EUROPE'S TANGLED NET.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 95, 8 May 1937, Page 4

EUROPE'S TANGLED NET.

The cable and wireless news we have been getting during the last two or three weeks as to international relationships makes a rare mixture from which it is very hard to draw any deduction as to the end tpwards which the world is shaping. All the Great Powers are making loud profession of their earnest desire to gee peace established and maintained, yet all are busy arming themselyes to the teeth as if nothing were surer than that another big war was imminent. All, too, ' seem at length to be pretty well agreed that the best hope of averting war lies in the breaking down or reduction of the barriers that have been erected in the paths pf international trade. Yet none seems tp be able to put forward proposals in any way aeceptable to the others, each seeking concessions and advantages the others are not prepared to grant. Germany and Russia would appear just now to be quite irreconcilable, while there is continual bickering between Russia and Japan, threatening peace in the Far East. There is talk of an understanding between Germany and J apan that has joint actiqn against Russia in view. Yet Japan is said to be seeking to revive her old friendship with Great Britain, who just now is in close contact with Prance, Russia 's avowed ally. Then we hear pf Hitler and Mussolini as coming still more intimately together in the way of forming a coalition aimed as a counter to the Anglp-French understanding. In order to strengthen the bonds of Italo-German friendship Mussolini is said even to be ready to give Germany a free hand in Austria, of which he has hitherto posed as a protector. Great Britain and France still cling to the League of Nations and the principle of collective security it cmbodies. Germany and Italy will haye nothing further to do with the Leagjie and aver thejr belief that European peace can be best assured by two-sided pacts of non-aggression entered into by neighbouring Powers. In the forefront of this confused picture we have the fanatical and fratricidal war that is in actual progress in Spain. Here Germany and Italy make no concealmenl of their sympathy with the insurgents and there are grave dopbts as to whether, nowithstanding the agreement for non-interven-tion, they are not still continuing to lend active aid in the shape of war material. On the other hand, we have Great Britain and France attempting at any rate to maintain a strict neutrality and let the two Spanish factions fight it out between themselyes. The question that naturally arises in the minds of those reading of these and of raany mjnor complications is as to how there can be any hope of bringing order out of the European chaos that has thus come about, with all its many conflicting ideas, interests, purposes and amhitions. Yet that is the task that lies in peculiar measure before the statesmen of Great Britain, of whom there are so many keen critics. Yet, too, it is qpon a situation such as this that some of our own politicians, representing a mere helpless handful of people, do not hesitate to intrude with wholly impracticable suggestions, that strengthen the hands of potentiaj enemies and render the task infinitely more difficult. This would certainly be a little bit laughable were it not that so many grave and possibly tragic issues are involved.