"Taranaki Central Press" THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1937. CIVILISED BARBARISM.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 374, 4 March 1937, Page 4

"Taranaki Central Press" THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1937. CIVILISED BARBARISM.

A cable message published yesterday stated that when Marsha Graziana, the Italian commander in Abyssinia, was wounded recently through Abyssinian rioters throwing bombs, the Italian authorities shut the gates of the enclosure where the incident occurred while Italian infantry surrounded the area and shot down through the railings every Abyssinian inside. Then for three days hell prevailed . . . the authorities shot without trial thousands of citizens ... soldiers were told they might run amok in Abyssinian quarters ... native huts were burnt. . . the Italians competed as to who killed most natives . . . those who were not shot were incinerated in the flames. Though hardly as hellish as the incidents above, there have have been many other reported cases of Italian ruthlessness in Abyssinia since the occupation of Addis Ababa and the annexation of the territory by Italy. Mussolini fought the war on the same lines, with bombs and poison gas, caring as little for non-combat-ants as for the native troops engaged against his forces. The Abyssinians he treated not as soldiers but as bandits, and the barbaric methods he has ejnployed in putting down native risings since the war are fully in keeping with his established policy of ruthlessness. In his whole'treatment of the Abyssinian affair, Mussolini has acted without the slightest regard for world opinion. He has allowed nothing-to stand in the way of Italian and Mussolini s achievement. He shows no compassion in his conquest; rather does he fall below the level of the barbaric hordes he claimed it was his duty to subjugate.

So the world has been able to witness the spectacle of a mighty Eropean nation which, following oft-repeated proclamations of its intention to colonise in a pacific manner, lets loose its lustful soldiery on a primitive African people. The Abyssinians who will not bow before the rule of th is modern Caesar are but barbarians foolish enough to love th eir wretched country better than the rule of the mighty Duce who “brings civilisation in his ammunition waggons."

. A southern contemporary has asked a pertinent question. Italy may boycott the Coronation of His Britannic Majesty King George VI, on the grounds of the “insult” offered by the invitation extended to Haile Selassie to attend. For months past, contemptuous Italian insults have been hurled at Britain. When British strength at the League of Nations forced the application of sanctions against Italy, our Imperial history was h.s a triumph of force over native inferiority. But, as our southern contemporary says, 'lt is worth recalling that when the Boer ex-President Otto Kruger died abroad, his body was brought back to South Africa and buried by' the British with full honours. If the Emperor of Abyssinia died to-morrow or next year, would Mussolini make a similar gesture?

The attitude of Italy has* been one of contempt towards Abyssinia and towards the rest of the world. Italy, the great nation which bears such a splendid heritage of culture, cannot rise, in its conquest of a barbaric horde, above the barbarism of its primitive foe. “The ‘furor Teutonicus’ has marched south and become the ‘furor Italiensis.’