One hundred feet in the air the quick clap of a snapping guy-rope sounds no worse to the ear of a tight-rope walker than do the echoes of the Deutschland bombing sound to the Non-Intervention Committee in London. Only to be expected after such an attack is the news of the bombardment of Almeria and of the mobilization of the German fleet and of the British squadron at Gilbraltar. The Italian and German withdrawal from the Spanish Non-Intervention Committee is a far more serious event, however, stopping dead the peace negotiations which in the past fortnight were progressing behind the scenes of the League of Nations.

How far the two countries will go in the heat of their anger and need for vindication of national honor rests in the hands of Hitler and Mussolini, for the Non-Intervention Committee has power only to report, and not to check shipments of guns and soldiers. From the failure of Franco's midwinter campaign until yesterday the German and Italian enthusiasm for the war had cooled to such a degree that Great Britain was hopeful of an armistice. Unfortunately the attacks upon the battleships are just the excuse for which the extremists have been waiting. Considering the state of public opinion in the two countries, the only limits to their actions are the expense of capturing Madrid and pushing the Loyalists into the sea, and the value they place on the friendship of a rearmed England. Statements to the press indicate that Franco will get aid for one smashing blow before he is permitted by his mentors to sit down to a bargaining table.

If the past sequence of events holds true, the renewed ferocity with which Italy and Germany are plunging into the war will be countered by additional help to Madrid from Russia, and the twenty killed on the Deutschland and the hundred killed in Almeria are just an "aperitif" before a long meal. That Germany and Italy will go out of their way to fight in Spain is the lesson of the latest crisis, and the moral therefrom is that positive pressure of an economic or political nature must be applied to these countries before they wholly upset the tight-rope team of Europe swaying on the wire called Peace.