ITALIAN EXPANSION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 58, Issue 4191, 31 May 1939, Page 10

ITALIAN EXPANSION

PREPARE FUR THE WORST. “It would be impolitic, of course,” states the “Manchester Guardian,” “to play into Mussolini’s hands by denouncing the Anglo-Italian Agreement. It has been broken, but we should leave it to the dictators to do the denouncing. What we must do, however, while trying to hold Mussolini to his undertakings, is to act on the assumption that they offer us no security, and that in our naval dispositions, and in our agreements with other States, we are ready to deal with a hostile Italy, just as, in our proffered guarantees to Poland and Rumania, we are ready to deal with aggressive Germany. It would now seem to be both an obvious and a necessary obligation on our Government to press on with its negotiations for a pact of mutual defence against aggression, uniting all those countries which feel themselves threatened by Germany and Italian expansion, and which may now be the more willing to consider such a pact by reason of this brutal reminder. Since we are 3 naval Power and our strength is based on our ability to control the sea, the Eastern Mediterranean is, for us even more important than Central Europe and Italy no less a threat than Germany.”