Hot Coal

"This is a sore spot that had better be left untouched," snarled vitriolic Editor Virginio Gayda last week in Rome's semiofficial Giornale d'ltalia. The sore spot was on the Italian economic body, but ignoring Italian wincings, Great Britain proceeded to prod it. Despite an Italian protest "in firmest language," 13 Italian colliers bound for home with 100,000 tons of German coal had been stopped, after due warning that the shipments must cease, by British warships as they sailed from Rotterdam. They had been escorted through the Channel mine fields to The Downs, there to await the pleasure of the British Enemy Export Committee, to serve as an extra trump in the card game England has been playing with Italy since the beginning of the war.

In the meantime the home fires in Italy burned low because Italy produces only 20% of the coal she uses, imports upwards of 10,000,000 tons a year from Germany, 6,000,000 tons of which go by barge down the Rhine to Rotterdam, thence by sea to Italy. Hauling the remaining 4,000,000 tons by train over the Alps was expensive in peacetime, is practically impossible in wartime. In sudden panic, the Ministry of Corporations in Rome removed 84 trains from service, limited industries to 80% of the coal they used last year, provided coal coupons for individuals but permitted hotels with foreign tourists to burn slightly above the ration.

Fuming with rage, Il Duce's personal organ Popolo d'Italia screamed: "Italy will not accept Britain's dirty morality. . . . This immoral law which tries to take the air you breathe if that air suits the brutality of British egoism must cease."

Great Britain, which had not won a diplomatic hand from Italy for years, stood pat. German exports as well as imports are under a confiscation ban, she serenely pointed out. No exceptions could be made. Furthermore, Italy did not necessarily need to import German coal when high grade Welsh or U. S. coal could be had in unlimited quantities. Nor would going to war with England provide coal for Italian factories and fireplaces. It would shut off the supply completely. Il Duce was indeed in a tight spot.

Germany, the third partner in the game, had played her last trump three weeks before when her economic expert and premier promiser Dr. Karl Clodius arrived on the Italian scene just in time to scotch an Anglo-Italian cannons-and-airplane-engines-for-coal deal. Now, having maintained that a neutral that submits to British control is no longer a neutral and is fair game for Nazi submarines and bombers, Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop realized that a ticklish situation was bound to arise if the Axis partner were compelled to knuckle down to British seapower. As though to lend emphasis to this attitude, a German warplane bombed and set fire to an Italian collier transporting British coal to Italy.

By week's end the Anglo-Italian coal issue was sharing press headlines with the Finnish war (see p. ig). In Florence students demonstrated in front of the British Consulate. In Rome six additional police guards were assigned to duty around the British Embassy. In London everyone sat tight but in Kenya Colony, which borders Italian-held Ethiopia, troops massed on the Ethiopian frontier. In Berlin Foreign Minister Ribbentrop took a special train for Rome. Then Britain exposed her hand.

To Herr Ribbentrop speeding toward the Italian frontier a wireless operator handed a communique just issued by the British Foreign Office. It read: "The British Government has decided to release 13 ships detained in recent days together with their cargoes of coal. Italian ships which have not already started their return journey with cargoes of coal will leave the ports in which they are at present in ballast (unladen) and no further Italian cargo steamers will be sent subsequently to those ports to load coal." Later came reports that British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax and Italian Ambassador Giuseppe Bastianini had not only settled the dispute but had agreed to double Britain's coal exports to Italy. There were no further squawks from Il Duce, his papers or his representatives. Great Britain had won a grand slam.

The Germans were gloomily silent, but well pleased were those friends of peace who regard diplomacy, and not shellfire, as the best means of settling international problems. Diplomacy, the art of taking but not without giving, has had tough sledding in Europe in the past few years, and not for a long time had the world seen such a graceful diplomatic play--an imperative need of one nation acknowledged by another, preceded by a frank showdown but followed by face-saving all around.

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