* * * * The effects of the obliteration of
Austria are beyond prediction. Germany is delirious with enthusiasm and the British protest against the rape of Austria was rejected by the German Government in language nearer the offensive than the diplomatic. Germany's frontiers now march with Italy, Hungary and Jugoslavia. German troops are facing Italian frontier-guards on the Brenner, a development Signor Mussolini, for all his renewed protestations of devotion to the Rome-Berlin axis, can hardly be contemplating with equanimity. rrince Konoe has telegraphed to Berlin congra- tulations on a rape for which Japan has provided some admirable models. As for Czechoslovakia, her western provinces now form a narrow promontory thrust into German territory. It is in that promontory that the Sudetendeutsch (the German-speaking Austrians embodied in Czechoslovakia by the Peace Treaties) have their homes ; two-thirds of them are hostile to the Government at Prague. The dangers of that situation are patent everywhere ; so, no less, is its bearing on European peace in view of the pledges of France and Russia to come to Czechoslovakia's help if she is attacked by Germany. Our own Cabinet is still hesitating whether to associate itself with France and Russia; there seems some prospect that the conviction that such action would prevent a further German coup may prevail. Meanwhile heavily increased expenditure on armaments in every country seems inevitable, for when Great Powers make force the only arbiter the rest of the world must protect itself or submit.
