Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, APRIL 11, 1939. THE THREAT OF WORLD WAR.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 April 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, APRIL 11, 1939. THE THREAT OF WORLD WAR.

T\ T itself, the Italian annexation of Albania is perhaps hardly 1 in the same class as other recent examples of totalitarian ao'cression. It is true that, as in the ease of Czechoslovakia, the independence of Albania has been overthrown, by brute force. The little Balkan kingdom was, however, a theatre ot autocracy and intrigue and was a prey to much factional strife. Stoutly as the invasion is being resisted by smaijl forces, it seems possible that a substantial part of the Albanian population will be little concerned at the establishment of Italian rule. As a move in European and world politics, however, the annexation of Albania obviously is of the most sinister significance. Italy’s action is hardly to be understood otherwise than as indicating a determination'on the part of the totalitarian States to persevere in a policy of acquisitive aggression, regardless of the warnings that have been issued by the democratic nations. Contentions by Signor Gayda and other Fascist hirelings that the fate of Albania does not concern Britain and can raise no question of violation of the Anglo-Italian Agreement evidently are preposterous. Under her agreement with Britain, Italy undertook to respect the status quo in the Mediterranean. The annexation of Albania, amounting as it does to the seizure o a vital strategic base, creates a new and most menacing situation in the Balkans and the Mediterranean and reduces to a mockery an international undertaking designed to exclude any action of the kind. Moreover it cannot well be supposed that Italy would have ventured upon her latest exploit unless she had been assured of German backing. Tn the United States, according to some of the most recent cablegrams from Washington, it is taken for granted that the annexation of Albania by Italy will be followed up swiftly by a German attempt to seize Danzig and the Polish corridor and perhaps also Polish Silesia. If that forecast is well-founded, the European democracies are on the point of being faced by the situation in which, as Mr Cham'-. berlain declared only a week or two ago, they would be bound to resist totalitarian aggression. The British Prime Minister said on that occasion, it will be remembered, that if it should prove that Germany was seeking, by successive steps, to dominate Europe and perhaps to go even further than that, the British Government would feel bound to say that this would arouse the successful resistance of Britain and other countries who prize their freedom, as other attempts have done in the past. Since these words were spoken, Britain has exchanged specific and binding assurances with Poland of co-operation, against aggression and it seems highly probable that the Western European democracies have reached some closer understanding with Russia, on the subject of joint resistance to aggression than has yet been the subject of any public announcement. The American forecast of swift action by Germany avowedly is based in part on a belief that the totalitarian States are hard pressed financially, “and on the opinion that Germany is in a position where the longer she waits the less chance she would have of succeeding.” The likelihood that the Nazi dictatorship sees itsclt laced by an opportunity which must diminish with time —on account both of the expansion of democratic armaments and of the accentuation of financial, economic and other problems within the totalitarian States —no doubt constitutes the chief danger of the existing situation. Although that situation holds appalling possibilities, it clearly is one that must be faced with courage and resolution by the democracies if they wish to survive. It would be difficult Io exaggerate the horrors, or the criminal folly, of modern war. On.the other hand, if the Nazi and Fascist dictatorships were allowed further to extend their conquests, either in war or by the threat, of war, there could be no assured future for any surviving democratic country, probably not even for the United States. The demand plainly made upon the democracies is that they should resist further totalitarian aggression, even in war should there be no other way. Sadly as their peoples must look back upon the days, not yet very' distant, in which they embarked upon a war to end war. the democracies are not likely to falter in face of the demand now made upon them. The question of resisting totalitarian aggression resolves itself into one of simple selfpreservation. It must increasingly present itself in that light even to the people of the United States, amongst, whom isolationist sentiment is still strong. Senator Borah and olheis aie fulminating against, the policy of taking sides in European quarrels but the realities of the position were faced by a former American Secretarv of State (Mr 11. D. Stimson) when he urged the other day that the United States should “carefully and moderately, but firmly and intelligently, help to protect the world, which includes ourselves, from its imminent and continuing danger.” It is an element of reassurance in an exceedingly "critical situation that the American Government shows itself increasingly inclined to pursue the policy Air Stimson thus recommended.