britain's existing obligations." Also, "a similar obligation would arise towards Germany if a new European settlement could be reached." But Germany has not risen to this obvious bait, and the "Morning Post" is certain that Germany will not do so (as long as Herr Hitler is in charge) unless France cuts away from Russia. Mr. Eden's list of British military obligations disclosed no British obligations in Eastern Europe, but as long as French obligations exist there, it seems that Herr Hitler will not come into the Western guarantee system, notwithstanding the studied approach expressed in Mr. Eden's carefully-selected words. A new move forecast today, on the authority of the Paris correspondent of "The Times," is that France will shortly announce a reciprocal guarantee (not yet existing) of France to Britain—a guarantee of French support by land, sea, and air against unprovoked aggression. This would solidify the Anglo-French position, but still without French desertion of Russia; still, therefore, without appeasement to the German Dictator. And on that unstable basis rests, four weeks before Christmas, the peace of Europe.