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had reached a realistic understanding with Mussolini, the calamities of the moment would in all
 
likelihood have been prevented.
 
          M. Daladier stated that he was entirely willing to concede to Mussolini the Port of 
 
Djibouti, the French railroad in Abyssinia, and fair representation in the Suez Canal. He said that 
 
he had no objection whatever towards granting Italy the rights for her nationals in Tunisia which 
 
she had demanded, but that it was his own observation, after his recent visit to Tunis, that the 
 
100,000 Italians living there were strongly anti-Fascist and not in the least desirous of obtaining 
 
the special rights demanded by the Italian Government.
 
          On none of these points, he said, would there be the slightest difficulty with France; the 
 
real difficulty he thought was an adjustment between Italy and Great Britain.  Mussolini was 
 
constantly complaining that Italy was "the prisoner of the Mediterranean", and that no Great 
 
Power could continue to agree to having British police at Gibraltar blocking one end of the 
 
Mediterranean, and the British and the French blocking her at Suez at the other end, and that 
 
furthermore the British fortifications at Malta and the French fortifications at Tunis constituted
 
an ever-present threat to Italian security.  M. Daladier trusted that the British would take a 
 
reasonable point of view with regard to these problems, although he could not concede that the 
 
Italian contention was in reality justified. He said that certainly the British fortification of Gibraltar 
 
and Malta was of no real danger to Italian security under modern conditions of warfare, and that  
 
he had