Evening Post

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 58, 6 September 1937, Page 8

Evening Post.

ANTI-PIRACY PROPOSALS

By a process of eliminating Spanish submarines from the possibility of being responsible for the many attacks in the Mediterranean, the "Morning Post" tries to put the blame outside Spain. The paper confesses, however, that the mystery remains unsolved. A meeting of Mediterranean Powers- at Geneva is expected to consider a course of defence and counter-attack; that is to say, if a torpedo is fired, the warship fired at will be under orders to try to destroy any submarine in the area from which the torpedo apparently came. That seems to have been what the warship Havock did; she dropped depth-charges with the intention of destroying her unseen attacker, and it is believed—though not prbved-r-that she succeeded. Will this plan of defence and counter-attack require that the location and movement of- naval submarines must be more strictly regulated, to avoid mistakes? The diplomatic correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" suggests that, to make the plan work, all Mediterranean Powers must agree "to register publicly, and to seclude in '■ their own dockyards all their submarines, after which every submarine found in the Mediterranean shall be sunk at sight." If the principle of "first fire, then inquire" is essential to anti-sub-marine operations, then the "Daily Telegraph" suggestion seems to.be pertinent. Its far-reaching character raises the'question whether agreement will be attainable at the proposed Mediterranean conference, to meet near Geneva. /Without some preventive regulation, the margin of error is great. It will be, remembered that after the Leipzig incident the British Government maintained that naval officers reporting the observation of torpedo-tracks could possibly be mistaken, and cited instances of error in the Great War. Af.a time when the Mediterranean contains a number of capital ships which have often been s.tudied in foreign countries as torpedo-targets, it has to be admitted that the danger of an "incident"—whether error or not—that would precipitate trouble is inherent in the situation, and would not be altogether removed if an international convoy system were adopted. But if the nations act independently, trouble is still more likely; therefore the Anglo-French initiative towards an international understanding grows naturally out of the situation created by the August attacks on merchantmen and naval vessels by submarines or aircraft of unknown origin. Much depends, .of course, on the policy of Italy. Germany is not a Mediterranean Power, but Germany represents so big an element in all things revolving round "the Berlin-Rome axis".that the Western democracies will instinctively feel that once more they are measuring strength with NaziFascism. Even if the soldier free lance in Spain were the only dangerpoint, a meeting of Fuhrer and Duce in Berlin would be significant enough: But the new free lance of the undersea and the "modern corsair" of the air add to the background of the pending dramatic meeting of Continental dictators. ■ In the fortnight or more that is likely to elapse before Signor Miissolihi goes to Germany, many things may happen. Both Italy and Japan base a certain amount of their policy on Berlin;, and although no one yet talks of a Berlin-Tokio axis, yet there is a tendency towards antiBritish sentiment In the Japanese Press. "Japanese militarists and business men are ' urging the strengthening of the Berlin-Tokio Pact against. the Communist International." Tokio and Rome both desire to get closer to Berlin, but by no means in a .territorial sense; and the last thing that Signor Mussolini desires is to share a boundary Avith Germany. In this respect, Austria is but a slight buffer—as between Germany and Italy—compared with the vast mass of Russia, which separates Germany and Japan. If one remembers the geographical separateness of Germany, Italy, and Japan, combined with their common earth-hunger, one can form a fair idea of why they have some points in common. A German imperialism, an Italian imperialism, and a Japanese imperialism would be far more unhappy, side by side, than the imperialisms of Britain and France have been. But so long as the territorial designs of Germany, Italy, and Japan are nascent, they may be relied on to cheer each other onward. Japan continues to pose as a fencer who is trying to disarm, not to kill, his enemy. Japan claims to. be fighting China's Government and armies, nqt her people. The implication is that, as soon as China's military power is destroyed, Japan will evacuate occupied territory. In practice, however, evacuation does not always take place. Generally the invader can' find a sufficient residue of military resistance to excuse his remaining in occupation, or he can erect, an independent Government under his tutelage, as in Manchuktio. So what Japan is saying at the moment is not nearly so important as what she is doing, especially in the North, where considerable military penetration is reported. Notwithstanding the efforts of neutral Powers to keep the fighting away from the International Settlement, and if possible away from Shanghai, the Chinese report that on- no day has the Shanghai fighting been fiercer than last Friday. German policy towards Japan today contrasts with Germany's share in the European bloc that reduced Japan's spoils in the Japan-China war of the nineties. At that time the Kaiser warned Europe against the Yellow Peril. Today Herr Hitler espouses Europe's causeagainst the Red Peril.