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Show Peace of Munich Marks Turning Point in Europe EDITOIi'S NOTE: This dispatch, prepared at the New-York New-York headquarters of the United Press, is for the purpose of summarizing, clarifying and correlating recent world events leading up to the approach of spring in this uncertain year of 1930. R.y JOE ALEX MOKRIS United I'ress Foreign News Editor The peace of Munich accomplished two things. In the power politics of Europe it restored Germany to a position of unquestioned equality for the first time in 20 generaly have prompted her to call upon Britain wtih considerable consider-able success for pledges of unity in event of war. In recent weeks, both France and Italy have greatly great-ly strengthened their armed forces in North Africa, until the frontier between Italian Lybia and French Tunisia is probably the most dangerous dan-gerous spot in the world today. Japanese Field Day Japan The militarist leadership leader-ship of Japan has taken adantage of British, French and American preoccupation elsewhere to have a field day in the Far East, where Tokyo has set out to establish ta "new order" under her domination. There is slight prospect of anybody any-body trying to stop her, and Japan's Ja-pan's stake in the world chess game is becoming similar to those of Italy and Germany. Great Britain The foundation of British policy has been to work for peace, by two principal methods. meth-ods. First, Britain is willing to grant limited demands of the dictators; dic-tators; that is, to make readjustment readjust-ment of the world's riches so that the big powers may live together to-gether in peace. Second, Britain is engaged in unprecedented armament arma-ment designed primarily to put her in a position to bargain on equal terms with the dictators or as a last resort to fight them. Hitler Dominant : Germany Fuehrer Adolf Hitler .emerged from Munich as the dominant dom-inant figure of Europe, able to swing the balance either toward war or peace. Since then, he has moved in both directions at different differ-ent times. He almost wrecked Britain's appeasement program by the Nazi campaign of violence against Jews. He did much to stabilize peace by signing a non-aggression non-aggression pact with France. He technically backed up Italy's demands de-mands against France and told the world in his Reichstag speech that there must be a re-distribution of wealth to permit the totalitarian state to live, yet he has been credited with urging Mussolini to adopt a moderate course in the Mediterranean. ' The net result has been to increase Europe's uncertainty uncer-tainty as to everything except that Hitler continues to hold the answer an-swer to its most alarming qucs-ions. It marked the break in a war fever that had threatened disaster incomparably greater than that of 1914. Drastic Solution Munich was a drastic solution by the big four of Europe supported sup-ported by nothing more than a vague understanding that henceforth hence-forth Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy would work to-j gelher for the stabilization of I peace. The pact was adopted at the expense of Czechoslovakia, and I indirectly of Britain and France. Now five months have passed since that historic meeting. In that time the race for arms has become more swift, the protestations pro-testations of peaceful intentions have become louder, and the battle for economic power has begun in earnest. The nations of the world have bound themselves more firmly firm-ly than ever onto two groups which, for want of a better label, are called dictatorial and democratic. demo-cratic. Increase In Tension Since Munich, there has been a steady increase in underlying tension, ten-sion, in the strain which vast armaments ar-maments put on national economy and most dangerous in uncertainty uncer-tainty regarding the future. Here specifically is the pattern woven since Munich: Italy Premier Benito Mussolini is taking advantage of the new dictatorial prestige to make his bid for a share of the profits in the readjustment of world power and resources. His stake is in the Mediterranean, and his first step was a friendship agreement with Britain designed to promise that he would make no grab at British interests and thus to weaken British Brit-ish support for France. His second sec-ond step was to open a campaign of intimidation against France on the grounds that Paris robbed Italy of a fair share of the colonial colon-ial bootv divided after the World war. Fiscism expects France to make the next contribution to the new Roman empire around the Mediterranean, but any official demand de-mand on Paris has been delayed for bargaining purposes. Invade Spain Mussolini's third step was to throw greater Italian power openly open-ly into the Spanish civil war in order to assure a Franco victory and to use Italy's foothold in that strategic nation as a club to make France meet his demands and to hold off British backing for France. France Threats from abroad have given a new unity to the French republic, pushing well into the background the danger of economic eco-nomic collapse. She has met every threat from Italy with a shout of I defiance, although behind her bold front France appears ready to make certain non-territorial concessions con-cessions to the Fascists. France has no fear in a conflict with Italy alone, but European developments |