The Mother of Parliaments meanwhile is awaiting with resolute trepidation
the Fiihrer's speech of April A8th. It is perhaps unfortunate that Herr Hitler should have chosen as the medium of his reply to President Roosevelt a full dress oration from the tribune . of the Reichstag. The atmosphere of such meetings is essentially a revivalist atmo- sphere. If the Fiihrer fails to speak for his usual three hours, it will be said that he is not the man that he was; if, on the other hand, he does reply to the crisp sentences of the President's message by a long rodomontade, then his words will lose in dignity and effect. It will be difficult for him, moreover, to maintain the note of injured innocence appropriate to the occasion. True it is that he will be able to produce the testimonials tendered by the little Red Ridinghoods whom he has consulted; yet the grandmotherly voice in which he will open his discourse will, in the atmo- sphere of that hysterical assembly, rise gradually to screams of passion and of rage. All the old emotions of ambition, self-pity and hatred will once again have to be aroused. And the final result may well be one of turbulent mystification. There are those who contend that this is in fact the im- pression which Herr Hitler wishes to produce. He is a great believer in moral attrition. By submitting Europe to a cat- and-mouse system under which purring and clutching alter- nate in such a manner as to benumb terror and to paralyse hope, he may seek to create a form of nervous tension under which we should accept anything rather than the prolonga- tion of existing uncertainty. Here assuredly he is making a psychological mistake. It is not our resolution which is in danger of being undermined; it is our patience.
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