ITALY AND ABYSSINIA
[To the Editor of DIE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In his letter on Italy and Abyssinia in your issue of "April 26th, Comrnendatore Villari mentions the " rabid xenophobia " of the Abyssinians. The Italian papers are full of it, but investigation shows that the point is stressed out of all proportion to the truth. It looks as if this has been necessary in order to justify the very unpopular despatch of first 50,000, and last week of more troops to East Africa. No one wants to go ; the climate is known to be unsuitable, and memories of what happened to the Adowa prisoners in '06 have a tremendous moral effect on the troops of a highly- sexed Southern nation.
Generalities about Abyssinian xenophobia become ridiculous when one remembers the difficulties which Emperor Haile Selassie is experiencing in unifying his empire. He is in complete control of the districts round Addis Ababa and of the Province of Harm, of which he and his father before him were hereditary governors. Since the unsuccessful revolt of the Governor of Gojam in 1932, he has extended this unity towards the North, but the tribes which march with the Italian colonies on the South and East—Danakil, Aussa and Ogaden—are far less well in hand. All first-hand accounts confirm that their ambitions-are purely tribal an4 local, never rising higher than the level of wells and grazing. grounds.
There was proof of this mentality only last January, when a Danakil tribe raided the neighbouring Eisa in French Somaliland and in doing so crossed the international frontier and killed a French district commissioner. The French authorities very sensibly distinguished between a purely tribal feud and " xenophobia " and dealt accordingly with the Addis Ababa authorities.—Yours faithfully,
ELIZABETH MONROE.
37 Brompton Road, S.W. 3.
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