Aprit 14.
With a million men each mobilized in France and Italy, an unknown number in Germany, with troops under arms in Poland, Rumania, and Greece, making an estimated total of "8,000,000 men, and the complete mosphere of distrust which pervades international polities in Europe, there is, every reason for regarding the situation indeed serious. Reports of various troop movements in northern Afviea_and the generat tone of the European Press do nothing to allay the anxiety which is being felt, and though during the last few days an easing of tension, created by the sudden descent of Italy upon Albania, is ported to be noticeable it would be unduly optimistic to believe that there has been any. real betterment in the general situation, Indeed it is no exaggeration to liken Europe to a powder magazine which may be set off by the merest spark. Probably if war doos come it will eventuate not so much from what appears to be the present trend towards hostilities, but to some completely unrelated incident, as s0 often happens in circumstances such as the present. It is the unforeseen which hax now to be dreaded, for even though it is reported that there is a growth of the war spirit in Taly that need not neces sarily mean that Il Duce is already bent on war. Nor would the existence of a similar feeling in Germany, which, up to the present, has not been reported, indicate that Herr Hitler is any more disposed to hazard his fortunes and those of his country on the fearful gamble of the arbitrament of war. Nevertheless the chief danger is to be found in the internal conditions of both count rather than in the existing external problems, and the great question which remains un: answered is as to how lon present conditions in the dictatorships can be allowed to continue without forcing them to desperate courses. The reports which come out of Germany regarding internal circumstances are by no means reassuring. The doctrine of "guns instead of butter" has had serious effects upon the living conditions of the people, The devotion of the whole of the nation's energy and resources (0 the building up of an enormous war machine has led 10 unbalanced development which daily makes the economic state of Germany more desperate, If things ave any better in Italy they are probably not much. Dictatorships placed in the position of Germany, and Italy cannot give their people the old solatiums of ponent et circenses: their financial position does not rmit of it. They can, however, lull erav= ing appetites by continual reports of suc cesses, Thus Abyssinia, and then Spain, and now Albania are lories available to offset the sullen discontent and anxiety which felt in Moly; Austria, Sudetentand, Bohemia, and Moravia acquisitions by Germany serve to offset the parlous economic plight in which that country finds itself. G have enriched herself by the acc the Czechoslovak and its air fleet, but the territories into the inclusion of those Reich nothing to improve economic po: the country. Indeed it is question whether these new territories are ins more than additional liabilities to the Reich, and likely to continue so for some time to come. When these siderati to the Great Britain and France may be more fully understood. There need not be the slightest doubt that Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini ye any illusions regarding Anglo-French Those two statesmen fully realize embodied in the proposed anti-aggression get, and fully derstand that the initiative of war does not lie with the Democracies, who if they had wold not Ko to war. but is itn the {hands of the Dictatorships which m: forced by causes entirely beyond their con-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.