AS EUROPE'S LIGHTS DIM

With the merciless force of a Greek tragedy, events in Europe move towards their appointed climax. Italy has defied the League, and is pursuing with increased vigor her campaign against Ethiopia--a campaign that must soon be dignified with the name of war. Britain, her Empire directly challenged for the first time since 1914, is becoming increasingly involved, and appears ready to meet the challenge. France must follow suit; she cannot forsake her ally now, and expect support later when Hitler, pressed by economic necessity, starts his drive towards pan-Germanism. Open British and French opposition will bring Italy and Germany together. Whether the African conflict can be localized or not, the larger conflict can be avoided only by complete economic collapse.

For the first act in the tragedy, one must revert to the Secret Treaties of London in 1915, and the failure of Britain and France in 1919 to live up to their promises. The second act took place in Rome, the first week of this year, when M. Laval, either intentionally or unintentionally, let Mussolini understand that France would not intervene in an Italian campaign against Ethiopia. The third act, of longer duration, is spread over the nine months of this year, and is marked by the consistent failure of the Powers to realize that Mussolini has meant business all along, and that if war was to be prevented, the time to act was before Mussolini had gone too far to withdraw.

History seldom offers, in its tragedies, so clear-cut a role for the villain of the piece as is now occupied by Mussolini. On his shoulders alone must fall the blame for the misery that awaits Italy, and for the subsequent misery in Europe. Yet he has been quite consistent. Time and again since his advent to power, he has preached militarism to his people. We westerners dismissed these warlike utterances as mere sabre-rattling for mass consumption. We will soon pay for refusing to face the facts.

But as the lights begin to dim over Europe, for the second time in thirty-five years, there is one ray of hope: that when the present militarism has run its logical course, the entire Fascist doctrine will be discarded for good and all. Sooner or later Europeans must learn that no one man is great enough to wield wisely the power that has been assumed by Mussolini and Hitler. Until bitter experience has taught this lesson, Europe can know neither peace nor progress.