BRITAIN AND ITALY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 282, 12 November 1936, Page 6

BRITAIN AND ITALY.

Signor Mussolini, while making much among his own people of the armed might he has created, would seem to be somewhat more reasonably inclined when it comes to international discussions. What really appears to be chiefly exercising him for the moment is to secure diplomatic recognition of his conquest and annexation of Abyssinia. Outside Germany, under his fellow dictator Herr Hitler, and an insignificant South American republic, he has as yet failed in this. So far the United States Government has, inferentially at any rate, refrained from admitting it as a fact accomplished and has accredited a new ambassador to Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, but not as also Emperor of Ethiopia. Great Britain, while willing to enter into a new trade agreement with Italy, has intimated that the Abyssinian question is entirely one for the League of Nations to determine and leaves it at that. Mussolini, it is now said, is trying to use negotiations for a friendly, understanding with regard to Mediterranean interests as a lever to force some more specific indica*, tion of the stand Great Britain will eventually assume. He undoubtedly holds a pretty strong hand, since Great Britain has not only the salt waters of the Mediterranean to consider but also the fresh waters of the Nile, which fertilise the Sudan and Egypt and whose source lies in the country which Mussolini now claims as Italian territory. Beyond this there is, of course, the Five-Power Pact it is hoped to establish as a substitute for the Locarno Treaty, which Germany has so badly fractured. The situation is one of grave concern and it will be with anxious interest that we shall watch how British diplomacy handles it.