It is highly gratifying to learn that the way is being cleared for a compromise on the thorny problem of the policing of the Mediterranean. Great Britain and France have taken special Steps to remove whatever misapprehension might exist at Rome on the subject. Mr. E. M, B. Ingram, who has so frequently had to act as Charge d'Affaires at Rome since he left China, seems, with his French colleague, satisfactorily to have settled the matter with that other former China diplomat Count Galeazzo Ciano. This does not of course entirely remove all Italy's qualms, but it certainly raises hopes that other difficulties may be overcome in the same spirit of amicable understanding. No one can have imagined that Italy desired to place herself in a position in which she might be thought to condone gross acts of piracy, Her diffidence appears now to be in process of yielding to the recognition of Franco-British readiness to have her ce-operation as an equal partner in an enterprise which any great naval country will applaud. It is pleasant to observe that the compromise has been facilitated by the good offices of Germany. It would be rash to interpret these favourable signs too emphatic cally, but they at least tend to prove the justice of Mr. Anthony Eden's contention that hopefulness may be entertained in surveying the prospects of strengthening the structure of European peace.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.