The Charlotte News

Thursday, February 27, 1936

EDITORIAL

 

Site Ed.Note: Here, over three years before the alliances came to be known as Allies and Axis and more than five years before Russia was to land with the Allies, Cash looks over the shells awash on the beaches and correctly assesses the probabilities.

Three Cheers for Our Oceans.

France is alarmed lest the liquidation of Japanese statesmen and the might of the militarists precipitate still more overt clashes on the Manchukuan border. This would seem to be Russia's fat in the fire, but it happens that even now the French Chamber of Deputies is pondering French responsibilities under the Franco-Russian mutual assistance pact, which would require France to come to the Soviet's rescue. And if there is, as there is suspected to be, a rapprochement between Germany and Japan, and if it should be translated into undue activity on the eastern French border, that would make it necessary for Russia to come likewise to France's assistance.

This would involve, under the terms of the understanding between Great Britain and France, John Bull's participation. And if that should be forthcoming, Italy's friendliness with Germany and unfriendliness with Great Britain undoubtedly would offer an opportunity for Mussolini to express his resentment of sanctions invoked upon him because of his war in Africa, and Italy would join in with Germany and Japan against Britain, France and Russia. But between London and Berlin there have been negotiated recently, quite in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, bilateral treaties reflecting the agreeable relations of those two countries. And, of course, there is always Austria, which Italy would like to keep as a buffer state between her and Germany, and which France would like to keep as a holdout against Hitler and his Nazis.

And over and above them all, there is the League, in which Italy still retains a nominal membership and in which France and England play master roles and Russia a supporting second. Germany and Japan are ex-members. Lastly, there is China: a weak sister with Communism knocking at one door and militarism and subjugation at the other. Only China, in the melee that could follow Japan's obstreperousness, would stand to gain respite.

In any event, the connection and interconnections between the European and Asiatic powers cause us to reflect once more how wise our forefathers were to found this American nation with the Atlantic Ocean on one side, the Pacific on the other.


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