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Show POOR ETHIOPIA. The struggle between Paly and Ethiopia is now on. We have it from the Italian propagandists themselves that what their government is seeking- to do is to civilize Ethiopia. It seems that the country is in a backward back-ward and barbaric situation which needs some enlightening treatment from a civ'lized state. Besides, Ethiopia Ethio-pia is said to have some valuable mineral deposits which m'ght be used to enlarge Mussolini's place in the sun. For years the fascist dictator has been preaching bigger and more active Italian families. Xow he d s-covers s-covers Italy proper is so small there is no place to locate the increasing population. So he has set about civilizing civi-lizing Ethiop'a to make a little room for the surplus Italians. The civilization treatment may be ia little rough, but Mussolini and his j generals feel that it is bound to succeed. suc-ceed. It cons'sts of approaching the 'Ethiopians with mustard gas, tanks, ! heavy artillery, bombing planes and other instruments of advancing culture. cul-ture. Since most of the Ethiopians are so barbarous they don't even wear shoes, we are informed that the invaders plan to teach them a lesson by scattering over the sidewalks a chemical which will burn holes through the soles of a naked foot, even an Abyssinian foot. The rest of the world is properly horrified by the adventcre in advancing advanc-ing European civilization. Great Bri-: Bri-: tain is especially horrified and France doesn't like it either. Hitler is saying noth'ng because he seems still waiting wait-ing to see what kind of language will be the most profitable. England and France have a right to feel horrified. For several generations genera-tions they practiced the same sort of civilizing influence on poor ignorant natives that the Italians are now using. us-ing. By getting in early they were able to grab off enough territory to take care of their needs indefin'tely. They found that it was no longer necessary ne-cessary to go civilizing with shotgun and bayonet so in recent years they have g'iven up the practice especially especial-ly since there doesn't seem to be much left that is worth the effort. They are properly chagrined that Mussolini is doing something which they outgrew more than a dozen years ago. Great Britain is chagrined some more because Mussolini's drive might endanger some of her Egyptian Egyp-tian interests and the Suez Canal i route. France is chagrined further because be-cause Mussolini has almost succeeded succeed-ed in putting her on the spot. She o-kayed the Italian adventure some months ago in return for a promise of help at home, and then found that John Bull, another of her assistants, didn't like it so well. So, taken all in all, there is a tremendous tre-mendous uproar. Mussolini is going ahead to shoot the barbarians full of civilization and Great Britain and France are chagrined because he has "stolen the'r stuff," so to speak, although al-though the copyright seems to have expired years ago. If the thing keeps up and Mussolini Musso-lini goes far enough and fast enough the European propagandists will do their best to involve Uncle Sam seriously ser-iously against Italy in the "interest of the poor Ethiopians." But 'f a compromise com-promise can be arranged the fight will be localized and it will all end in Haile Selassie's paying the bill, both to Mussolini and John Bull. Of course this may be expensive but it costs money to be civilized. In the meantime let us hope that Uncle Sam continues to mind his own business. |
