INTERNATIONAL: Might, Right & de Facto

To do something about Adolf Hitler’s violation of the Locarno Pact in remilitarizing the Rhineland, something about Der Führer’s persistence in refusing to answer the Eden Questionnaire (TIME, May 18), and something about the maintenance of Allied rights under the tattered Treaty of Versailles, there met in London last week an Anglo-Franco-Belgian conference with Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin as host in the historic white-paneled Cabinet Room at No. 10 Downing Street.

This was the first conference to which France sent her new Premier, Socialist Léon Blum, and he was expected, at the least, to hold Little Belgium in her accustomed place as the diplomatic satellite of France, battling for legal Right. It was therefore no less than a disaster to the prestige of M. Blum when, just before Premier-Professor Paul van Zeeland of Belgium left Brussels for London, his new Foreign Minister, young Paul Henri Spaak, declared: “Right is a concept of the mind which is always disputable. . . . Belgium will hereafter follow the policy of avoiding war and not that of seeking to impose peace at the risk of war. . . . Is it not a mistake to found the principles of foreign policy solely on Right, which is in perpetual evolution, and to risk the fate of men and of future civilization itself upon what is, after all, only momentary?”

This showed Belgium to be, if anything, in more of a panic than Britain before the German spectre of Might. In London lean, spidery Léon Blum, whose double hate of the Nazis is that of a Socialist who is also a Jew, raised his thin voice and shook his bony forefinger at paunchy Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, but the Frenchman had failed before ever he left Paris. Privately, British diplomats said they found this high-strung and super-cultivated radical far easier to deal with than earthy and frankly unesthetic Pierre Laval, the only Premier of France in many years to give Downing Street sore headaches (TIME, Dec. 23). Last week Might prevailed, treaty Right went into the dustbin and the Conference was wound up in one day after only two sessions of some two hours each. Its only decision was that Dictator Hitler and Dictator Mussolini will be asked please to send delegates later this year to a Five-Power Conference of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Belgium which will “aim” to “consolidate peace by means of a general settlement.”

For new Premier Blum this stalemate was even worse because on Aug. 1 expires Chancellor Hitler’s promise that up to that date Germany would not supplement the “token troops” holding the Rhineland with still stronger armed forces. Originally the British promised automatic military aid to France in case she was invaded before the Conference held last week could deal with Germany’s treaty violation. In case of failure by the Conference to effect a settlement, Britain was to have made her automatic guarantee “permanent.” but on this Léon Blum could get nothing in writing last week from Stanley Baldwin.

Meanwhile last week Mussolini and Hitler pursued their diplomacy of acts rather than words. Il Duce’s son-in-law Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano sealed an agreement whereby the onetime German legation at Addis Ababa accredited to the Ethiopian Government is abolished as such and becomes a German consulate, its diplomatic functions passing to the German Embassy in Rome. Amid ensuing international jitters, State Department officials in Washington intimated that it will now be “difficult” for “embarrassed” President Roosevelt to avoid recognizing Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia.

The flirtation of Der Führer and Il Duce, symbolized last month by the Pact of Berchtesgaden (TIME, July 20), was adorned last week by Adolf Hitler with a thumping reward to its negotiator,Lieut. Colonel Franz von Papen. Although this swank, sly predecessor of Hitler as Chancellor remains in charge of the German diplomatic mission in Vienna, which retains the status of legation, von Papen personally is raised to “Ambassador Extraordinary on Special Mission.” With Germany taking de facto hold of Danzig (see p. 20) and Italy’s conquest fast gaining de facto recognition, the new “Dictators’ Diplomacy” was philosophized upon in Rome by No. 1 Fascist Editor Virginio Gayda of Giornale d’ltalia. Wrote he of Adolf Hitler’s order making Germany’s Addis Ababa legation a consulate :

“The German Government’s decision is at once an act of friendship to Italy and an example of intelligent European policy. It serves also to point the rational way whereby, without any need ot diplomatic contortion and useless controversies, it is possible to solve practically and in a form satisfactory to everyone the problem of the Italian fait accompli in East Africa.”