NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE unexpected news from Italy that a particularly rigorous ultimatum has been sent to Greece has been reported only in brief form when we go to press on Thursday, but it suggests that Signor Mussolini has acted in very hot haste. We deeply regret that he appears to have left himself no opportunity to modify a message which, in form and manner, reminds us of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia in 1914. All lovers of peace, in spite of notorious disappointments, had cherished the hope that what was possible in 1914 would be regarded as impossible in 1923. If the Greek Government were really accomplices in the murder on Greek soil of General Tellini and the members of the Italian Frontier Mission, as Signor Mussolini is convinced they were, no expressions of horror and detestation and no public penalties of the kind sanctioned by international custom could be too severe. But the whole spirit of those nations which pledged themselves to make a new world by managing their affairs in a new way is contained in the idea that inquiry—inquiry - worthy of the name—should precede action. Inquiry does not lessen a penalty, but vastly increases its significance when the penalty is proved beyond dispute to be necessary.
