The Evening Star SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1940. THE WISE SWISS.

Evening Star, Issue 23729, 9 November 1940, Page 10

The Evening Star SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1940. THE WISE SWISS.

No one in Switzerland will be perturbed because the Press and radio of Italy have been assailing the small country with shrill abuse. If the bullying came from Germany it might be a different matter, but the attempts of Italians to imitate the crude manners of their Nordic partner can conduce to nothing but humour. Mussolini’s henchmen have been upbraiding the Swiss Press for the way the Greek war is being reported by it. Anti-Italian bias is alleged, and all the Swiss newspapers except two have been banned from Italy, where they were widely read as a corrective, one must suppose, of the Ministry of Information’s ingenious perversions of the news. To add insult to injury, the Italian radio has addressed the Swiss people as “democratic innkeepers and travel guides, a motley bunch of waiters, retailers of butter, and semi-profiteers, and agents provocateurs in the service of Britain.” That is carrying imitation of Germany to the furthest point. It recalls at once the German Press’s description of Victor Emanuel’s forces when, after much balancing of advantages, they chose their side in the last war—“ an army of vagabonds, convicts, ruffians, and mandolin players.” The Italians had cause to remember that description. They have done nothing to make it less convincing by their feats in the present war. The jackal, normally, does not look for respect when he looks for leavings. The Reich’s attendant would have it both ways. When his chagrin is vented at the withholding of credit, however, his blustering is certain to be turned chiefly against the smallest offender.

The Turks knew how to deal with this complainant. Their reply to protests that the yurkish Press was not publishing Italian victories was that there had been no victories to report. When the Italians claimed that they were really fighting Great Britain in Greece, it was pointed out that there were no British forces in Greece when the Fascists attacked that country, but that the British Expeditionary Force in Egypt had been waiting a long time for Graziani to attack. “ Italy wanted cheap victories at the expense of a small State.” She may win verbal victories at the expense of Switzerland, the Swiss being a discreet people, but she will not look for more. She may call her hectorings a 11 last humane warning ” —what have the Axis Powers to do with humanity?—but she knows that Switzerland is a prickly hedgehog, and it is only when a miscalculation is made that such are attacked by jackals. There are two other reasons why Italy will not push a quarrel to the last lengths with Switzerland. The small country, whose soil is poor, and which lives by manufactures and tourists, could offer no plunder to an invader, and, to the extent that it separates the two Axis States, makes their relationship much safer for Italy than it would otherwise be. Because its resources tempt nobody, because it has never listened to pacifism, and because no needs of strategy, in the present war, call for its invasion by anyone, Switzerland is to-day, with the possible exception of Sweden, the freest, most stable, and least menaced State in Europe. It has the most prospect of keeping its liberal institutions without interruption, and it deserves to keep them. Even the Swiss are less free than they were fourteen ‘months ago. The Government, to which full emergency powers were granted at the outbreak of the war, puts a check on public statements to avoid provocation to neighbours. But, in comparison with Axis countries or countries under the Axis influence, there is no repression in Switzerland. French and Germans and Italians make its population, but they have learned long since, in the mountain land, how tq live together. None of them have the least desire to come under Axis domination, and all alike, when asked what their sympathies are, reply, “ We are Sw'iss.” “ If any liberally inclined nation on the Continent of Europe,” it has been said, “ can find the means to retain its. identity, Switzerland is best designed by character and circumstances to do so.”