* * * * Italy and Spain Signor Mussolini finds
himself faced on his return from Libya with enough problems to tax even his abnormal energy. There is the question of Western Pact conver- sations ; there is the new revelation of strain between Italy and Austria disclosed by the demonstrations at Vienna on Sunday ; there is the reaction in Italy of the conflict between the German Government and the Vatican ; and there is the situation created by the Italian defeat in Spain. Of these the last, which is officially dismissed in Rome as negligible, is obviously the most important. The danger is that the Duce may decide to make up for quality by quantity and try to throw more troops into Spain despite the non-inter- vention agreement, or, at the least to send in more squadrons of aeroplanes, on which there is a ban but no control. Alter- natively he may take the wiser course, and emphasising the fact that it was Italy which first proposed the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Spain, press insistently now for a course which would enable the Italians to leave Spain without further loss of prestige as part of a general evacuation. Count Grandi's expression of his personal opinion at the Non-Intervention Committee's meeting on Tuesday, that no volunteer would leave Spain till the conflict was ended caused something of a sensation, but it was not an official declaration and may well have been due to mortification over the Italian troops' perform- ance and some of the foreign Press comments on it.
