APOLOGY DESIRED

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 48, 26 February 1938, Page 10

APOLOGY DESIRED

ITALY TO AUSTRALIA

INCIDENT ON VISITING CRUISER

PROTEST TO BE MADE

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.)

(Received February 26, 11.40 a.m.)

MELBOURNE, This Day,

The Minister of External Affairs, Mr. W. M. Hughes, announced that diplomatic representations are to be made by the Commonwealth Government to the Italian Government "for an appropriate expression of regret" at the assault made on a resident of Australia on the Italian cruiser Raimondo Montecuccoli.

Mr. Hughes, who made the announcement after an interview with the Acting Consul-General for Italy, Cavaliere Arrighi, added: "I think it would be gracious, as well as an appropriate gesture between friendly peoples, if some financial recompense were made to Mr. Orlando, the man who was assaulted.

Mr. Hughes said he intended to submit this view through the British Foreign Office and the British Ambassador in Rome. .'

A series of ' incidents relating to Fascism marked the visit of the cruiser Raimondo Montecuccoli to Melbourne. In addition to an assault on board the cruiser on an Italian resident of Melbourne, Mr. Orlando. Italian sailors brandishing knives were alleged to have caused a disturbance in a club used by the Italian community of Carlton, and two city men who visited.the cruiser stated that they were ordered to the commander's cabin, where they were asked whether'they had made derogatory remarks about Signor Mussolini. An officer of the cruiser said that the sailors had dealt with Mr. Orlando because they had taken him for a.man who had distributed antii Fascist leaflets.