THE NEW SPIRIT IN ITALY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2989, 29 September 1919, Page 2

THE NEW SPIRIT IN ITALY.

Mr Hilaire Belloc, who was recently in Home, writes interestingly in “Land and Water” of his impressions of what the Italians are thinking and saying about the issues of the war. “It is a curious consideration, within living memory—before ’4B—that the conception of one Italian nation was academic,” says Mr Belloc. “It was the passionate desiro of many men, but not .the masses. There was no historical precedent, no tradition. The Italian cities and districts Lad been States , with varying (and conflicting) histories for much more than a thousand years... . The whole affair has changed. There is undoubtedly present to-day ono highly conscious people fully united. It lias not yet developed the strains and internal divisions which come of long-estab-lished unity in a gx*eat mass of men. It is still .simple’ and enthusiastic, something which everyone with a care for the future of Europe should watch and know.. The mere obscsvalun of the present Italian feeling, the universal experience of it is of great effect upon the mind. Accident has helped it. Three most vmd strokes impressed themselves upon the whole people: Caporetto, the I‘iave, VeuetoVenetia. ... * “Italy alone of the Allies had a short, complete, and tremendous day. Such an isolated experience has worked very powerfully upon the public mind. I have seen, in the course of my present journey, every kind of town and hamlet in the centre and north of this country: from the little villages of the Mugello and of the Emilian Marshes to the great cities, and now Rome; where I write this. In all, without exception, you see set up prominently, long familiar to every child, often carved in stone, the dispatch of General Diaz, which they call ‘The Bulletin of Victory. In the courtyard of that solemn town hall, which is the most dignified among the things of Florence, it is inscribed upon a great- marble slan, set up high on the northern wall. In a small inn of the Appemnes 1 saw it carefully pinned up to the wooden panels written out by hand. It is everywhere. The same note is struc.c throughout all the Press. The emphasis is always on the word Victorious.’ Such and such a demand ‘cannot be denied to a Victorious Italy.’ The adjective and the noun have come to form one phrase, based on the chief experience of a new people. The element of exaggeration in all this is obvious. It is what first impresses (and often annoys) the foreigner. But the sincerity, the passion, of the feeling admits of. no doubt. It takes too little account, by far, of the vast rum in Northern France, of the enormous naval and industrial effort of Great Britain—the basjs of the land actions —of the proportionate lines in European population. It will seem an isolated and almost provincial expression of emotion in the eyes of other, older, and some more tried national groups. But the point of a wise statesmanship to note is its intensity. I should add, its permanence. .“Italy has a future of which —as of every other future —we know nothing., But- we have certain elements known in a problem of so many knowns. We know, for instance, that there is here a nation increasing very rapidly in numbers and possessed of a new energy. We know, or should know, that its national unity and common feeling is at once firm (now) and also increasing; it is the chief lesson of these very destructive days. We know that the present boundaries and external controls of -Italy leave that nation dependent upon others for what are still the main material necessities of a nation at war, iron and coal, and dependent also upon others for the new necessity—oil. We know, on the other hand, what geographical position that' nation holds, and bow the Mediterranean turns upon it. “We know, or should know (few say it, perhaps the'past is still too strong), that the unnatural thing so long and much admired in the north, ; the special power of Prussia, has gone ; that bad north has been pulled "out of the head of Europe and the <v a p will be apparent enough. We know that the traditions of such ■ groups which are the very antithesis of Prussia, Poland, and Italy. Latin ,in spirit, tend to fill that void. . . . ‘ltaly in the future will command the outlet of her neighbors to the Mediterranean. If the present ferment upon the Adriatic compels her public men to consider the whole possible future of their country it will have proved of advantage to us in spite of its immediate peril.”