31 OCTOBER 1931, Page 2

The Revision of Treaties While Signor Giandi was conversing with

the German Chancellor at Berlin last Sunday, Signor Mussolini at Naples was drawing pointed distinctions between the nations forcibly disarmed by the peace treaties and the nations still armed to the teeth, and emphasizing the impossibility of any real reconstruction while ,those treaties remained unrevised. On that point at any rate therefore Signor Mussolini and Mr. Borah are at one. There is no indication that Signor Grandi talked revision to Dr. Bruning. You cannot talk it at Berlin in the abstract, and to talk it in detail is purposeless enough at the moment, as both the Italian Foreign Minister and the German Chancellor know well. Mr. Borah may single out the Polish Corridor for special attack. He has the advan- tage of never having been within three thousand miles or so of the Corridor, and he is not in a position that makes it necessary for him to guard his words. As to the impres- sion which slowly appears to be spreading that not only disarmament and the debts-reparation question, but treaty revision as well, are all inseparably linked together, the very element . of truth in that assumption makes it dangerous. Certain frontiers in Europe may and must in time be modified by agreement, assisted by judi- cious external pressure and possibly in return for some quid pro .quo, but the attempt to achieve some grand settlement by throwing all Europe into the melting-pot again could mean only one thing—war.

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