22 OCTOBER 1937, Page 6

Signor Mussolini is in an increasingly difficult position, but various

London papers are doing what they can to help him. Take, for instance, headings like the following, from last Saturday's Daily Herald :

MR. EDEN RUNS AWAY : DUCE LEFT A FREE HAND MR. EDEN RUNS AWAY FROM MUSSOLINI

or the reference in the New Chronicle to " a rather naive Anglo-French effort to avoid the admission that the Duce has had much the same effect on them as a stoat has on a weasel." Signor Mussolini's whole future depends on his convincing his own people that his big-stick diplomacy is triumphantly achieving its pernicious purposes. If he could dictate to the British Press as he can to the Italian who can doubt that his fervent instruction, as he eyed such passages as I have quoted, would be " Keep it so " ?

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