London, Aug. 12.
Rome has been advertising the Italian advance into British Somaliland as a means to acquisition of naval and air bases from which Aden may be overwhelmed and British command of the Red Sea destroyed, states the "Daily Telegraph."
"To break the blockade which closes the eastern hemisphere against thie Fascist regime is doubtless a mat-for of urgency but since Italy has long held one side of the narrow straits whereby the Red Sea enters the Indian Ocean, the Italians may ask their Duce why he has failed to make use of ports there. The answer is Fascism has no naval force for such a purpose in its East African ports and can send none.
"One of our correspondents describes his recent voyage from Suez to Aden. In the 1,300 miles no enemy craft from Italian bases in Eritrea was sighted by sea or atr. Thousands of tons of "British shipping traverse the Red Sea almost every day with cargoes of munitions for our forces. The capacity of our Navy and Air Force to keep that trade route open for the British Empire and deny it io Italy would not be shaken by the presence of shipless Italian forces on the Somaliland shore.
"Let it be frankly recognized we should suffer loss of prestige if we retired from Somaliland but still more serious injury if the invasion distracted our blahs for defence of Egypt. Cooperation of sea power and air power may be expected to make defence of Egypt secure and open opportunities for a deadly counter-stroke."—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.