NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE international situation is in appearance, if not in reality, markedly less favourable, and all the indica- tions are that it is not in appearance only. The challenge by Japan to British interests in the Far East may or may not have been timed to synchronise with other forms of pressure from various quarters in Europe. Even if not, the European moves are disturbing in themselves. Spain shows every sign of identifying herself increasingly with the Axis Powers, and the visit which Sefior Sufier has just been making to Rome is soon to be followed by a visit of Count Ciano to Madrid. Germany's moves are more important. The verbal conflict over Danzig continues and German-Polish tension increases rather than diminishes, the more so since the Poles are alarmed with some reason at what is taking place in the former Czecho-Slovakia. The unrest there continues, and it is clear that Germany will never reduce to acquies- cence the provinces she has annexed ; Baron von Neurath has, however, had the grace to remit the heavy penalties he had imposed on the town of Kladno in reprisal for the murder of a German soldier there; it seems clear now that the man was killed not by a Czech but by another German. More serious is the German threat to Slovakia, whose fictitious independence is likely to be exchanged at any moment for the status imposed on Moravia and Bohemia. Announcements of full Anglo-Russian and Franco-Turkish agreement would be welcome offsets to these manifestations.
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