INTERNATIONAL: Peace and Pirates

• Share

At the Paris Exposition last week the pavilion of the League of Nations collapsed of its own weight, but in Geneva the apparatus of the League worked hard and Democracy, personified by Britain and France, cut an impressive figure.

Ever since the Ethiopian crisis, when Italian air power made Britain's base at Malta virtually untenable for her best warships and they withdrew to Egyptian waters for safety, His Majesty's Government have sought some pretext for active co-operation with the French Navy and use of its bases in the Mediterranean by the British fleet. Last week the decisions reached fortnight ago at Nyon for naval co-operation by Britain and France to patrol the Mediterranean and destroy "pirate submarines"* (TIME, Sept. 20), were whipped into final shape at Geneva by the two foreign ministers chiefly concerned, Britain's Anthony Eden and France's Yvon Delbos. They used the Hotel des Bergues, where many of the League of Nations' most vital decisions are made in bedroom conferences, and before the week was out Britain, France and their satellite nations had agreed to hunt in the Mediterranean not only "pirate submarines" but also "pirate warships" and "pirate war planes."

In the open forum of the League Council the job of loudly naming for the first time a pirate power was performed by Premier Juan Negrin of Leftist Spain. Alphabetical rotation had made him president of the Council at this session, but Mr. Negrin handed his gavel to the Delegate of Ecuador, moved to another seat at the horseshoe table, drew himself up and cried: "The anonymous State whose warships are trying by constant aggressions to create a state of terrorism in the Mediterranean is Italy!"

Britain and France, apart from their main purpose of getting technical co-operation started between their two navies—just as the British and French armies drew together in close technical cooperation during the World War—adopted toward Italy last week an attitude in which surface politeness was blended with hauteur. The great Democracies did not join Leftist Spain in crying "Pirate!" at Il Duce, indeed they carefully sent to Rome copies of every project they adopted or discussed, even held up release of one of these to the press until it could be scanned by Premier Mussolini. To most observers it was obvious that British Foreign Secretary Eden, who hates and scorns Il Duce, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who wants to make friends with the Italian Dictator with whom he exchanges friendly personal letters (TIME, Aug. 9), were continuing to work at somewhat ludicrous cross purposes—except that the big job of starting Anglo-French naval cooperation had been accomplished, looms this week as a great white plume in the helmet of Democracy.