SALUTARY FEAR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22435, 3 June 1936, Page 12

SALUTARY FEAR

Italian public opinion, as focussed in Rome, is to-day described as sensitive to the slightest influence and looking for omens to London rather than Paris. What is described as an important factor in this changed regard for Britain—ltaly's gathering fear—is probably exercising a salutary influence. It is not conspicuously difficult for Signor Mussolini to promulgate a new constitution for Abyssinia, even to make a new map of East Africa embracing in one realm ■ Eritrea, Italian Somaliland and the territory over which Haili. Selassie was Emperor. All that can be done with a little aid from lawyers and cartographers in his- employ. But it is quite another thing to get Europe, not to mention Geneva in particular, to desist from suspecting and obstructing his plans when they are in need of international endorsement, without which he cannot make his conquest complete. On his own showing, sanctions are sufficiently effective to arouse his resentment, and for them he blames Britain chiefly—no doubt with some reason; and now, Haili Selassie being in London, France joining Britain in hatred of Fascism, the Archbishop of Canterbury rallying and voicing religious denunciation of Italian policy, and the British Cabinet looking askance at Italy's sore need of alms in the shape of loans and credits, Italy's westward sky is clouded. So Signor Mussolini must needs fear, yet show as brave a face as he can, lest worse befall. The psychology of fear, he well understands. He has profited by the knowledge, using it in speech and deed. And he knows that, while browbeating can assume the virtue of ability to have its will, there is a quieter manner often covering real authority. It would be well for the world if he were made openly afraid; but, short of that, it may yet prove enough to compel him, by the only sort of method he affects to value, to watch his steps. That is not impossible, as he confessedly knows.