ABYSSINIA’S THREAT.

Shannon News, 5 October 1926, Page 4

ABYSSINIA’S THREAT.

* FIGHT FOR THE SHRINES. - % ___________ Christian shrines arc again threatening to prove a casus belli between the Fast and the West, but with a difference. At tho time of the Crusades it was the West which vent to war to prevent tlieir desecration. Now it is tho East which is protesting against their destruction to further Occidental projects. This curious situation developed as a sequel to tho recent agreement between the British and Italian Governments regarding Abyssinia, the last independent African State, and one of the hardest native nuts, in a military sense, which European soldiery has ever tried to crack.

What Britain''covets in Abyssinia is a concession to build a big dam at Lako Tsana, with further barrages on the Bluo Nile. The carrying out of such a project would make the British spinners almost independent of American cotton. Italy wants to build a railway to connect the Italian colonics of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland and incidentally tap the rich country between.

By tho Anglo-Italian agreement each country has contracted to support the other in negotiating concessions. Abyssinia wishes to grant neither. The British barrage scheme would raise the level of Lake Tsana and thereby submerge a number of islands containing shrines considered by the Abyssinian Christians to be sacred. The Regent of Abyssinia, Ras Tafari, has protested to the League of Nations against the Anglo-Italian agreement, and the matter will come up at Geneva. Meanwhile Abyssinia intimates she is prepared to resist both concessions—by force of arms if necessary. Italy, with memories of the overwhelming defeat inflicted on her forces at Adowa, knows what this means. Britain is trying to make a deal with the Abyssinian Government by securing the restorotion to the Abyssinian Church of its ancient property in Palestine. Signor Mussolini may have more warlike intentions