Evening star., 1937-10-04
Do They Mean Business?

Ever since Britannia essayed to "rule
the waves" as mistress Of the seas, the
names of her men-of-war have breathed.
II bit flamboyantly, the power and de-
termination Of the sunsetless enpire tn
impose It's will, or at least to render a
rival incapable of imposing his. Mighty
battleships, swift cruisers and DESTROYER
greyhounds have plowed the oceans
under such inspiring titles as Lion,
Glory, Implacable, Indomitable, Infiex-
iole 1nvncible, Hercules, Colossus.
Thunderer, Conqueror, Audacious. Reso-
lution, Revenge, Renown, Resistance,
Dreadnaught, Formidable, Magnificent.
Terrible, Furious and Irresistible. Do
such symbols of British do-and-dars
persist IN the present-hour policy of the
empire or would rather names like these
be more emblematic of Downing
street oiplomacy-Dove, Fawn, Leopard.
Timorous, Pliable, Irresolute. Com
placent Invertebrate, Inglorious, Hesi-
tant, Jellyfish, Bluff, Scuttle and Re-
treat?
We shall soon know-know whether
the Union Jack still means Trafalgar or
what the world has come to associate
with Waterloo. The hour of test has
arrived with the delivery to italy of
a joint Anglo-French note demanding
that she withdraw her volunteer"
troops from Spain. The communication
is couched in moderate but purposeful
terms. 1t discloses the readiness of the
Western powers to "alter their policy
toward the civil war" unless the Fascists
cease to fish in those troubled waters.
Stripped of diplomatic camoufage,
what London and Paris mean Rome
to understand is that if Mussolini fails
to bring home the Italian divisions,
which for year have been the back
bone OF the insurgent rebellion, there
will be no barriers to British and French
war sinews, either by way of the
Pyrenees or by sea, reaching the Loval-
lists without stint. simultaneously.
Soviet Russia calls upon that fatuous
and moribund body known as the twen-
ty-seven- nation Non-I Intervention Com
mittee to permit arms to be shipped to
the Valencia government, thus formally
sbolishing the entire fiction of foreign
neutrality in the peninsular conflict.
Do Great Britain and France mean
what they say? That is the question.
Will they follow brave words if neces-
sary, with firm deeds? Or will they let
II Duce get away with it, as he did
with the League sanctions affair of
painful memory during his Ethiopian
aggression, to the everlasting discredit
OF British prestige in particular? John
Bulls answer to that humiliating expert
ence was the launching of his $780,
100000 rearmament program. But since
then Japan has given the lions tail
a twisting as defiant and amour pro-
pre-damaging as Mussolini dared a
year ago, besides which Italian willing
ness to let Britain pipe the tune in the
Mediterranean, incidental to the Spanish
war, has been anything but marked.
Doubtless, since his return from Ger
many, the autocrat of the Palazzo
Venezia feels that turbulence toward
the Western democracies may be risked
with more assurance than ever. But
the preponderance of probability is
that the Fascist relationships will think
twice and thrice before pitting the Ber-
lln-Rome axis against the London Paris
Moscow axis. With Russia liberated for
action in Europe by Japans absorption
IN the Far East, Italo- German defiance
OF Anglo-Franco- Russian power is
horse of a very different color. But
Western diplomacy has done so much
side-stepping, stalling and back-water-
ing whenever II Duce scowled or Der
Fuehrer thundered that one would
rather write history than prophecy of
Just what the immediate future holds.