The French Government's decision to dissolve the various fascist organization is not surprising. How far it will actually achieve the purpose which inspires it is another matter. The Croix de Feu is the league which forms the backbone of the fascist movement in France. It first altraeted attention in November 1931 demonstrating at a meeting presided over by M, Edouard Herriot Is leader, Colonel Comte Casimir de la Rocque is a former colonial officer: fand about 50 years of age. He has been organizing the Croix de Feu for the last six years and he has a special flying brigade which acts as a personal bodyguard. "The forces at his command are said to be equipped with field guns and aeroplanes, Des-ite occasional quarrels with the Other fascist organizations, the Croix de Feu is in close association with them and their activities are co-ordina ated, 'These supplementary leagues are the Action Francaise, the Jeu-nesses Patriotes, the Solidarite Fran-caisse, and. the' Franeistes, the last named being started in' 1933 by Maree! Bucart with special paraphernnalia including "shock troops. blue shirts, cross-bells and long boots" and said to number some 10,000 members, The ways of "popular" Sunday: newspapers in Great Britain are always mysterious. The exuberance of headline and sensation in which they Fevel seems to carry with it its own antidote in the complete apathy of readers who refuse fo be startled fat any price because experience tells them' that Monday morning will quite conceivably reduce the scare Of the previous day to the negligible Proportions of a couple of lines of even complete omission. Neverthe-ess it is understandable that the French Government should be moved to make a protest against the ap-Parent desire of the "Sunday Dispatch"—a Rothermerian—sheet—to harrow its readers' feelings with tales of extreme disorder In France. The sensitiveness of the French Cabinet will be understood because the Rothermere press has shown itself to be exceptionally susceptible to the influences of those "paramilitary" Jeagues which the French Prime Minister fs proposing to dissolve, Despite its extravagances, the Rothermere press will not be accused of any deliberate attempt to stir up feeling against France, The organ in question has probably been caught in the tolls of an excessive enthusiasm. A curious development of Fecent press campaigns in Great, Britain is to be discerned in the tendency of certain press magnates to take under their patronage the {totalitarian governments of continental countries. Soviet Russia has been the object of this solicitude in cer tain so-called "left-wing" journals. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany have found somewhat embarrassing demonstrations of affection in the British papers which have distin guished themselves by hostility to the League of Nations. This partisanship has been carried to such extreme lengths that it is occasionally wondered whether its representatives quite realize the importance of preserving that national outlook " on which they normally lay considerable stress,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.