WAR CLOUDS IN EUROPE LIGHTER AS WEEK BEGINS By Ed L. Keen (Copyright by United Press) PARIS, March 21 (U.P) - Patches of silver lining are visible today through war clouds that have darkened Eufor the last week and caused rope. fright than at any time since the World war. Europe enters a new week with powerful forces working to prolong peace. Unless there is another Sarajevo, another spark like the one that started the 1914 holocaust, war can be averted for months, even years. The important fact today is that governments are calmer than their peoples. And governments, not peoples, declare wars and nowhere in Europe is there n government that wants war now. England does not want it until her rearmament program. particularly the epansixon of her air force, is completed. France, seeking to stabilize an uncertain internal situation, does not want it. Soviet Russia, busy consolidating the Stalin regime through liquida- | tion of many old -time Bolshevists, does not want it. None of those three great powers seeks territory. What they do seek. and seek desperately, is preservation the status quo. To keep peace, England, France and Russia are willing to endure almost any provocation except direct attack. For example, the best information is that Soviet Russia would not have resorted to military intervention if Portland had | invaded Lithuania. It is uncertain whether France would attack Germany if Adolf Hitler should attempt to absorb 3,500,000 Germans in Czechoslovakia. But informed persons believe Hitler probably will refrain from furter Balkan adventures until he consolidates his position in Austria. The bite that Germany took out of middle Europe when she absorbed Austria seems to have appeased temporarily the Nazi hunger for land. Now she must digest what she has eaten. Hitler now controls the bottleneck through which land, air and water communications to southeastern Europe must flow. Thus he is in a position to fulfill one of his ambitions-the break up of the little entente- -by economic and diplomatic pressure rather than a resort to arms. The situation In Czechoslovakia is less critical. The apparent willingness of the Czeches to give Germanborn citizens a more authoritative voice in the government has eased tension. A hopeful note for the peace of Europe even has come out of war-, torn Spain. The statement of rebel Generalissimo Francisco that he will do nothing to the Franco, status quo in the western Mediterranean in event of victory, and will not cede an inch of territory to any foreign power was regarded as reassuring for the future. rail| | |
