improbably acting in collusion with Berlin-played to the Jingo gallery in Munich by an attack on Italian administration in the Trentino. Instead of getting under his bed or apologizing for his country's existence, as the average "Responsible Statesman" might have been tempted to do, Signor Mussolini, after due deliberation, went down to the Chamber of Deputies in Rome and addressed Germany in the only language she understands or ever will understand. It was an altogether admirable performance, deservedly rousing tremendous enthusiasm throughout Italy and raising the prestige of the Fascist Government. It was only under Fascism, apparently, that the spokesman of Italy dare speak with her enemies in the gate. The Italian Prime Minister opened with the observation :

I believe that it is better between nations as between persons, to speak frankly and at the right moment. . . . For three years the Fascist Government has followed a policy of moderation towards Germany, and has never sought revenge against its defeated foe, but has steadily opposed all severe measures. Even the most embittered Germans recognized this to be true. Last year, after prolonged negotiations, we concluded with Germany the first treaty of commerce which she had signed since the Treaty of Versailles.

"After Locarno 99

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BUT after Locarno "-as should be noted in Downing Street "an unscrupulous campaign was suddenly let loose in Germany" against Italy, who was accused of removing various memorials and monuments to various Germans in the Trentino, while German newspapers published "horrifying descriptions of alleged acts of violence committed against German tourists in Italy." As Signor Mussolini told the Chamber:

On the top of all these lies they started to talk about boycotting Italian goods and stopping their tourist traffic to Italy.

Now let us clear up once and for all the question of this tourist traffic. We are an eminently hospitable people. That is because our civilization is thousands of years old. We wish to remain hospitable even although this hospitality is abused, even when a primitive folklore wanders through our superb cities and one sees walking about individuals dressed in a very primitive style. But let no one make the mistake of thinking that Italy can be conquered by means of a boycott of tourist traffic. Italy exists by many other resources, and many who come to Italy do so not to bring us gifts but to save money. But in any case, while on the subject of this boycott, let me say that if it were to become effective to-morrow, with the tacit consent of the German authorities, we should

reply with a boycott which would be twice as effective, and to any reprisals which might be taken we should reply with reprisals thrice as severe.

After thus disposing of the tourists in a manner to delight his compatriots, who have much to put up with from tourists-especially the German variety-Signor Mussolini dealt with the Bavarian Prime Minister, who had told the Bavarian Diet the previous day:

We must do everything to better the situation in the South Tyrol and to bring liberty to the Germans of the Upper Adige valley, and I myself feel it my duty to make a vigorous protest against the brutal acts of violence committed in the South Tyrol.*

We all sympathize with the German population of Southern Tyrol. This is not only natural from the historical point of view; it is particularly comprehensible in the present relationship between Bavaria and Southern Tyrol, all the more so for every national-minded person now that our German brothers in Southern Tyrol are in such terrible social and political need. Hand in hand with it there exists deep economic depression. We know that things need not be like this if the spirit of pacification were really at work in Italy. But there are people at work who, even beyond the wrongs that exist at present, desire to disturb the pacification of the world at large in an appreciable manner. One often has the impression that even if there is no official interest there, yet there is unofficial interest in not allowing pacification to take place. I cannot escape the impression that agents provocateurs are involved. We must do all we can to ease the situation in Southern Tyrol, and whatever is suitable for bringing freedom to Germans in Southern Tyrol. I must here make the sharpest protest against the violence which is being done to Southern Tyrol.

Upon this the Italian Prime Minister observed:

I consider this a perfectly fantastic speech. Fantastic from a diplomatic point of view, because even before the war there was never any question of a German South Tyrol. Again, the question of the Upper Trentino was regulated by the peace treaties and by the Treaty of St. Germain with Austria. It is likewise preposterous to talk of acts of violence, of brutal violence, committed by the Fascist Government in the Upper Trentino.

In the Upper Trentino we are carrying on an Italian policy, and in the application of our laws we treat the inhabitants of that part as Italian citizens. If we did anything else, we should have a State within the State on the frontier.

Opportunely the speaker reminded Italy and the world of "the intentions of the Pan-German leaders in the event of a German victory."

Some days before our great victory on the Piave, which dissipated German dreams, they demanded " natural frontiers" for the better defence of the Trentino and Austria, the incorporation in the latter of Italian territories,

The reader will appreciate the studied offensiveness of the Bavarian Premier from the full text of his onslaught on Italy which provoked the latter's crushing reprisal.

including communes on the Asiago plateau and in the province of Vicenza the readjustment of the frontiers, with an extension of Austrian territory beyond the upper valleys of the Rivers Adda and Oglio, as far as the southern confines of Lake Garda. Moreover, they claimed a huge indemnity, and required that the official language should be German.

The Germans would have refused autonomy to the Italian Trentino, and would have introduced the German language in all the schools. There would have been a fierce campaign against Italian irredentism with the encouragement of an influx of Germans, or the expulsion of irredentists, until the time came when the Italian Trentino should have become entirely Austrian. There was to have been no amnesty and no hope of return for Italian refugees. Their property was to have been confiscated and used to make up war losses and pay Tyrolean soldiers who had remained loyal to Austria.

A Hint
To Us

THE British Government might usefully take a leaf out of the Italian book by occasionally reminding the British people of the fate which was in store for them had Hindenburg reached London as Germany confidently anticipated. Signor Mussolini could only ascribe the present German attitude towards Italy to "phenomenal ignorance." We quote the conclusion of this inspiring and historic utterance because it embodies the spirit of modern Italy which looks forward to a national future as glorious as her imperishable past.

I believe that this campaign was the outcome of phenomenal ignorance. I think that many Germans did not know us sufficiently. Evidently they had lived in Italy for twenty or thirty years before. They ignored the fact that Italy has 42,000,000 inhabitants in its narrow peninsula, and that there are between 9,000,000 and 10,000,000 Italians abroad. Above all, they forgot our spirit, our sense of dignity, and our moral sense, and the fact that Italy was Fascist. Germans looked upon Italy as a political pawn and a picturesque land, not having grasped our deeply rooted traditional instincts which assure the future. They will learn, and I state it now, that Italy will not yield an inch on the Upper Adige.

We will apply rigorously, methodically, and tenaciously-with that method of cool tenacity which ought to mark the Fascist way of doing things-all our laws which have been passed already or which are to be passed in the future. We will make this region Italian, because it is Italian-Italian geographically and Italian historically. One can well and truly say of the Brennero that there is a frontier fixed by the unerring hand of God.

The Germans of the Upper Adige are not a national minority but an ethnical remnant. They only number 180,000, whereas in Czecho-Slovakia the Germans number 3,500,000 against 5,000,000 Czechs. Of these 180,000, I should say that 80,000 are Italians who have been Germanized, but we will endeavour to redeem them and to find for them once again their old Italian names, so that they will be proud to be citizens of the great Italian motherland. The others are the last remains of the barbarian invasions-and for these we will adopt the Roman policy of severe justice.

To the German nation we say :

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The Fascist people wishes to be a sincere

friend who looks you straight in the eyes, a friend with clean hands, a friend who stands outside that 'Kultur' which we have now done with." My speech must be regarded as the adoption of a political and diplomatic position. I hope that it will be heard by all those who ought to hear it, so that the Italian Government need not make a concrete reply, as it would have to do if the German Government assumed responsibility for what has happened. As for the sixcolumn article which a provincial Fascist newspaper published the other day -I read it very carefully-under the heading: "Fascist Italy will never lower her flag on the Brennero," I sent the editor my copy of the paper with the following alteration in the heading: "Fascist Italy can if necessary carry the tricolour to the other side of the Brennero, but never take it away."

"Fat Out of Fire "

GERMANY-official and unofficial-was literally flabbergasted by this oration. Many of them thought at first that electricity must have played them false and that Signor Mussolini's pronouncement was a fabrication. They could not believe that any statesman of Italy-only the other day, as it were, the "odd man of the Triple Alliance-would dare thus to beard the Fatherland and to brave the furor Teutonicus. Equally amusing was the "pained and grieved attitude" of the "Heavy Fathers" of Fleet Street and neighbouring thoroughfares. They assured us it was "really most inconsiderate of Signor Mussolini-at this particular moment when the British Foreign Office was enjoining magnanimity all round-to make a speech so out of harmony with the 'spirit of Locarno." Why couldn't the Italian Prime Minister ignore Dr. Held's tactless utterance as Responsible Statesmen in this country would undoubtedly have done, instead of putting all the fat into the fire." But as it turned out, Signor Mussolini put no fat in the fire. On the contrary, he took some out. Whereas Signor

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Mussolini had chastized the Bavarian Prime Minister on the day after his offence, the German Government was so demoralized by the Italian Prime Minister's riposte that many hours were wasted in wondering what should be done, and after the German Press had been allowed to blow off a certain amount of steam it was announced that "calmer counsels prevailed." The Reichstag was, however, permitted to pass a flamboyant resolution which Herr Stresemann supported in a "dignified" speech, disclaiming all intentions of emulating the "rhetorical expressions" of

Signor Mussolini. He admitted the inaccuracy of many anti-Italian statements in the German Press and denounced all and sundry Germans who might threaten any "boycott of Italy or of Italian goods-though for months this movement had gone on without any rebuke from authority, nor would there have been any but for the Italian Prime Minister's warning to the German Government.

IN a forcible feeble passage Herr Stresemann rashly ascribed Signor Mussolini's outburst to Italy's inability to get a

Forcible
Feeble

security pact for the Brenner Pass frontier owing to Germany's refusal, after which he talked somewhat wildly about invoking the

League of Nations.

Signor Mussolini was quite right when he said that was, in the first order, an internal Italian affair. But Italy was under the obligation taken over by all the succession States to afford special protection to minorities, and changes of frontier could not alter the sympathy of German cultural feeling for a country and people which had been German for centuries and still belonged to the community of German culture. In reality the situation of things was such that if the danger of a disturbance of peace arose out of the oppression of a people an appeal to the League of Nations was permissible. Moreover, the League of Nations was the institution whose duty it was to defend the rights of oppressed peoples. The speech of Signor Mussolini raised precisely this problem. It not only demanded the Italianization of the South Tyrol, but was interpreted throughout the entire world as a threat of war directed either against Austria or against Austria and Germany together. Such threats were absolutely inconsistent with the spirit of the League of Nations.

Signor Mussolini naturally refused to sit down under this, and the day after the German Foreign Minister's infelicitous intervention the Italian Prime Minister once more addressed the Italian Parliament-this time in the Senate. He was no less emphatic and certainly not less effective than he had been in the Chamber of Deputies, recapitulating and driving home all his previous points and finally summarizing the contest between the two Governments as follows:

Honourable Senators, the brief debate of these days has not brought two Ministers face to face with one another, but two points of view-a complex and delicate situation. Hence the interest and emotion aroused in the entire world. Now that the veils have fallen the situation appears extraordinarily clear. Germany means to assume within and without the League of Nations