TOPICS OF THE TIMES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4954, 11 February 1937, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

The League is Dead. “Three of the Locarno signatories of 1925, namely, France, Belgium and Britain, met for consultation. They decided to invite Germany and Italy to be represented at a fivePower ‘Locarno’ conference. The further purpose was to widen the basis in a third stage by the inclusion of Russia. It was the initial hope of the three Powers that the five-Power meeting should take place before the Geneva meeting, now impotently proceeding. It was the next hope that it would take place in the second half of October. The only hope left is that it may take place at any time. The present work at Geneva has made it questionable whether it will ever take place. Once more a self-weakened and self-stulti-fied League has proved a stumbling block to the work of conciliation and peace. The fact is that League reform and the Locarno enterprise were interdependent. The one was impossible without the other. By every dictate of reason it was bound to be fatal for the League discussions to take place first. The fount and origin of any pacific understanding is the participation of all the interested parties.”—Dr. George Glasgow, in the London “Observer.”

“The Most Menacing Thing of All.” “The policy of the British Government was dictated by fear—fear of a rearmed Germany, fear of another general wai’, fear of hungry and dissatisfied nations, jealous of British colonies. They had made a frightful mess of that Abyssinian affair. They had put British prestige into the mud by a pitiful surrender to Italian threats. Now Great Britain was rearming. The munition factories were working overtime. A race in armaments had begun again. France had made a military pact with Russia again. It was the old formula which had led to 1914. Nothing had changed —not even the minds of men who remembered the carnage of the last war. It all looked pretty hopeless. People talked of war next year. Young fellows in the villages wanted to know when they would be called up. They didn’t like the prospect of it, but seemed to think it inevitable. That thought of inevitability was creeping into the minds and speeches of English statesmen. That was the most menacing thing of all.”—Mr. Philip Gibbs in his book, “Cities of Refuge.”