The Unbridged Gulf
How much Herr Hitler knows of the temper of Britain and France no one can tell. He would appear to be in a neurotic mood in which any sudden decision is possible. He has had his conversation with Count Ciano and his conversation with Dr. Burckhardt—the latter, it would appear, largely in the nature of a monologue by the Fiihrer. Nothing is known of the tenor of either talk, and if there was any disposition to attach importance to the fact that the American Congressman, Mr. Hamilton Fish, emerged from an interview with Herr von Ribbentrop to urge a 3o days' truce (whatever that may mean) and a Four Power Con- ference, the indignant repudiations in the Berlin and Rome Press would have dispelled it. There is no need indeed, for denunciations of a Four Power Conference from those quarters. A year ago there was a Four Power Conference about Czecho-Slovakia without the Czechs. The result is written in history, and that blunder will not be repeated. There will be no conference about Poland without the Poles —or the Russians. That, there is every reason to believe, is fundamental in the policy of Britain and France. If even now, with the contact between the Polish High Commissioner at Danzig and the President of the Danzig Senate as starting- point, discussions could be developed between Poland and Germany pointing to an agreement in no way prejudicial to Poland's independence, such a course would have the full approval of Whitehall and the Quai d'Orsay. But the gulf between what Germany is at present asking and what Poland could concede is utterly unbridgeable.
