A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE first comments in the British Press on Sir Samuel Hoare's speech show too little appreciation of the gravity of the situation now swiftly developing.. The plain fact is that war between one European Power and several others is now a very real possibility. If Signor Mussolini acts as a sane man would act in the circumstances there will be no war. If France declares that she cannot endorse the British view of Covenant obligations there will be no war. But if, as seems likely, Britain, France, Russia, the Little Entente, Spain and Poland and many. other European Powers declare for " steady and collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression," and Signor Mussolini still goes on, mere economic sanctions will not operate quickly enough to stop him. If 'Abyssinia is to be given effective help— which is what the Covenant contemplates—there would be something to be said for pushing a mixed force representing France, Britain and some other League States up through French and British Somaliland and the Sudan to help defend the Abyssinian frontier, and leave Signor Mussolini the responsibility of opening _fire on them.
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