A CASE FOR SUSPENDED JUDGMENT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 280, 25 November 1937, Page 6

A CASE FOR SUSPENDED JUDGMENT

IT is well known that Italy is in a had way, and consequently 1 is likely to be willing to do business with anyone who has the cash to pay for what they buy; but it would be justifiable to treat with suspicion the cable from Legorn reporting the launching of a large destroyer which had been built in Italy to the order of the Soviet Government, and the destroyer being blessed by a Roman Catholic Priest.

Italy has just signed an Anti-Communist Paet with Germany and Japan, and it is improbable that such a step would have been taken while the Italian shipyards were executing shipbuilding orders for the Soviet Government. If such proves to be the truth of the matter, however, it will at once be clear that the Anti-Communist Pact is only a piece of window dressing used, not for world business, but for the particular notice of western democracies.

The story of the Priest blessing the Soviet destroyer should be regarded with even more reserve, for the Anti-Communist attitude of the Vatican is not a matter of statecraft or of policy, but the assertion of a fundamental difference between one organisation which bows down to a Spiritual Ruler and another organisation which worships machinery as the means of man’s salvation.