THE DICTATORS.

Evening Star, Issue 21748, 16 June 1934, Page 14

THE DICTATORS.

Herr Hitler’s meeting with Signor Mussolini at Venice, we may well suppose, lacked nothing of pomp and circumstance which could make it impressive. Without such ’ accessories one master of all the arts of popular appeal and subjugation would have paid poor tribute to the. other. The giant all-metal plane in which Herr Hitler arrived with his retinue was well followed by the launch journey of the two dictators to Venice, heading a procession “ of medieval splendour.” Cleopatra’s barge, which, “ like a burnished throne, burned on the water,” its poop of burnished gold and its oars of silver, in itself may have been a more gorgeous sight for the multitude,, but Cleopatra had no attendant aeroplanes. It only needed Sir Oswald -Mosley, with a bodyguard of his Black Shirts bruisers, to be present as a British dictator, and we should have returned to the time when three masters of armies divided control of the Roman world between them. So much for modern progress! The meeting of the modern dynasts, however, had a better object than to make the bounds of freedom narrower yet. Admittedly the Disarmament Conference has reached a which can only be solved, if it is .to be solved at all, by the return of Germany to its counsels and to the League, Mussolini does not want a new armaments race. It can be taken for granted that Hitler, despite all his bluster, does not want one either. The Italian has been the model of the German. But the Italian has learned much, since he made his enemies his footstool, which his pupil can learn now with advantage. When Germany broke away from the conference it was understood that the good offices of Mussolini would be used to bring his admirer to a more conciliatory state of mind,, and those blandishments are now being exerted.

How much Mussoliui has changed—or developed—since it was his role to keep Europe’s nerves on edge may bo gathered from a small book by Emil Ludwig, the German historian and pacifist, which consists of a series of interviews with the Dictator, held daily for nearly a fortnight. The historian questioned; “II Duce ’’ replied. Mussolini checked over the typescripts, altering virtually nothing. He has an intimate knowledge of German. It is a remarkable book. The two men of parts had obviously almost nothing in common. But no one could fail to be impressed by the Dictator’s knowledge and mental grasp. The pacifist Ludwig notes: “ I have no hesitation in describing him as a great statesman. ... I think that Mussolini to-day, ten years after the conquest of power, is much more ardently inclined to promote the constructive development of Ital, than to engage in destructive activities against his enemies; it seems to me that the victories he seeks are now only victories within the frontiers of his own country.” At the time when the interviews were given —early in 1932—Hitlerism had not yet taken control in Germany. The historian observes that “whenever I visited Italy I noted the omnipresence of uniforms, flags, and emblems whose sun was setting in Germany, though when X looked eastward [to Russia] they , seemed to be dawning once again with terrific speed.” It was taken for granted, both by himself and Mussolini, that Fascism would not suit Herr Ludwig’s country. For one thing, nobody there seemed to be big enough to be a dictator. It is not certain that anyone has been found since. The historian recalled what was said of Bismarck, that he had “ made Germany great and the Germans small.” The second part of. that record must be inseparable from any dictatorship; the triumph of the first part is not so easily attained. Our distinguished visitor, Dr Norwood, has “ ample room and verge enough ” to expatiate when he takes as the subject of his Dunedin address to-night ‘ The World in Crisis.’ If Mussolini, by Ins Iheeting with Hitler, can do anything to smooth the way for a general armaments agreement, that meeting will not have been in vain.