• .;
NEWS OF THE WEEK /
THE official communiqué recording Mr. Churchill's talks with Arab leaders, and with the Emperor of Ethiopia, in Egypt, dis- closes little but suggests much. But since the suggestion may easily fail to correspond with the fact it will be wise to await the fuller infor- mation which the Prime Minister will no doubt impart next week to the House of Commons. Something of the content of the talk with the Emperor Haille Selassie can be conjectured. Ethiopia was the first State to be freed in this war from enemy bondage. As well as being liberated it has been set on its feet, and the recent treaty negotiated by Earl de la Warr demonstrated the lack of all desire to establish British domination by conceding the right of the Emperor to choose his foreign advisers from whatever nations he liked. But Ethiopia's frontierr have not been finally fixed. There is general agreement that the country must have a Red Sea port, and since it was announced long since that Italy's African colonies would not revert to Italy, there are several ports to select from. But the conversations with the Arab rulers were no doubt the more important. There are great stirrings of political thought in the Arab world, and an Arab federation or confederation, which Mr. Eden has stated this country would favour, seems certain to materialise in one form or another. Ibn Saud is at once the most important and the most remote of Asiatic Arab rulers, and a meeting between him and the British Prime Minister was proportionately important, while in King Farouk Mr. Churchill met the sovereign of a country whose relations with Great Britain were, pfter long vicissitudes, set on a satisfactory basis by the Treaty of 1936, with results which the fidelity of Egypt to her ally throughout this war abundantly vindi- cated. A comprehensive Arab settlement should facilitate rather than impede local settlements in Palestine and Lebanon. It is worth remembering that many of the problems arising today in the Middle East are problems which the Prime Minister had to handle as Colonial Secretary after the last war.
