Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1933. CENTRAL EUROPE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18065, 17 April 1933, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1933. CENTRAL EUROPE

All who have been following tho course'of recent international affairs

must, realise, bow flinch the continent of Europe resembles at the present moment a powder magazine. There are several points from which an explosion might come which would plunge the world into another disastrous conflict. Fortunately the statesmen of the leading nations are fully apprised of the danger, and, to their credit, arc using their best endeavors to avert a calamity, but national interests arc so conflicting and national passions and prejudices so hard to keep in check that no one can safely predict that peace will be preserved. Whilst attention has been mainly directed to such matters as the SinoJapanese conflict and all the complications that may arise therefrom, to the Polish Corridor, the events in Russia and Germany, and the rivalries between Italy and France, there is also a factor to bo reckoned with in the development of a new great power in Central Europe. When the preliminary stages of a new four power pact between England, Germany, France and Italy were announced a few days ago, it will have been noted strong representations wore made by Rumania and the Central States of Europe that the interests of these should not be ignored in any attempt to settle the peace of Europe, and I lie fact that three nations comprising AS million people have recently agreed to form a new combination certainly

gives just ilication for the claim. Their decision, a London correspondent asserts, may turn out to he the

greatest political event since tin* Versailles Treaty remade the map of the Continent. C/.ccho-Slovakia, Yugoslavia and Rumania, which form what is known as the Little Entente, in allianeei with France, have .arranged a pact bv which they bind themselves to common foreign and economic policies under the direction of a permanent council composed of their respective Foreign Ministers. Such a grouping has never before been known in European politics. It is really the birth of a powerful confederation, held together not only by the peace principles of the League of Nations and the treaties for the renunciation of war, but also by tear of Italy under the dictatorship of Mussolini and of Germany under the domination of Hitler. In the words of the pact signed at Geneva the Little Entente becomes a “unified international community with a distinct personality.” Through its permanent council it will work as a permanent unit in foreign affairs, helped by a secretariat and an economic council whoso business it will be to bring about tariff reciprocity and trade preference something on the lines of that which was adopted, at Ottawa by Britain and her Dominions. In finance central banks will co-oper-ate as closely as the Governments in politics. Foreign policy will be pursued jointly and an army of 450,000 men, on a peace footing, will back it up. Actually the confederation will be more powerful and more strongly armed than the old Empire of AustfoHungary, whose tortuous adventures into diplomacy helped to bring about the Great War. What is the explanation of this remarkable development, the significance of which has hardly been realised as yet? The clue, the correspondent tells us, rests in the rise to power of Hitler in Germany. With virtual dictatorship splayed across Central Europe from the Baltic to the Mediterranean—Hitler in the north, Horthy in Hungary, and Mussolini in Italy—Czecho-Slovakia, Jugoslavia and Rumania feel themselves threatened by a combination of force the nature and strength of which, they gravely fear, may be too much for their ally France. They suspect that Hitler, as an Austrian, will encourage Austria to renew’ its demand for political connection with Germany, thus endangering Czechoslovakia’s independence. Italy, hating Yugoslavia, and desirous of-terri-torial gains in North Africa at the expense of France, has been making overtures to Hungary, which is believed to be importing arms secretly. Yugoslavia, in a state of semi-revolu-tion because of her own dictatorship based on the idea of keeping in subjection the non-Serbs of her popula-

tion, must protect herself against aggression. And Rumania, in continual quarrel with her neighbor Soviet Russia, because of her annexation of

Bessarabia after the war, .wants more security than the French alliance affords her. On top of this a infixing tangle of jeolousies and disputes, France lias been trying without much success to make Italy friendly lest the dictatorship in the south should agree with that in the north and a new Central European grouping arise as perilous to French policy as the old Triple Alliance of Germany, Aus-tro-llungary arid Italy was supposed to be before the war, “For the optimists who hope that pacts to rc-

nounco war will ensure peace,” writes the correspondent, “the present, state

of Europe is something of a nightmare. The Continent, at the moment, is actually split into two opposing and armed camps—as it was before 1914. Ono camp is captained by France and includes Poland and Belgium as well as the Little Entente Powers. The other is led by Italy and comprises Hungary and Albania, with the moral support of Germany under the liroll ram! Hitler, and with the sympathy ~f Bulgaria. The French group wants Europe to remain as the peace treaties left it; the Italian wants revision of frontiers. That is the profound cleavage which has led to-day to a return to the 'balance of power,’ the old

diplomacy that the Versailles settlement was supposed to have ended.” It, is to deflect this balance that the Central European confederation lias been formed, which it is Imped xvill be the first step in the federation of

the Danubian countries that might embrnco Austria and Hungary if they were willing to give up their overtures to Germany and Italy respectively and form new friendships with their former foes. The weak spot in this fresh alignment of European peoples is the dictatorship in Yugoslavia and its ruthless suppression of tho Croats and other minorities; and the growth of Communism in Rumania. Upheavals in either country would play into the hands of those who want to destroy by force tho present frontiers of Europe.