Secret diplomacy as practiced by Benito Mussolini led in Rome last week to an Italo-French entente of first importance for the peace of Europe. Everything was done, from first to last, in a fashion exactly opposite to that favored by the League of Nations and such optimistic conferencophiles as silver-haired, silver-tongued James Ramsay MacDonald.
To Rome went that swarthy, thick-lipped, beady-eyed onetime butcher boy, His Excellency Pierre Laval, French Foreign Minister. There was nothing democratic about his reception. In Il Duce's opinion the sloppiness of Democracies leads to tragedies like the assassination of French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou at Marseille (TIME, Oct. 15). It was with Barthou that Mussolini began the secret negotiations which came to a climax last week. The two men never met, dickered through ambassadors. To ensure that nobody should be able to assassinate Pierre Laval on Italian soil last week, his train clicked over tracks guarded every 50 feet by a trim Fascist militiaman who snapped to salute at sight of Excellency Laval and his vivacious daughter José—"Josette" to her adoring papa. As usual Mama Laval remained at home.
There were roses for José as she stepped off the train in Rome—roses from the Dictator. Excellency Mussolini later kissed Mile Laval's hand, but first he kissed Excellency Laval on both cheeks. Outside the station a mob of Romans, accustomed for years to shout "Abbasso la Francia! Down with France! " when they mentioned that country at all roared "Evviva Mussolini! Evviva la Francia! Evviva Laval!" With 5,000 trim Italian police and militia blocking off the station, the Frenchman's hotel and an intervening strip of Rome, II Duce gave a pointed exhibition of how to guarantee the safety of a foreign visitor.
"Italy Has No Future." Since the vein of Benito Mussolini's policy lies deep,. Pierre Laval's visit was best viewed after a flashback to last March, when Il Duce unfolded before the Fascist Quinquennial Assembly of 4,000 prominent Blackshirts his 60-year plan (TIME. March 26). After making his favorite ironical remark "Our relations with Switzerland continue to be friendly." the Dictator challenged Frenchmen thus: "Reality demands that I state that none of the problems which have existed between France and ourselves for 15 years has been solved. Not one!"
Il Duce then indicated that his policy does not run counter to the interests of France. "Italy has no future in the west and north!" he cried. "Her future lies to the east and south, in Asia and Africa. The vast resources of Asia must be valorized, and Africa must be brought within the orbit of civilization. . . . We demand that the nations which have already arrived in Africa do not block at every step Italian expansion!"