NEWS OF THE WEEK
SIGNOR MUSSOLINI must have found it difficult to decide whether to attend the Nyon Conference or not, and there is little doubt that from his own point of view he decided wrong. Italy's absence promoted rather than impeded success, and the fact that the Conference, assembling for the first time on Friday afternoon, reached its conclusions by Saturday night is a testimony to the complete harmony that prevailed. The Anglo-French patrol which is now to be established throughout the Mediterranean represents no isolated action by those two Powers. They are acting specifically on behalf of all the " neutral " Mediterranean States except Italy—and Albania—and with the fully and formally-expressed support of those States. They are police charged with suppressing the gangster-warfare which has made an ocean thoroughfare a dangerous highway in time of peace. Italy may, at her own request, have a larger zone allotted to her, but meanwhile she will have had the oppor- tunity of contemplating the spectacle of the British and French navies, acting in complete co-operation as parts of a single machine, policing a sea in which she herself claims to be predominant—and that as part of a cordial agreement with States like Russia, Jugoslavia and Turkey. That arrangement is being put in hand forthwith, and is not open to any revision at the hands of the Non-Intervention Com- mittee. It remains to be seen whether the steps taken will intimidate the anonymous authors of lawless attacks which were neither sporadic nor opportunist but systematically organised. The naval authorities of both Great Britain and France appear completely confident about that.
