TOPICS OF THE DAY.
ITALY AND THE LEAGUE.
THE fortunate arrangement which promises to settle the dispute between Italy and Greece, and to end the Italian occupation of Corfu by September 27th relieves us of all need to apologise for referring again to the services of the League of Nations. To our thinking no more pregnant issue is before the world than the question whether the principles embodied in the League shall or shall not prevail. It is possible now to say that the League has achieved more than we thought right to claim for it last week. It has undoubtedly made itself felt, and it is only by such experiences and trials of strength as the League has just gone through that it can gradually be established.
To pretend that the League was humiliated because it did not impose a settlement is entirely to misrepresent the nature of the League. It has no powers whatever to impose settlements ; it is merely a rallying point, a headquarters, for international consultation in the interests of peace. It ensures publicity and delay—two things which would rule out ninety per cent. of wars. The ultimate capacity of the League depends upon the collective mass of public opinion in the nations which are represented. It seems to us that if the League had not been sitting at Geneva when Signor Mussolini sent his ultimatum to Greece, if it had not immediately taken the matter in hand, and if it had not given more than usual power to the elbow of the Ambassadors' Conference, we might have been reading to-day the reports of yet another war.
There is a further misunderstanding about the League. Those who are under no misapprehension about the powers assigned to the League in the Covenant appear, neverthe- less, to think that the League has failed when a solution is reached through the indirect instead of through the direct action of the League. Yet all that the Covenant authorizes the League to do is to secure that its members, before resorting to war, shall submit their disputes to some form of arbitration. Obviously this embraces multifarious forms. In the case of the dispute between Greece and Italy the details of the settlement were drawn up by the Conference of Ambassadors at the instance of the League, and those details hardly differ at all from the suggestions made by the Council of the League. But the Council might on other occasions prefer to refer the matter to the International Court of Justice, or to a specially created tribunal or to the ordinary machinery of diplomacy. Of course, it would watch over events all the time, and hold itself ready to produce a solution of its own in the event of all other attempts failing. In every case, however, the one and only function that matters is that of ensuring peace. No sincere and rational supporter of the League could, even temporarily, become quite so demented as to argue that the League ought to stand out for some plenary abstract rights of its own, and let the world dissolve into war while the League had the empty satisfaction of having asserted its dignity.
At this point we must say something about the personal attitude of Signor Mussolini. He has, of course, con- siderably abated his demands. The humiliating terms originally required of Greece were watered down so that the Greek apology was offered not to Italy alone, but to the. representatives of all the Powers on the , frontier commission. The Greek ships were not subjected to the humiliation of flying the Italian flag ; after the Greek ships had saluted the PoWers the salute was returned ; the money reparation fixed by Italy was altered so that the fixed sum became a maximum at the discretion of the International Court ; and so on. Finally, though Signor Mussolini said that he would not leave Corfu till Greece had met all the points of his ultiinatum he is, as a matter of fact, under a promise to leave it in a few days.
The plain truth is that Signor Mussolini has shown the moderation of second thoughts. We venture to congratu- late him on this. It is a great mistake to suppose that it is a sign of weakness when a man who has been breathing fire blows forth a temperate blast. It is rather a sign of moral strength. It is difficult for us to judge exactly the state of feeling in Italy, but we are perfectly sure of this, that everywhere else in the world Signor Mussolini's second thoughts have renewed the respect for him which he was in danger of forfeiting. An official statement published in Rome speaks of the Conference of Ambassa- dors as having " adopted in its entirety the point of view which Italy has maintained with such firmness." For Italian consumption that is all very well ; we can even believe that the language is highly expedient if not necessary ; but the fact remains that the whole situation has been radically altered.
If the peace is now kept it will be chiefly due to the intervention of the League. Surely people must be very insensitive to the significance of political movements if they do not perceive that what has happened at Geneva in the past fortnight is something to which there is no exact parallel in history. The public discussions of the Council were conducted with a high and sincere moral purpose the character of which could not be mistaken. There was at last an international forum where public opinion had become operative. That is a great fact. It will seem even greater if the International Court— whose judgment is to be asked with Signor Mussolini's full consent—should lay it down that the League was competent all the time to deal with the' dispute.
We should feel fairly confident of a happy culmination in all respects were there not still doubts about Fiume. The problem' of Fiume opens up the whole 'Adriatic question and indeed all that dark political hinterland, the Balkan question. It is a sign of moderation that Signor Mussolini extended the period of his ultimatum, and continued negotiations after the date (September 15th) on which he had required a definite answer from Jugo- Slavia. That sign of grace, however, has been obscured to some extent by the arbitrary appointment of an Italian Governor of Fiume, which in theory is a free city. Our reasons for hoping as we do that this dispute will also be settled are more instinctive than rational. There is, however, this to be said on the ground of experience, that Signor Mussolini has always been more conciliatory towards the Jugo-Slays than towards the Greeks. For the rest, France is bound to change her complaisance when the object against which Italian policy is directed is not Greece but the Little Entente. France has discovered that she cannot give a general support to Italy without estranging her Balkan friends and jeopardising her own position in the Mediterranean. She fears about equally the loss of Italian friendship, the breakdown of her association with the Little 'Entente and. the possibility of an alliance in the Mediterranean between Italy and Spain. She cannot have everything. One plan spoils another.
Everybody, it is perhips not too much to say, is living and learning. France no longer thinks lightheartedly of challenging the League by backing a defiant member, and Italy herself is learning from France, if not from the com- ments of all the'rest of the world, that the voice and feel. ings of the little nations that live in the League for protec- tion are not to be disregarded or despised. If France wants to remain the friend of the Little Entente, or of Belgium for that matter, she cannot very well be unfriendlY to the League. - •
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