Radiant Rainbow

After the Council of the League of Nations had been at work on Italy and Ethiopia for a few days last week, the Holy Father Pius XI addressed 15,000 War veterans of 15 nations in the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls thus: "It is with inexpressible joy that, if we have well understood, we seem to see on the black horizon a rainbow of peace which seems to diffuse its rays over the world. This is peace made of justice, charity, honor, dignity and respect for all rights. It is peace which announces happiness for everybody. Peace is the primary condition for all prosperity, and therefore we shall always pray for peace. All the world sighs for peace, all the world desires peace and for us, the vicar of Christ, for us the common father of all souls, it is our task to procure peace with all means. It is with this marvelous vision in mind that we bless you."

That night youths of Benito Mussolini's smartly uniformed Fascist Balilla held flaming torches aloft to light the vast, half-ruined Colosseum. In the Arena, where wild beasts once tore Christian martyrs to bits, the 15,000 veterans prayed in unison for a solid hour "for forgetfulness by Mankind of the hatreds of the World War and the re-establishment of Good Will among all peoples."

This week the 15,000 prayerful war veterans in Rome were addressed by Dictator Mussolini for one minute. "Italy loves peace!" he roared in parade ground tones. "She wants peace with justice and is taking all measures to see that the justice of her demands is not overlooked!"

Wily Greek. League of Nations activity began to stir when British League of Nations Minister Anthony Eden motored from Geneva over to Aix-les-Bains in France for dinner with Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. About 2 a. m. Baron Pompeo Aloisi, Dictator Mussolini's Chief Delegate to the League, also arrived at Aix-les-Bains and went to bed. At 9:30 next morning the hard, astute Fascist Baron breakfasted with comfortable, pipe-sucking Stanley Baldwin and they conferred for an hour before the minister wound up his holiday water-cure and returned to London.

Later in the day at Geneva a decision was handed out on the original Italo-Ethiopian armed clash at Ualual (pronounced walwal), the No. 1 specific causus belli. The arbiter, Dr. Niccolas Socrate Politis, a big-eared, beady-eyed little Greek Diplomat who for years has been a pushing League careerist, decided solemnly that "from an international standpoint" neither Italy nor Ethiopia was to blame for that bloody encounter in which 32 Italians and 107 Ethiopians were killed.

In masterly fashion the wily Greek persuaded the two Italians and the two white representatives for Ethiopia, who with himself comprised the League's arbitral commission, to concur unanimously in his Byzantine verdict. They also agreed not to decide whether Ualual is in Ethiopia or in Italian Somaliland.

In Rome the Dictator's Press called this Politis decision ''virtually an Italian triumph." In Addis Ababa the Emperor's newsorgan termed it "substantially a victory for Ethiopia."

"Atrocious Practices." Next in Geneva the Italian case against Ethiopia was opened before the Council by Baron Pompeo Aloisi with a harsh, heavily documented address, while Italian aides passed around among the statesmen pictures taken in Ethiopia. As Captain Anthony Eden and his entourage fingered them, a Briton snorted, "The most revolting exhibit ever produced!" Wrinkling his French nose, Premier Laval remarked, "Nice, aren't they?"

Mostly the Italian exhibits showed Ethiopians snapped in acts every explorer of the Empire knows to be sanctified by savage custom, namely in the words of Baron Aloisi:

"Emasculation, not only of adults but of boys and babies captured during raids, and commerce in eunuchs, which is still flourishing. The survival of atrocious practices, such as cannibalism for magical purposes and bleeding babies for ritualistic functions. The cruelest practices of torture and execution. Among these may be cited a punishment that the French ethnologist and explorer, Marcel Griaule, witnessed in Godjam. An Ethiopian guilty of aggression against a minor ras [chief] was wrapped in muslin strips, dipped in wax and honey and slowly burned as a living torch in the presence of the ras. . . . (see p. 67).

"A case must also be cited, as witnessed by Sir Arnold Hodson, of a woman buried up to her neck for three days until some one finished her with a large rock. With absolute indifference for life, lepers numbering about 100,000 are permitted to wander freely in Ethiopia, with the perpetual danger of contagion. . . .

"Notwithstanding edicts, there is no Ethiopian chief or great house to which slaves of both sexes have not been furnished, beginning with the imperial palace. The authority of Ethiopian personages is measured by the number of slaves they possess. The very judges charged with the slavery question are themselves the possessors of slaves. Customs posts close their eyes and let slave caravans pass. While they talk abolition of the slave trade, they continue to pay taxes with slaves."

Such a country, declared Baron Aloisi, is unfit to belong to the League of Nations. Next day, on telephonic orders from Benito Mussolini, the Italian delegates began a melodramatic routine of jumping up and marching out of the League Council chamber whenever Ethiopian delegates arose to speak. This move backfired, won extra courtesy from other Great Power statesmen for dusky Ethiopian Chief Delegate Bedjirond Tecla Hawariate. Once when Mr. Hawariate, Premier Laval and Captain Eden had to enter the same door, such a contest of bows began that it seemed none would get in. Finally the Ethiopian entered first, next the Briton, last the Frenchman.

"Big Bully!" Since Ethiopia's emperor--however dense he may be as to the U. S. New Deal (see p. 17)--is too smart to think a dusky delegate could impress the League, his country's case was again presented last week by scrappy little French Law Professor Gaston Jeze. Wasting no breath to deny Baron Aloisi's undeniable facts on Ethiopian savagery, the Professor with great dexterity called Benito Mussolini a "Big Bully" without actually using those words. He neatly said that since nobody is to blame for the Ualual incident no cause exists for war, ridiculed what he called the Fascist concept of a "Supernatural Mission for Eternal Rome" and scathingly declared: "In France we have a proverb, 'When a man wants to drown his dog he first says it is mad.' Italy, having resolved to conquer Ethiopia, begins by calling Ethiopia mad!"

Professor Jeze climaxed with a charge that Dictator Mussolini wants to master Ethiopians for the purpose of later hurling these fierce fighters against Europe in a final Armageddon.

Benito for Business. The fireworks being over, the League Council, as it always does, appointed a commission. Chairmanned by Salvador de Madariaga, oldtime Spanish idealist and Leaguophile, the Commissioners were Premier Laval, Captain Eden, Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Josef Beck and Turkish Foreign Minister Dr. Rushtu Aras. With a show of bravado Fascist Aloisi said that "Italy reserves absolute freedom of action!" But Geneva was heavy with rumors that Dictator Mussolini had privately intimated that he was now ready to do business with the Peacemen, if they can and will do business.

Ethiopia's rainy season, which thus far has made war impossible, ends traditionally with a native feast day, set for Sept. 27 this year. Italian forces were moving up last week in the belief that their zero hour will come early in October. Any time before then Il Duce is open to a fresh and better offer from Geneva than the one made at Paris by Premier Laval and Captain Eden which he turned down (TIME, Aug. 26), and the one before that made by Eden in Rome which raised such a rumpus when the House of Commons learned that this handsome young man had proposed prematurely to barter away part of the British Empire (TIME, July 8).

By common consent Premier Laval is now the No. 1 horse-trader for Peace. His entourage said, off the record, last week that they hoped Great Britain will raise no objection to a maneuver under which the League of Nations would designate Ethiopia afresh as "free and independent," entrusting her to Italy under much the same arrangement that free & independent Irak and free & independent Egypt are under London's thumbs (see p. 20).

Glory & Mandate? Under this formula Italy's Armies could achieve some of the glory Benito Mussolini seems to want, for the savage Ethiopians would not take Civilization lying down. On the other hand this form of League "mandate" to Italy would cut off Ethiopia's Emperor from all help by the Great Powers and should, so Geneva statesmen said, "shorten the war." This they felt would be something gained, adding that the League would also have "localized the conflict outside of Europe."

Against a solution along these lines the chief forces this week were: 1) Anglo-Saxon public opinion that one must crack down on a "Big Bully"; 2) the Socialist and Trade Union movements on the continent and in Britain which ceaselessly petitioned the League to hurl "sanctions" against Boss Mussolini; and 3) Soviet Russia whose suave Foreign Commissar Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff unleased at Geneva a strong Red speech for Peace and against Fascist dreams of Empire.

Meantime it was revealed that Dictator Stalin was doing a brisk cash trade with Dictator Mussolini in war materials shipped on Greek vessels out of Black Sea ports, to the perplexity of Communist stevedores who have been led to understand that the Third International scowls at imperialist wars.

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