"By Jingo! If You Do"

Every leading Briton seemed on the qui vive last week to thwart Benito Mussolini's candid designs on Ethiopia. Political fossils like bemonocled Nobel Peace Prizeman Sir Austen Chamberlain, shaggy-maned David Lloyd George, Tea-pot-Tempester Winston Churchill-- and Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, who has lately collected 11,000,000 British straw votes for Peace, all hustled in to see Foreign Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare.

The Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, fusty "Old George" Lansbury, addressed impassioned letters to the Pope, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and British Evangelical leaders. He also made hopeful eyes at President Roosevelt, declaring that the U. S. will be unable to keep out of any major war and should join in cracking down on Il Duce. The Archbishop of York publicly hoped that the League of Nations will ask and obtain aid of the Great Powers to close the Suez Canal against Italian forces, thus barring the eagles of Fascism from their prey. Finally up from the French baths of Aix heaved Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and, amid a sensational recalling of the whole British Cabinet from their various vacation hideouts, the Empire was geared for action. Arriving from Scotland one-time Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald cried: "The present situation is the most serious we have had to face since 1914."

Since His Majesty's Government were not disposed to crack down alone on the Royal Italian Government, British diplomats in Paris tried to get something out of French Premier Pierre Laval. Silent as an Egyptian mummy, the Premier had his official spokesman declare with fine French feeling: "Our heart is with England, but it is equally with Italy!"

As the 22 British Cabinet members went into session at No. 10 Downing Street the issue before British public opinion was whether to protect a savage and backward but innocent African people against being singed by the torch of civilization in Eternal Rome's hand, but the issue before the Cabinet was primarily how to protect British investments in the Sudan and along the Blue Nile which is fed from Tana, Ethiopia's great lake. Tana is so placed among rocky crags that a little earnest dynamiting would divert its precious waters from the Blue Nile toward Ethiopian plains now dry but capable of becoming a second fruitful Egypt. The loss to British investors in the Sudan would be colossal, that to British prestige in Africa irretrievable. Last week sword-handy Britons of the more resolute school, such as General Sir Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, brimmed with hostile advice. At the very least a British force padded with Egyptian and Indian troops ought to sneak up the Blue Nile and mount guard over Lake Tana. Also it would be well to make a naval demonstration of some sort in the Mediterranean.

Neither Prime Minister Baldwin nor Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain believes in taking either Press or Public into the remotest outskirts of his confidence. After a five-hour sitting the Cabinet rose. Again only Scot MacDonald had anything to say. "I am very cheery and quiet and cool," he burbled. "We have a very clear mind as to what is to be done."

The Prime Minister returned across the Channel to bathe in and imbibe the waters of Aix. It was announced that His Majesty's Government, which has been aiding Italy by refusing to sell arms either to Italy, which has plenty, or to Ethiopia, which is short, would probably not lift this embargo at least until after the League Council meets on Sept. 4. After all the dominion representatives in London had been discreetly contacted, Premier Forbes of New Zealand excitedly declared, 11,682 miles away in Wellington: "If Great Britain is involved in war New Zealand will be also!"

Few days later London learned that the Cabinet, before dispersing, had left ab solute discretion to the Imperial Defense Committee, nicely deployed between its pacifist chairman Scot MacDonald and a bristling array of Admiralty, Air Force and Army chiefs. In papers close to the Admiralty a, great uproar was made about Britain's Mediterranean base at Malta being now so weak as to be vulnerable to Italian air attack. Amid that utter fog which British statesmen so often find useful in masking their intentions, the Government created a sensation by announcing that several units of the Mediterranean fleet which went home for King George's Jubilee Review were preparing to steam back to their stations ominously led, "a week early," by the aircraft carrier Furious.

Against Dictator Mussolini the chief British move last week was actually financial. Her monster "Big Five" banks claimed to be acting independently of the Bank of England when they tightened credits to Italy sharply, made the munitions buying Dictator wince at the vast, invisible potency of London financiers. If any sneak up the Blue Nile was started it was a genuine sneak. Comfortable Punch cartooned a musical comedy interlude in which Dame France and John Bull, wagging their fingers at II Duce, sing: We don't want you to fight But, by jingo, if you do, We shall probably issue a joint memorandum suggesting a mild disapproval of you! All this seemed less funny this week as Greeks reported that a fleet of British bombing planes had swept over their islands bound for Africa. From Egyptian sources it appeared that an armed British sneak toward Lake Tana was indeed being prepared. The Admiralty announced that the Mediterranean fleet would "cruise" for the time being in such fashion as to command the mouth of the Suez Canal. Other British war boats strengthened Gibraltar and Red Sea points. Fifty miles off Italy on the British island naval base of Malta orders from London to erect shelters against air bombs were excitedly obeyed. Some 1,000 troops were ordered to sail from England to bring the Malta garrison up to full strength. Even more ominously the aircraft carrier Furious was rushed full steam from Gibraltar to Malta with three squadrons of planes aboard. These drastic British fighting service moves--considering that Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin had resumed his soaking & sipping at Aix as though he had not a care in the world--struck Continental observers as illogical, fantastic and a perilous example of what is called "the genius of the British for muddling through." Scare heads in London papers suggested that, for all anybody knew, tons of Fascist bombs might at any minute blow up Malta. As George V read the papers he grew more & more excited. He, too, was not in London but 470 miles away at the royal Scottish summer retreat, Balmoral. Finally His Majesty could stand it no longer, took the most unusual step of causing it to be publicly made known that he had cabled Mr. Baldwin an expression of the Sovereign's readiness at a moment's notice to rush back to his Capital. At Aix the knitting needles of Mrs. Baldwin clicked confidently. Providence, Lucy Baldwin devoutly believes, guides Stanley Baldwin and the Empire. How nice it would be, and how simple, if when the League meets on Sept. 4, a few score British war boats rocking gently in the Mediterranean should be found to have put Benito Mussolini in a new and better frame of mind. Every time the Egyptian Government gets uppity they are easily calmed by a British naval or military demonstration. Lucy Baldwin has observed, and to her mind there is not a great deal to choose between an Italian and an Egyptian.

--For the past four years Mr. Churchill has been slashing his own political throat, leading a series of vain attacks on Conservative Leader Stanley Baldwin in an effort to split the party on the India Constitution Bill (TIME, Feb. 9, 1931 et scq.). This Gargantuan measure now having been passed, ''Winnie" Churchill last week abruptly returned to the Baldwin fold, pledged ''whole hearted" support to the Government and strove to bandage his self-inflicted political wounds by the clarion announcement: "Dangers larger and nearer than Indian dangers gather on our path. . . . We have to play our part!"

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