Ethiopia exports coffee, hides and skins, and beeswax, chiefly to Great Britain and the United States. The largest imports are salt from French Somaliland, cheap cotton yarn and piece goods from Japan, India and England, and corrugated iron sheets from Belgium and England. It is alleged that cheap Japanese goods have recently captured an increasing share of Ethiopian market. To Mussolini, control of Ethiopia offers a tempting solution for many problems of Italy and its colonies. In the immediate situation the development of Ethiopia would benefit the Italian construction industries, and political control might enable Italy to displace Japan as the chief supplier of cotton goods to the Ethiopians. Acquisition of territory, by increasing Italy's place in the sun, would direct the attention of taxpayers away from their economic burdens. War would further speed up home industrial activity and eliminate unemployment. An armed conquest of Ethiopia, to which Fascist principles are by ...