ITALY: Peace Declared!

Two bold blunt aims of Benito Mussolini’s “Four-Power Pact” as originally announced (TIME, April 10) were partial revision of the post-War treaties and gradual granting of arms equality to the defeated nations. Last week, emasculated beyond recognition. Il Patto a Quattro was ready to receive the squiggled initials (not signatures) of Il Duce and the ambassadors in Rome of Britain, France, Germany. Because IlPatto is the first treaty of world importance hatched by Benito Mussolini since he made Italy his nest, he turned the initialing into a Roman holiday, had loudspeakers stuck up beside the splashing fountains in Rome’s public squares, called the Italian Senate. Drama, even frenzy was injected as the senators gathered by news that Germany might refuse to squiggle. Instantly Il Duce put through a telephone call to Der Führer; in Berlin. Dictator bickered with Dictator until hesitant, pouting-lipped Adolf gave in—barely 40 minutes before eager, dynamic Benito was to address his Senate. Excited Italian socialites, squeezed like sardines into the Senate galleries, pointed knowingly to the Diplomatic Box. In the front row all smiles sat British Ambassador Sir Ronald Graham, French Ambassador Henry de Jouvenel and German Ambassador Ulrich von Hassell—these three ready to squiggle. Just behind them, nervous as squirrels, perched the diplomats of the “Little Entente” (Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Jugoslavia) and Poland. They understood from France, their great ally, that she had gouged out of the Pact all possibility that it may lead to revision of their frontiers or rearmament of their neighbors (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria) but in diplomacy no move is more frequent than the double-cross. With pulses thumping, the little diplomats listened while Premier Mussolini did his best (amid deafening Senatorial Vivas) to make Il Patto a Quattro sound important. “The war chapter is closed!” he shouted and loudspeakers made all Rome reverberate. “Without imbecile optimism . . . we can prophesy that the Four-Power Pact opens a new phase in European history!” “Moreover,” cried Il Duce and drew crashing cheers, “this pact is not limited to the signatory powers. Collaboration is its ultimate aim, so it is open to everybody and first of all to the United States!”* Collaboration—a solemn promise by Italy, Britain, France and Germany to consult and collaborate for the political and economic peace of the world—proved to be about all that is left of the Four-Power Pact after an emasculation which Il Duce (once an editor) described last week as “editing.” To friends of Disarmament the Mussolini Pact in its final form did seem, however, to sound indirectly the doom of the Disarmament Conference, moribund for the past 16 months. “Should questions . . . remain in suspense on conclusion of that Conference,” reads Article III of Il Patto a Quattro, the signatories “reserve the right to re-examine these questions between themselves . . . with a view to insuring their solution through the appropriate channels.” That Dictator Mussolini has no patience with and no confidence in pompous, teeming Conferences is a hard, pragmatic fact —of special importance as the World Economic Conference meets (see p. 16). In his speech to the Senate. Il Duce scored “sentimental fears” that he might be trying to create, ultimately, a four-power junta to boss Europe, but he left the impression that nothing would please him better. Sirens shrieked. Il Duce dashed from the Senate, followed by the three ambassadors in their cars, to his vast, lofty, stone-floored office in the Palazzo Venezia. There, while a Roman crowd roared applause outside, the four statesmen squiggled their initials. The pact of collaboration is to run for ten years and if (See col. 2) not denounced before the end of the eighth year will continue indefinitely in force, terminating only upon two years notice that one of the signatories wishes to withdraw. Ten minutes after the initialing, Roman newsboys rushed through the streets with extras shrilling “PEACE DECLARED !”

Even cynics realized that Franco-Italian relations, long tense, had been eased by an agreement, no matter how flimsy, to “collaborate.”

*A bid to which the White House remained last week ice cold.