Evening star., 1935-11-13
Italy's Alarm.

If anything were needed to reveal the
alarm and anxiety with which Italy
awaits League sanctions it is provided by
the truculent note which the Rome gov
ernment has addressed to the various
powers due to impose economic and
financial penalties on and after Novem-
Der l8. In manifesto which is COM
bination of alibis and threats, Geneva'S
program, especially the ban on imports
from Italy, is aSSailed as "veritable act
of hostility" 1t is pointed out that up
to the present" the Fascists have not
wished to leave the League because they
desire TO prevent the conflict from CIV
ing rise to wider complications" but
there is definite implication that Mus
soini will quit if the sanctioniSt powers
fail to realize the gravity Of the conse-
quences' they are provoking. In the
course of his protest breathing SO clearly
the fears now agitating Rome, II Duce
requests the several governments involved
to state exactly how they propose to
conduct themselves" and hints that
they will be held individually respon-
sible" for ensuing events.
In london and Paris, in particular,
indications are promptly forthcoming
that Italys ominous remonStrances have
fallen on deaf ears. Even Germany and
Austria, whence Mussolini expected direct
or indirect aid in circumventing the
League boycott, are unsympathetic
Berlin has proclaimed, on the ground of
domestic necessities, a strict embargo on
important raw materials and foodstuffs.
Vienna announces that while Austrians,
because of vital dependence on trade with
Italy, cannot join in economic measures,
they are standing strictly behind the
League and join in it's arms embargo.
Mussolinis eleventh hour hopes of avert
ing the complete isolation destined sooner
or later to overtake Italy are thus rudely
shattered.
The protest against sanctions bristles
with dire warnings Of their after effects
not so much on Italy as on her "op-
pressors.' These are adponished that
''an attempt to exclude from world
economy a market of 100000 souls runs
theerisk of drying up Immediately and
surely the sources of sustenance and life
Of millions of workers all the world over"
There will be inevitable Italian counter
measures" These will produce "a dis
turbance of outlook" which may last
long after sanctions have fulfilled their
purpose and result in increasing
economic disorder in the world"
Interlarded with these forebodings are
protestations by Italy that her "civiliZing
mission" in Ethiopia, especially through
abolition of slavery, has already been
SO successful that the League should re-
consider the entire situation and recog-
nize that accomplished facts impose upon
the Italians obligations OF protection"
which they cannot honorably evade.
None of these belated arguments and
specious pleas of justification is destined
to bring MusSolini the reprieve he Graves.
He can be in no doubt, after President
Roosevelt's Armistice day address, of
Americas state OF mind. The President
effectively reflected public sentiment in
this country when he declared in I'M
mistakable language that the United
States is in entire sympathy with the
efforts Of other nations to end war" and
"disapproves steps taken by others to
commit acts of aggression"