FASCISM ON TRIAL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22197, 26 August 1935, Page 15

FASCISM ON TRIAL

Sir, —After the Paris Three-Power fiasco it is refreshing to learn that "Italy definitely will be represented at the meeting of the Council of tho League of Nations on September 4, when the full facts of her case against Abyssinia will be laid before the Council. Signor Mussolini has so decided because ho is convinced that the Council then will appreciate the incontrovertible nature of Italy's rightness and the integrity of her intentions." If Mussolini has anything which will justify his conduct in the eyes of the world, he should produce it at once. Ho should not wait till September, or offer it only to the League Council, for Germany, Japan and America are also profoundly concerned. If selfalleged economic necessity justifies «i war of aggression by Italy to annex Abyssinia, then Germany, bv the same principle, might annex Austria. If Italv is to claim the right and special privilege to "civilise" a backward nation, what is to prevent any other nation from judging his neighbour to he backward and doing tho same? If Italy is to treat covenants as scraps of paper and be justified, what value have international agreements? Mussolini and the Italian press should rid themselves of their mad ideas. The best way to save Italy from catastrophe is to repent of mad militarism and to reunite the nation's forces, now so stupidly divided. The half-million men under arms in Italy will not secure a favourable judgment for Italv at Geneva, but tend in the opposite direction, for free peoples resent intimidation and prejudicial suggestion from a party on trial. Black Guard.