T
HINGS are not going woll with the conquerors of Abyssinia.
By that I do not mean that there is any likelihood of the Italians having to with- dmw, or of the Emperor's authority being reasserted.
Or (wildest tale of all recently circulated for the credulous) that Signor Mussolini is going to ank Haile Selassie to return home and help restore arder.
All that is just pipe-dreaming. But what is quite sure, from all reliable information that trickles through, is that the conquerors are having an exceedingly bad time of it.
The conquest in by no means completed, and not likely to be completed for years to come.
"And all the visions of great riches from the exploitation of Abyssinia's natural wealth, all the dreams of happy colonica of pros- perous Italian netclera have faded into a grey disappointment.,
The now Empire is, proving a source, not of profit, but of heavy and continued loss. Not a single Italian colonist has set foot in tho promised land,
*
**
*
It is just about eighteen, montha since the Italian troops marched Into Addis Ababa. In thoso eighteen montha 'hardly anything has changed. The conquest to- day la no more effective than it was then.
Certainly the Abyssinian " provi- slonal Government" which was at Gore has collapsed. The last more or less organised army owing (more or less) allegiance to Halte Sclussle has been dispersed.
When weather allows, the big Capronis go out on rutds, dropping incendiary bombs on random vil- lages to remind thein that Fascist Italy has not abandoned her civil- king mission and that the Emperor Victor Emmanuel la Lord of the Abyssinian Als.
*
*
But ralding the ale is a very dif ferent thing from ruling on the earth, And except in a few widely separated towax the Italian Emperor exercises no more authority in Abginda than the King of Slani.
The Capronis can lom's. But they do not dare to land.
What has happened is this: Th governing power in Abyssinia—which wist the power of the Emperor and his Rases-has ten destroyed without be I replaced. And the greater part. of the country has relapsed into th Grbalism which was the HOTH be fore Like iron hand of Menelik and his Amharas began to webi Alysinis intu an Empiri
Now the ins at gin all over
THE
HONGKONG
TELEGRAPH.
TUESDAY,
JANUARY
4,
Men and Things Abroad-by W. N. Ewer
Now Italians
are Asking:
Making young Blackshirts of the Utilo Abyssinians-they hope, The tiny area over which Italy has effective control is shown, shaded, in the map below.
egain the work of Menellk. They have not really begun as yet.
Every now and again something
happens af which little or no news canes into the outside world. But ns a the st refugees stream across burder into British Somaliland or Kenya.
There are no newspaper men in those parts; and whatever tales the ther British frenlier refugees tell, officers keep under their helmets, or confidentially to repart very ong wiikelsall.
Whitehall must, one way and an other, know quite a lot about the state of affairs Inside Abyssinia. But for rather obvious reasons, it keeps its knowledge to itself.
Eighteen
But this is quite sure. months after the fall of Addis, all that the Italians rule of Abyssinia is a litle patch around Adown in the North, Addis and Harrar in the centre, Gore and Gambela (which can gel food front the Sudan in de West and a few olher odd patches on the borders,
From Adols east to Djibouti runs the From Adds north to railway line. Adown as the new military road. opened in August. These are the two life-lines of the occupation.
*
* *
And the greater part of the energy of the conquerors goes to keeping them open for the trickle of supplies from home without which they must starve in the midst of their conquest..
The new road has been made at big expense and with incredible exertion by military labour. It is a fine feat of
GUDAN
MILE
ADDIS ABABA
Kanar
1938,
What Price
this Empire
GLORY?
turn for all the expenditure of labour and money.
The Italians in Abyssinin are like the Red Queen through the looking glass. They must run desperately hard in order to stay where they are. If they are going to make any progress they must run even faster; and that is not going to be. may,
Late for the garrison of the adminis tration up in Addis is anything but cary, Working and living at an alti tude of 8,000 feet is very trying for Europeana.
ARABIA
BRITISH
ABYSSINIA
KENYA
JOMALILAND
ITALIAN SOMALILAND
engineering, for the obstacles were tre mentious and the conditions very din. eull. But as a main artery it in not up to much.
Travel along it, reports an ardent admirer of Fascist Italy, was very slow and very bampy and hard on motor vehicles. Other travellers report aix miles an hour as a normal pace, kt the wreckage of overturned lorries is a common sight
And telghteen months after the vic- tory) the gangs work always with their rifica piled near at hand. So ttle hoid has the Itaitan occupation as yet even on this vital line of communication. big The road-making has been a work. And indeed any amount of work and energy has gone into the new dannin The point is that there is, and is likely to be, precious Httle re-
Bo they talk of a new capital 1,000 feet lower. But to build it and run road and rail to it is another big tùsk:
Here In Addin is the main body of the con-
querors.
Lords of the land around them. they dare not go a few miles out of town unless as an expeditlun with tanks and armoured cara complete, and nero- planes to scout for them,
They, who should be garnering
riched Brent from the conquest, cannot even live on it them. Aelves. Since the February massacre the natives have
been sullen and subdued. There a little enough danger of open revolt in or around the city. But they accept Italian rulo, it they are not in the least anxious to
money. accept in
越
The Italians are having to learn by experience that owning" colony does not in the least mean that you can buy unlimited row materials
exchange for paper
CUFTENCY.
Quite apart from political prejudice. the Abyssinians look uskanée at the Italian paper offered them for their produce.
It is no use to them. Miere is nothing they can buy for it except at fantastic prices. So the natives will nul sell.
The lire sitt up and drop in value. Prices mount. There is talk of a "cur- rency crisis,”
There has been some seizing of
* arrears of
crops for, of course, taxation." The result has been a drop in cultivation. The natives are drift- ing away out of reach of the "tax- gatherers." The difficulty of feeding the capital is at times acute.
As to the conquerors, they would not bo there at all if they were not con- tinually supplied from homin-along their one railway, along their one IDEL
**
*
Bometimes, in the past months-for Spanish or other reasons-there has been a falling of in the flow of sup- plies.
Otico tho altuation of the
1. conquerors
become pre- carlots: urgent messages have gone to Rome.
Mussolini must feed and feed his new Europe continuously, or it will die. It is not even self-supporting, let alone profitable.
The conquerors are remittance men. And the people of Italy must provide and go on providing the remittances. "glittering sword of All that the Rome" has won for them in a new and heavy burden.
The Italian people have spent mit Lions, and have got less than nothing, in return. But they are condemned to go on For the prestige of Fascism and the vanity of Mussolini are in- volved.
There is a six-year plan of "invest inent." £150,000,000 dire to be spent: the bulk of it on roads and bulki- then thera then? Even Ings. And 13
there is hardly no guarantee,
new the likelihood, that the even Emplic will have begun to pay
its way,
* * *
Like Blenheim, it was, no doubt, a famous victory."
The bombing and gassing of the de- fenceless Abyssinians added, no doubt, new lustre to the Italian arms, the violation of treaties new honour to the Italian name.
And to It was all very glorious, Mussolini la-very deservedly-the tlory.
But it is not surprising that in Italy they are beginning to ask: "What price glory?"
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1
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ON
In Germany
Christmas Eve, in Germany as in England, everyone is runing around in a great hurry. Father has bought the huge Christmas tree a few days before, with ehret and lammer he is making a new stand for it, and where_the_brandlies_too thick some are cut out to make room for the
descomitions.
Father and mother decorate the tree together. The dinning-room door i. locked against the children from the early morning because the presents are piled on the four. Fritz and his elder sister Edith carefully wrap up the presents they have made during the last months and mark them. "for father" and "für mother" and put them in front of the dining-room ★ 3 1. They are put under the Christmas tree unopened.
Christmas Eve brings surprise, or fulfilment of the wishes written by youngest of the family on a piece of paper weeks ago and put into a The list was gone the taking which was hung outside the window. morning after and the stockings lled with sweets.
Fritz knows that father and mother are really Father Christma but this knowledge does not lessen his excitement.
AT lost the great moment comes, they are called in. All the candies are burning on the tree and the colourful decorations sparkle and glitter. There is no other light in the room. Fritz and us younger sister rush to the table to look for their presents under the tree.
She screams Hut Edith walka slowly, starting at the lights on the tree. with joy, however, when she finds all the things she has so much longed for. She goes to her parents, thank them.
"That was all Father Chritmas.", glad that Fritz and his sister know. ys the father; he smiles and is all the verses that she promises soine
little presents as a reward. happy.
The grandparents have come and
Du aunt. They all cat Christmas MOTHER looks tired after all the cooking and baking she has dinner, everyone getting a piece of
and
the enormous Christmas Roos, or done, but there are two holidays in Some carp, The English turkey and front of her, so she dances with all Christmas pudding are not known the family around the tree.
When the children have gone to its Germany. Afterwards tea Honeycake.
anct nuts aretbed, grandma looks in and finds the Hittle girl sleeping beside her new doil,
Fritz's ucroptane and Christmas landed on his blanket.
valen.
sweets
Then the nunt playa songs on the piano. Grandma is so
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"Fits" for tho whole family
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presents
DE*E* BROWN Fitfora King
in
HELEN MACK
PAUL KELLYA
COUNT THE
"TELEGRAPHS"
EVERYWHERE
R
ACROSS
11
114
Looking ahead Invaluable to a marksman (9).
point
This the owner used to oul where the gardener was to use the spade (5).
9 No, this sort of country is not necessarily the right place for farmers to get their meal fram (0).
10 Some horse in India (5).
11 What you have to have in 6
down (3).
12 Surely not a suitable medium
for redecorating kennels? (V). Flinch (6).
1 Well-known cricketer (3).
1 Not a tug but part of a building
(3).
21 Nautical position (3).
22 Many a this may be stili scen
in the streets of Pompeil (3).
of air would 23 Changes
have
made him a Scottish child (5).
24 Mere perpendicular (5).
20
Tales" (anag.) (5).
27 Short-lived (9).
31 Det about this for a stage show
(3).
32 Scottish shire (5).
33 A coarse quality (9).
35 Meaning (5).
dex. Ught bll
30 This cropping up again
cribes your electric (D).
DOWN
1 Well entertained, not rtvormed,
In spite of the sound (5),
2 A wordy puzzle about à vehicle
apparently (3).
3 "Our castle's
strength will ("Mac- laugh to scorn' beth") (5).
4 A full-less goat found in only
one part of Asia (3).
An Elizabethan surname (5), -
120
20
180
6 Direction many a surgeon walks
(0).
7 An aromatic root (D).
.
8 A bit of a teaser certainly (9). vessel but
13 This is a common
reversed (3).
14 Pehna donna (5).
18 Sleepers are always under this
17
kort of misfortune (two words
5).
he sorrows come they come not single spies but In-———)" ("Hamlet") (9).
10 Suitable material for a golfer
to stand on? (9).
20 She was a giri ɑnce' (5).
25 Colour (3),
27 English musical composer (5). 20 1
menns are nequired means of meanness (5).
20 Bird (5).
30 Hungarlun
(5).
by
musicni composer
34 Sen-monster (3).
Yesterday's Solution
FREUTPITATESSE HOROBAMAHANBULL DOMBARDMENT SPET #MВMINONGEA N B÷G-GALLEON RES A LORRY EXHIBLAM A FORMUG PIPA A MOURN HA LAPATER E #NAGOMAWENIN 1 |W I DEBRE 1 RAVEN OS TENANTS EME ROWBEBELE EN IS RE T ME DREADNO UGRT HULLOMRE IS BE Y"
LPREMA TUBELT
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