ITALIAN SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27, 2 February 1915, Page 7

ITALIAN SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR

PATRIOTIC MAJORITY WILL FIGHT. MINORITY ADVOCATES GENERAL STRIKE. (Received February 2, 8 a.m.) ROME, Ist February. A section of the Socialists oppose Italy participating in the war. A small minority wished a general strike in the event of mobilisation being ordered. Signor Turati delivered an anti-Get* man speech, declaring that if intervention were necessary the Socialists would fight. The patriotic majority of the Italians were prepared to risk expulsion from the party in order to help the country. [The former editor of the Avanti, M. Benito Massolini, is for Italian intervention in the European conflict. He was excluded from the party, the majority of whom are for neutrality. Massolini founded a new daily, II Popolo d 'ltalia. According to the new journal, the editor has already a considerable number of followers, many of whom have left the ranks of the "Official" Socialists. Moreover, letters of encouragement are flooding the offices of the new paper. It is worthy of note that the seats in the Italian Parliament are distributed amongst the Socialists as follows:—Official Socialists (left wing of Socialist Party). 40; Socialist Reformers (right wing),' 20; Independent Socialists, 10. Out of these the Official Socialists are absolutely opposed "to the intervention of Italy, but their ranks, as indicated, are rapidly thinning. Of other parties, only the Catholics are taking an irreconcilable attitude against the war.]