Gifts & Wars

Reclining at Bath, famed English spa, His Majesty Haile Selassie complained bitterly last week to Miss Steedman, a Secretary of the Abyssinia Association, about the results thus far of announcements that the onetime King of Kings & Lion of Judah is in a "distressed condition" (TIME, Nov. 15).

Kindhearted Britons at once began, sending him bagfuls of coal, jugs of home-made wine, baskets of greens and even unused postage stamps with which to keep His Majesty's correspondence going. "I am a poor man, yes!" Haile Selassie told Miss Steedman to tell the world, "but I am not an object of charity. Such undignified gifts as these should be sent to the Abyssinia Association for the relief of refugees!"

Meanwhile, Satevepost readers were advised last week by famed Newsbooker John Gunther to regard Manchukuo as "Contemporary Political Fiction No. i" and Ethiopia as C. P. F. No. 2. "Ethiopia has about as much political reality today as Carthage--which the Italians also destroyed," wrote Mr. Gunther. "The 'Emperor' Haile Selassie is about as concrete a living political force today as Beowulf or General Grant. Yet the Ethiopians still send delegations to Geneva, the 'country' is considered a member of the League of Nations, and the great powers--except Italy, which seized it-- appear still to recognize it as an independent state. Pure fiction. . . .

"There are plenty of other fictions. . . . The fiction of the 'National' Government in England, which is in reality a Conservative Government slightly salted with right-wing Laborites and Liberals. The fiction of Soviet democracy. . . .

"The quintessence of fiction in politics these days is the Undeclared War. . . . No war in Europe or Asia has been declared since the Kellogg Pact was signed in 1928. The inference is that no power quite dares to ignore it. They wage only undeclared wars--and at least the piece of parchment is inviolate. . . . No more withdrawal of ambassadors, no more neat little ultimatums expiring at midnight. Instead, calculated or swift attack. Instead, wars that aren't called wars, and peace that isn't peace. . . . There have been three undeclared wars since the year 1935 [Ethiopia, Spain, China]."

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