NEWS OF THE WEEK
MINISTERS and Members of Parliament alike have dispersed for a three-months' recess, but it cannot be with completely quiet minds. None of the problems whose menace has been overhanging Europe for the last six months has been solved, and some have grown rather than diminished in acuteness. The prospect of an early end to the Spanish war has receded, and the fact that in the absence of further foreign intervention the protraction of the war into 1939 is probable provides a dangerous temptation to the interveners. The Czechoslovak dispute is moving towards what may as easily be crisis as settlement, and in the Far East there is the grave possibility—no more as yet than the possibility—of a Russo-Japanese war which by embroiling Russia in Asia might remove a strong deterrent to German adventure in Europe. The reason for the sudden acceleration of fortification in the German frontier areas at this moment is obscure. These are gloomy reflections for a week which contains the fateful date of August 4th, but they can be omitted - from no honest survey of the situation. Against them must be set the fact that Ministers believe the state of Europe to have slightly but sensibly improved, and that the assuraLces brought to Lord Halifax by Captain Wiedemann are believed to be sincere.
