Contrary to the prophecies in the Italian press and wireless about the severity of the armistice terms to be imposed by the Italians on the French we now learn that the armistice will be mild. The world will doubtless think this fitting since Italy has done nothing by herself to earn a victor's reward. But it is now clear that such terms must have been dictated by Germany to her Italian subordinate with the intention of lulling French people throughout the French Empire into a deceptive sense of security. This German trick of calming and reassuring the victim while resistance is still possible while preparing the complete disintegration and absorption of the victim later on has already been used by the Germans in Czechoslovakia. They took two bites at their cherry then but none the less the cherry was entirely swallowed in the end. It would be disastrous for the French to suppose that this move is anything but a step in the process of fi enslavement. It is significant in this connection that the Petain Government and the German Government agreed not to allow publication of the German armi No doubt this was because of the fear that their severity would provoke among Frenchmen throughout the world the violent reaction which in fact has occurred since the text was made known against the wishes of those who had concluded the armistice. The announcement in Bordeaux that Italy unlike Germany will publish her terms is clearly a deliberate attempt to deceive French opinion everywhere by inducing the belief that this will be the full measure of sacrifice which France will be called upon to make. Hitler looks upon the French as a lower race, un-Nordic and tainted with negro mixture. Can any Frenchman who is not grasping at the flimsiest straws in this moment of despair suppose that the French Empire will be allowed to surv.ve in any shape at all if Germany should win the war? It is perfectly obvious that France, if she yields in the slightest degree to Italy, will subsequently have to cede whatever is demanded of her when the moment of effective resistance has been allowed to slip and Germany has decided that the complete spoliation of the French Empire is possible. The lack of news about the French fleet is heartening; there is every reason to suppose that its units have been slipping away and going to join the British Navy. We know that much of the French Air Force has made its way to Tunisia. -Let the French Empire not lose heart. Together with the British Empire it still covers a formidable portion of the earth's surface and it has behind it the support of all men of goodwill today, Frenchmen will not forget their magnificent traditions and they will not give way to the forces of evil without a fight.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.