A NEW TRIPLE ALLIANCE

Hokitika Guardian, 27 September 1930, Page 7

A NEW TRIPLE ALLIANCE

Ok the history loom of Central Europe there has begun these days the delicate and all but invisible weaving of a new three-cornered international diplomatic fabric, the underlying significance of which seems to be escaping attention, writes Lady Drummond Hay, The shuttle on this loom is Dr Sehober, former President of Police in Vienna, now Federal Chancellor of Little Austria. The threads which he picked up first at the Hague, spun between Vienna and Rome to Berlin, then back to the Austrian capital, are so thin, so sheer, so delicate, that scarcely can they be seen as yet. The design of the pattern, however, is discernible. All the more so since it was drawn before and needed hut to he taken out of the archives, given a new colour, modified and changed to meet presentday conditions. Vienna, Rome, Berlin—Austria, Italy, Germany. Shadow of the Triple Alliance. The weaver this time not a Bismark or Capcrivi but a—Mussolini. Only commercial treaties, economic agreements for mutual benefits, friendlier relations—of course. Besides, this is the age of the League of Nations, Kellogg Pact, Nava] Disarmament. Ball Hans Platz, the Downing Street of Vienna., has a tradition for diplomacy extending back to the days of Maria Theresa, a tradition and an art that the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin cannot rival.

This heritage appears to have come down to the refined, quiet mannered, dignified but very genuine Germanic. Dr Sehober, who impressed me unusually forcibly the first time I met film in Vienna some years ago. What the MonkJPrelftfe Chancellor Monsejgneur Seipel, with all the influence of the Vatican behind him, seemed unable to achieve, the former Chief of Police has accomplished—with the encouragement of the Duce, retying the broken threads between Vienna, Rome and Berlin. The cry of the oppressed Austrians in the now Italian Tyrol is silenced. From the Austrian Tyrol, instead of songs of hate and clenched fists shaken towards the Brenner Pass now come voices sounding like benedictions on Sehober’s work. Sensible, practical statesmanship. A friendly Italy will treat the Germanic elements better than a hostile one. It need not surprise if Germany is as sensible as Austria now is. That at no far-dis-tant date Italy will waive objections to the “Anschluss” (Union) of Austria to Germany, possibly, even support it, Gerpiany has no army, neither has Austria, but the time might come when Italy would need food, coal, especially industrial products, far worse than an army.