This week brings the world to the eve of important decisions, and it is quite possible that before it is ended mankind will know whether it is to be plunged into a criminally insane struggle, or whether, even at this late hour, another attempt will be made to tread the path of peace. President Roosevelt's personal appeal to the dictators has brought matters to a head, posing a very definite question which requires just as definite a reply. It was at first thought that both Germany, and Italy would completely ignore the appeal. Indeed it was reported that this intention had already been decided upon, but in the absence of any real information on the subject it may possibly be that this early report was incorrect. Now it has been suggested that Signor Mussolini is of the opinion that a reply should b given, and that conversations on the subject have been taking place between Berlin, and Rome. To ignore the appeal would have merely been to reject it by a somewhat slow process. The only question with which the world is concerned now is whether in their reply the dictators will slam the door against peace, and continue with their aggressive expansion hich with such dramatic suddenness has arrayed so much of the world against them, and may yet array more. There can be no mistake about it; President Roosevelt has left the issue of peace or war squarely in the hands of Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini, and upon them rests the responsibility of whatever is now to come. Al! standings which were alleged to 1914 prior to' the outbreak of war in that year have by the statements of British and French statesmen been completely removed.
The attempts to weld an anti-aggression pact, fort ly attended with no ince: siderable success, is just such another emphatic representation that aggression will be resisted unto the bitter end. The unilateral guarantees which Great Britain has given, and is still prepared to give mean nothing less than an expression of readiness on her part to fight if war is forced upon her} either directly, or indirectly.
Just as Mr. Chamberlain, by refusing to denounce the Anglo-Italian Agreement of last year, still leaves Italy a means of withdrawal from a position which, persisted in, must have certain inevitable results, so hi President Roosevelt offered Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini an avenue down which they may recede from their present apparently intransigeant policy. They can' do so without losing any of the dignity of their nation, for it amounts to no admission of weakness, even at this eleventh hour, to decide to negotiate the problems of the world in a spirit of sweet reasonableness rather than resort to force which will settle no more than did the Great War. This general desire for peace is, on the other hand, to be taken as no sign of weakness on the part of Great Britain, and France. Reluctant as they are to fight, they will do so if the necessity is forced upon them. The unfortunate experiences following the great struggle clearly demonstrate tha the world is again to be plunged into warfare, it will be decided in a manner which will help to preserve humanity from another such encounter for a very long time to come. The suggestion that the two dictators in their reply to President Roosevelt will again enunciate their demands upon the democracies, even though at present there is no confirmation of it, is nevertheless important. That, in the circumstances would be tantamount to a rejection of the appeal, for the world knows just as clearly as must the dictators that those very questions are still more suitable subjects for peaceful negotiation than for the gamble which war must at all times prove to be. If, as it was reported last year was the case, in recent conversations between Herr Hitler and von Ribbentrop the latter has been still advising the former that the democracies will not fight, his advice on this occasion will undoubtedly prove wrong.
How far the present development is a bluff on the part of the dictatorships is something which cannot now be decided. The parallel between what is happening now, and what took place in 1914 is one of the striking developments of the situation. No one for a moment is deceived by the German naval manœuvres off the coast of Spain. The vessels despatched there, would in the event of war, either seek to join the Italian fleet, which might prove a very perilous undertaking, or, what is more probable, disperse into the seas for the purpose of commerce raiding as did the Tsingtao squadron until they were eventually brought to book. The rape of Albania has brought matters just as much to a head as did the assassination in Sarajevo, and, though the alignment of the Powers is somewhat different now than then, there are still other parallels which can be noticed. Only those saturated with the desire for war for war's sake can view the present situation with anything but the gravest alarm. The thought of peaceful peoples, even including the masses in Germany and Italy, being plunged into a war which none of them wants is one of the appalling developments of the last twenty years. The danger of proofs." President Roosevelt being repulsed in his latest attempt to preserve the peace cannot be disregarded. It is a very real one, and up to the present nothing has occurred to suggest confidence that these present alarums, and excursions will not produce something even more serious. It is with this thought that the anxieties of the next few days must be faced. They must also continue to be fronted with that quiet calm which both Great Britain and France have shown all along. If it is made necessary the nettle of peril must be firmly grasped. There will be none of the hysteria which has been evidenced in other lands. Indeed there is none now, and if war is forced upon them the democracies will fight more in sorrow than in anger, secure in the knowledge that they have behind them the mass of world opinion, that powerful imponderable which even the most materialistic of statesmen cannot afford to ignore.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.