ITALY'S WAR STAND EXPLAINED.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 61, 12 March 1915, Page 7

ITALY'S WAR STAND EXPLAINED.

KING LOYAL TO FORMER ALLIES.

The real attitude of Italy toward the war as distinct from the attitude toward her by interested parties in France and Germany is described below by a special commissioner with exceptional facilities for gathering reliable information, who was sent to Italy on a tour of inspection by the International News' Service: — ROME, February 1. After numerous conversations with highly placed personages in Rome and Milan and close observation of the surface facts as they appear in Italy to an unbiased traveller, I am forced to the conclusion that, however ardently the Allies may desire her entry into the fray, and however much Austria may desire to switch Italian popular sympathy over to her side, there is no other reading of the signs in Italy than that: 1. The money interest and thinking classes have set their faces against becoming implicated in a war against Italy's former allies, and the possibility of the Government departing from this policy is very remote. 2. Popular sympathy in Italy runs very strong against Austria and consequently for the Allies. 3. The King and the Royal Family gen-' erally are against war which would pit the house of Savoy aginst the house of Hohenzollern and Hapsburg. While the working classes would back a war against Austria, the thinking and wealthy classes, the men with important stakes in the country and influence in politics—the backbone of the nation —take quite a different attitude. With them is the King and also Signer- Giolitti, head of the most powerful political party in

Italy, and who it is expected Will shortly become Premier again with a Ministry solid for non-intervention.

So much is.the King against stabbing his allies in tbe back that the idea that such a measure might be forced upon him became quite an obsession with him not long ■pgo. In this connection it will be remembered that not long ago he was reported to be suffering from cerebral anaemia. KIKG AGAISST WAR. The King's opinion, as voiced by his first cousin, the Count of Turin, at his club in Milan the other day, is that Italy will not go to war because she has no interest whatever in doing so, and that while her neutrality, even armed and threatening to the Germanic powers, may be beneficial to the country, a war would be a great error.

"It is the King's belief, and one which I share," said the Count of Turin, "that the present war will cud with a peace treaty leaving Europe in the status quo ante helium."

The Government to against plunging into the great European vortex because it fails to see that it emu get by fighting any territory which it cannot get without; fighting. It is commonly asserted in official circles that Prince JJuelow has formally offered to Italy the. province of Trentino as the price of her continued neutrality, and has made no difficulties about Italy also taking over Valona and Dnrazzo, which will give her complete command of the Adriatic and render nil the military value of Trieste to Austria.