Evening Post MONDAY. AUGUST 14, 1939. THE FOG OF PEACE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 38, 14 August 1939, Page 8

Evening Post MONDAY. AUGUST 14, 1939. THE FOG OF PEACE

Kubla Khan, who, according to Coleridge, heard "ancestral voices prophesying war," lived in an age when human communications and the structure of society were comparatively simple. If some other Khan in Asia were planning war, it might, be years before Kubla heard of it, because there were no telegrams or cablegrams, no radio, no broadcasts, 'not even a megaphone. Progress across Asia was slow, as is shown by the adventures of Marco Polo; and it might well be that ancestral voices were the quickest medium by which Kubla Khan would hear war news from abroad. But such primitive possibilities no longer exist. We have improved Kubla's world completely out of sight. The earth's wire network, and its wireless network, sing with the rapid transit of warlike messages, but every one of them has some saving clause. The net result is that we know everything and yet know nothing. We know not whether "war in September" means real war or merely the continuous war on democracy's nerves. Kubla Khan's astral voices—perhaps somewhat indistinct —could not have left him more in doubt than is the democratic world as it listens to all this "tumult" of tendentious information.

All are agreed that Danzig is not worth a war. But that fact does not dispose of the question. After what happened to Austria and Czechoslovakia, no one believes that a German move on Danzig would be anything less than the first bite at Poland. Therefore, the fact that Danzig in itself is not worth a war pales beside the larger question whether Poland is worth a Avar. The moving picture of world affairs presents not only the Polish question from all kinds of varying angles, but alternately presents a Hungary who is Germany's accomplice and a Hungary in danger of being Germany's victim. Yesterday Germany fell on Czechoslovakia, and Hungary and Poland took some of the pieces. What Kubla Khan's ancestral voices might have told him concerning this transaction is not clear, but today the voice of "Reynolds's News" affirms that "Hungary has asked Poland whether the Poles would stand by Hungary in the event of a German attack." Amid all these goings and comings, the man with a political map finds it difficult to chart courses, just, as the man with the war map was nonplussed in 1914-18 when "the fog of Avar" got over everything. But if there is some inconsistency in the things Aye hear about countries like Hungary, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, there is no doubt Avhatever that the Anti-Comintern Governments in Europe and Asia do-act in combination. Anyone Avho is blind to the double squeeze on Britain, and to its purpose, is blind indeed. The picture presented today includes a threat by Japan to break off British talks; a meeting of Count Ciano and Herr yon Ribbentrop that is said to mark an action plan by the lavo Axis Powers, enabling them to take a combined initiative someAvhere in Europe next month; and the apparent consummation of Franco's personal poAver in Spain. The Avhole picture is consistent with Avar at an early date, and it is also consistent Avith a sharpening-up of the continuous policy of playing on the nerves of democracy in order that a neAv annexation shall be made by "a dry Napoleon." No doubt the nerve-shaking technique has been effective in the past, but it has noAv probably exhausted its usefulness even to its authors. No error could be greater than to assume that Herr Hitler can continue to avoid war. Neither his intention nor his braking power is Avorth one cent of backing; and democracy must be prepared for the Avar that Avill result if the AntiComintern Powers either blunder or thunder into it. The only difference between this coming September and last is that the "democracies are better prepared.

The nerve-shaking technique has succeeded to the extent that it has created a fog of peace almost as dense as the fog of war. The Axis Powers' 'smoke-screen of threats touches Europe at so many points that no one knows where the storm will break or whether it will break. It may be that "in the multitude of counsel there is wisdom," but not in the counsel that issues from or pivots on the propaganda factory of Dr. Goebbels. Today there is a darkness even more opaque than that which was illuminated only by "ancestral voices"; and as this is a condition deliberately aimed. Pit, its monotony must not be allowed to dull our

judgment or impair our readiness.