Abyssinia and White Settlement .
One of the, most valuable contributions yet made to the consideration of the Italo-Abyssinian problem is con- tained in a letter (which might well have been given more prominence) in Tuesday's Times from the Rev. A. F. Matthew, the Church of England chaplain at Addis Ababa. Dealing with the claim that there are vast areas of land in Abyssinia eminently suited to European settlement, Mr: Matthew asks pertinently which type of settlement is meant—the Kenya type, where settlers live on the work of natives, or the Canada type, where they work for themselves—and asks what prospect there is of any absorption of Italians worth speaking of on either basis. He drives the point home by asking further what advantage Italy has so far taken of the highlands in her own adjoining colony of Eritrea, which are quite as suitable as the Abyssinian plateau for European settlement, and much more accessible. The total white population of Eritrea is less than 4,000. These are directly relevant questions, and they lead inevitably to the further and over-riding question—what is it that , Signor Mussolini does want, unless war for the sake of war and victory for the sake of victory ?
