ROME-BERLIN AXIS CREAKS D. BIT TODAY | Schuschnigg's Surprise Move Strong Thrust; Hitler's Trip In Doubt By Louis F. Keemle (United Press Cable Editor) The Rome-Berlin axis creaked R little today under the strain of Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg's surprise move in calling for a national referendum on Austria's independence. Rumors circulated in Rome that Fuchrer Adolf Hitler might cancel his projected visit to Italy in May, which has been heralded as a culminating demonstration of German Italian solidarity. The reports were not substantiated, and were ridiculed in Berlin. However, informed observers aboard have for weeks been volcing doubt over enduring collaboration between Italy and Germany, Two Obstacles Seen They point, among other obstacles, to two major ones a clash of racial difficulties and personalites. Italy is latin, on the sunny side of the alps from her northern, Nordic neighbors, who inhabit n bleaker, more thickly-populated land and are warriors by tradition. The folklore, art, music of the two countries are vastly different. In the one country is the introspective, sensitive, impulsive Hitler. the other is the swaggering, cal| culating Mussolini. No two men could be less alike. No Room For Two Bosses The one they have in common is the best devised to keep thing them apart. Both are dictators, men of power who for years have been giving orders to others. There is 110 room for two bosses in their scheme of things. The questions asked 1s how far could one trust the other as an ally? Germany has not forgotten the Integrity of Italy a prospective ally World war. "Then there is the current Austrian problem. Mussolini would not care to have his ally from the north entrenched in Austria. He wants an Independent Austria and his open or covert support of Schuschnigg's campaign to prevent the rise of the Nazis would prove too great a support on the family tie. There are troops in the Brenner Pass. RIOTS IN LONDON LONDON, March 10 (U.P.) - AntiNazis, shouting insulting slogans, held hostile demonstrations outside the foreign office today as Joachim | von Ribbentrop, German foreign minister, conferred with Lord Halifax, foreign secretary, on prospects of al friendly understanding between Britain and Germany. An extraordinary police guard WAS maintained but the demonstrators slipped through the cordon when Ribbentrop arrived, shouting "down with Ribbentrop" and giving him the clenched -fist Communist salute. When he left the demonstrators again got through, shouting "out ! with Ribbentrop! Release Thaelmann and Niemoeller" (Ernest Thaelmann, Continued on Page Tvo | | / ; | characteri| inso|