Butter v. Might

Fats are essential in the human diet, but butter is "the luxury fat," and the attitude of each Great Power on the issue of butter was becoming last week vitally significant. Ministerpraesident General-Oberst Hermann Wilhelm Goering has now made the battle cry of Germany's present rearmament Four-Year Plan: "GUNS INSTEAD OF BUTTER!" Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden last week responded, in one of the ablest speeches he has ever made to the British nation, addressed to a London banquet: "We definitely prefer butter to guns!"

In weighing Eden-on-butter against Goering-on-butter, neutral observers did not forget that the British Captain consistently weighs about 152 lb., while the German General-Oberst has dieted down in recent months some 25 lb. to about 200 lb.

A splendiferous arrival in Rome was made last week by Ministerpraesident General-Oberst. In stature Mussolini is definitely a small man and Italians were surprised that Goering did not turn out to be larger--they had expected a bulging Gargantua in corsets, but Goering has really trained down, and Germany is training down, hard. Herr Goering gave a good account of himself at Rome in a fencing bout with Signor Mussolini, expert duelist. Commented a professional fencing master who witnessed the 20-minute bout: "Mussolini was faster and more agile. He showed his years of constant training. Goering was the stronger. He showed surprising speed for a man of his size and revealed himself to be an accomplished swordsman." It was vital to observe last week how blunt--how surcharged with what was evidently a feeling of Might--were the summaries given to correspondents in Rome and Berlin of what Mussolini and Goering talked about and agreed on during the business intervals of a round of Italian fetes for General-Oberst und Frau Goering, she the plump, onetime "State Actress of Prussia," Emmy Sonnemann. It amounted to this:

Germany and Italy told the world, not necessarily telling the whole truth, first that they will cooperate in Captain Eden's Spanish Non-intervention Committee at London to bar all further foreign volunteer soldiers and foreign munitions from the Spanish Civil War, in accordance with recent Franco-British proposals; and second that, between now and the time this anti-volunteers pact can be drafted, signed and sealed, both Italy and Germany will continue pouring volunteers and munitions into Spain, frankly anticipating victory for the Spanish Whites before the dawdling London Non-intervention Committee can agree on anything.

The Committee cannot agree except with the concurrence of German Ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop and Italian Ambassador Dino Grandi, both of whom are familiar with the tactics of that Ancient Roman, Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunetator ("The Delayer") who deployed Rome's legions with such persistent avoidance of battle that when at last he was ready to fight, the wearied Carthaginians were routed. In case the mild tactics of Quintus Fabius Maximus (died 203 B. C.) do not avail in 1937, II Duce and Der Fuehrer can always get tough.

Tough, triumphant and breathing not Butter but Might was the interview which Benito Mussolini gave to Adolf Hitler's personal Berlin newsorgan Volkischer Beobachter. Almost without exception every German has to read this paper and they knew Hitler must approve or he would have never ordered printed what Mussolini said. It knocked into a cocked hat any false notion that the recent British-Italian "friendship accord" (TIME, Jan. 11) would act as a brake on German efforts to ensure White victory in Spain.

"Now as to rumors'" barked onetime Editor Mussolini at Publisher Hitler's correspondent, "No! There is nothing that will change. On the contrary the British-Italian Mediterranean agreement will only strengthen the action of Berlin and Rome! It is the logical result of our efforts to create peace in Europe. . . .

"Democracy is finished! Democracies today are simply the centres of infection-- the tools for Bolshevism. That is one group. We are the other group. . . . Democracy is sand driven by the wind. Our political ideal is a rock like a granite peak. . . . This is the beginning of a new peaceful situation. We have, through it, several years of calmer development before us."

In the British-Italian pact are these explicit words: "So far as Italy is concerned the integrity of present territories of Spain shall in all circumstances remain intact and unmodified." When Der Fuehrer's correspondent asked II Duce if the setting up at Barcelona or elsewhere in Spain of a Soviet State would "destroy the status quo in the Mediterranean," which Britain and Italy have just pledged themselves to abide by, the Dictator snorted: "Obviously!"

This was fair Fascist-Nazi warning to British Laborites, on the eve of the House of Commons' reconvening this week, that Labor Party Leader Major Clement Richard Attlee has got to show whether his vitals are made of iron or of butter. It was scarcely worth denying that His Majesty's Government are now in cahoots against the Spanish Reds with Hitler and Mussolini.

Vast was the consternation this week in anti-Fascist camps when nervous little Major Attlee went over to Paris and delivered a lecture in which he proposed to "Share the Empire" or at least its superabundance of resources with less fortunate nations, this being an obvious attempt to butter Germany and perhaps Italy as well.

Meanwhile in Italy the King & Queen and Crown Prince & Crown Princess entertained the Goerings, and this week they were to holiday briefly in romantic Capri, always a magnet for sentimental German tourists. In the interval, boastful henchmen talked openly of "forcing the resignation" of Jewish-Socialist French Premier Leon Blum, next "detaching" France from her Soviet alliance, and finally "restoring" Britain, Germany, France and Italy to comradeship under the big tent of II Duce's recently quiescent Four-Power-Pact (TIME, April 10, 1933 et seq.). They bragged as if there were of course enough Might handy to make possible so grandiose a reshuffle of the entire European situation.

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