EUROPE AND EAST AFRICA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22205, 4 September 1935, Page 10

EUROPE AND EAST AFRICA

The opinion expressed by France at an early stage of the Italo-Abys-sinian dispute—that it was of no importance compared with the preservation of harmony in Europe—has had to be greatly modified. It is not wholly abandoned, for even if it should have little mention at the crucial meeting of the League Council that begins to-day it will be a ghostly presence throughout the debate ; but the blunt way in which it was expressed by M. Laval iB not now appropriate. No longer is there the slightest possibility of viewing the dispute as one located outside Europe; it has come right into the centre of international politics there. At the back of the mind of every European Government, represented in the Council or remote from active participation in the work of the League, is a realisation that this quarrel may disrupt co-operation if not shatter peace, and to safeguard plans for collective security will be a need remembered. Even Italy, while apparently disposed to give it meagre heed, cannot be altogether oblivious of it. France has not forgotten it, although the first reaction of comparative indifference to the fate of Abyssinia has given place to a recognition that this involves the very structure of European amity then deemed of separable and unique importance. In the discussion between M. Laval and the Premier of Yugoslavia as to the attitude of the Little Entente this recognition is patent: the understanding that the three nations now virtually a fifth Great Power in Europe are anxious to see the League Covenant upheld, and yet dread the shock of Italy's consequent withdrawal from the League, is meaningless without the assumption that Europe is inescapably involved. Britain has had constantly before her eyes the close relation of the dispute to the concert of Europe, and at every step has striven to treat it accordingly, by endeavouring to keep it within the purview of the League in spite of Signor Mussolini's insistence that the disputants should settle the matter without any foreign intervention. Germany's interest, as that of a Power aloof from League activity, has been scarcely more than academic, yet the prospect of an increase of Italian influence in Abyssinia has been given by the Nazi Government a practical turn in the revived agitation for a restoration of at least part of Germany's colonial possessions. So the European reactions have rapidly multiplied, and the question now is how the various nations, particularly those represented in the League Council, will align themselves. Russia will doubtless be favourable to the stand eventually taken by France, and Poland be, for that .reason, opposed to it. A cloud of doubt, however, rests on Geneva as the Council session begins, and the final alignment, so vital to Europe, cannot be more than dimly and incompletely guessed.