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Hokitika Guardian, 21 June 1938, Page 4

A first big step toward European reconciliation was taken in Rome when the Anglo-ItaJian agreement was signed, asserts the London Observer. Emerging out of the blackness of recent mistrust and misunderstanding, that great achievement will Be of enormous consequence to tlie whole cause of peace and good will in Europe. Tlie really cheerful aspect of the matter is that neither Italian nor British opinion derives its main satisfaction from the actual material content of those documents. The material gain is indeed great; but the sense of relief and gratification ran ahead of any knowledge of the details. The ; fact is that war springs from persistent bad feeling, not from tangible difficulties or problems. When problems are conditioned by good feeling, they disappear. During the past two years what poisoned Italo-British relations and insinuated the sinister fear of war was not a firm or diagnosable issue in rival interests, but an emotional sense of resentment and moral indignation. By contrast the now recaptured sense of confidence, good avill, and friendship—the traditional heritage of the two peoples—is correspondingly effective as the agent of peace. Nor is the good confined to the two countries. Where nations are concerned there is no such thing as a localised, bilaterial relationship, good or bad. In either direction the relationship spreads. It is not an accident that the period of British estrangement from Italy coincided with a steady worsening of British relationship with Germany and Japan. The triumph achieved of reversing the trend of Anglo-Itnlian feeling and making peace, not war, the goal, will have an immediate beneficent effect in the riise sense throughout the world.