Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, MAY 3, 1938. A MEETING OF DICTATORS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 May 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, MAY 3, 1938. A MEETING OF DICTATORS.

those to whom it falls to stage-manage it, every effort doubtless will be made to. impart to the visit of Herr Hitler to Rome the aspect of a meeting of friendly potentates united in the pursuit of mutual and common aims. No one who has followed the recent course of events in Europe can doubt, however, that the meeting ol the two dictators actually will have an entirely different cliaractei. Some years ago, it has been reported, Herr Hitler felt himself unable to visit Rome because, not yet being established in power, he was not in a position to do so m what he considered sufficiently imposing style. Today the tables are very completely turned. The German Fuehrer is well placed" to make the most of the pageantry of the meeting, but Signor Mussolini, however he may mask his inner feelings, is bound to be a somewhat uneasy host. No other conclusion seems possible than that in the dealings of the two dictators to date, Signor Mussolini has been outmanoeuvred to his own undoing and that ot Italy. The leading facts were summed up not long ago by Mr Livingston Hartley, in an article in the “Christian Science Monitor.” Observing that Italy gained from the World War an unqualified national safety, since she witnessed the permanent break-up of a Germanic neighboui who had dominated her life since the days of Charlemagne, Mr Hartley added that, with Germany established on the Brenner Pass (by the absorption of Austria) Italy S prospect of continued national security has been shattered in less than twenty years and that: “Since Italy’s destiny has been since 1922 in the hands of Mussolini, whom Ins adherents proclaim incessantly ‘is always right, the responsibility must be charged to him.” Much as lie is still being boomed, it is plain that Mussolini has blundered and failed egregiously in his unquestioned control of Italian foreign policy, and that the consequences of this failure are likely to be deepened it he is allowed to lead his country into a course of further adventure, ostensibly as the ally of Germany, but actually as a pawn in Teutonic hands. As Mr Hartley points out in the article quoted above, Mussolini has a possible alternative: —■

A real rapprochement with Britain and France would make the Brenner a potential threat to Germany as well as Italy, and thereby block her path to Mittel-Europa. "it would confront Hitler with an alignment he could not challenge, and leave him no alternative except peace and participation in a European settlement. If the fall of Austria should bring this result, it would not be an unmitigated disaster to Europe or Italy.

Whether Mussolini is capable of retracing his steps to this extent has yet to appear. It is in. any case apparent that if he elects'instead to continue in the course he has thus •far pursued, he will be doing quite as much to undermine the future of his own country as to endanger the general peace of Europe.