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Evening Star, Issue 17037, 7 May 1919, Page 4

It has been rather absurdly assumed. out here that there k one Two Sides to >ide only to the Fittme Italy's impasse. Italy, it seems Stubbornness, generally believed, saw an opportunity a.nd attempted to take it. Haying driven a hard bargain with Britain in the first, place, she has been scheming for a full two months to conveil the Pact of London into a means .if easv -irgrandisement. Hence all the;'. 1 ssjhs ami tears! Well, we would be very much less sophisticated than we are it vre .-upposed that there is nothing at all in such an assumption but base and scrdid cviviciain. We know that there •is more in k;dv>. emotion than meets the. guileless eye. We admit that there is a whole v.\:M of self-seelnng in Orlando's psychological hiroies. of which' simple so ids i.evtr reck or dream. But the biggest dupe, after ail. is precisely the penetrating cynic. Xo one ever makes such colossal mistake.* as the observer whoso attitude la a- prolonged "Why!" In the problem of the Admix particularly he is worse a hundred time:; than no observer at all. Either he .strains at a gnat and swallows a camel, or he foci-ses attention on the last srx months and ignores the clamor of a bundled and six years. -What, -rends most people astray in the first place is the fact that tho rival is no longer Teuton. Italy against Austria had all our sympathy and enthusiastic aid. Italy against Jugo-Slavia is a horse so strange that we caJl it at once a mercenary mnle. We forget ibat to the Italian himself the problem has hardly changed. .Somehow or other, as he knows, he must leant to love the Slav. He does not love him yet, and cannot pretend to. In plain truth, he has little real hope of doing eo till he can forget the agonies of the last half-century. It is a fact that the Slav, like himself, was the victim of Hapsburg oppression. It is true that the southeastern Slav has been a very gallant and rebellious victim since the Turks' dwindling legions began to fall back towards the Horn. But when the Italian thinks of Jugo-S'lavia he thinks of Croatia and Dalm.itia. He thinks of the bloody vassals of si degenerate Austria's long oppression. He remembers that throughout Italia

Irredenta, for'many dreary years the garrisons have been Slav, the police Slav, the agents provocateur® Slav, the governors, merchant kings, and bankers at least halfSkv. More strangely stilly he is aware, or.d fiercely aware,, that the most coldblooded submaiinin'gs of*'the last two years were carried out by Croatian or Dalmatian crews; he be'lieves, and flushes as he believes, that the most relentless Allies of the Irredentist -were regiments recruited between the Save- and the seaSome day, as we have said, he knows* that he must love these people; but it is an agony at present to be barely polite. There ds another aspect, too, where the cynicism is entirely on the other side. Rightly or wrongly, France has fought for guarantees —pledges pins strategic* positions. Rightly or wrongly, America and Britain have secured themselves by sea. Has not New Zeahcnd, even, insisted on the removal of the enemy from Samoa? When Italy aske for strategic positions her Allies ask wondeiringly " What for?" When she i 3 & little blind to self-determination issues in her desire to dominate her only controllable sea—like France in Alsace, and Britain somewhere too—she is reminded of the magic of the League of Nations. "Trust in- God," said Mohammed, " but tie up your camel." To Italy it appears as if her friends have tied up their own camel very securely indeed, but refuse her any •resource but an abiding faith in Allah. Of course, we do not go so fax as to say that Italy is right and the Allies wrong. As we said to begin with, our eyes are as open as tho other fellow's to the sad and sorry alliances between patriotism, pelf, and power. But we do suggest rather emphatically that there axe two sides, as usual, to this international shield. To give Italy the Dalmatian coast would be ihe worst possible arrangement for Italy herself. , It is a significant fact, indeed, that her military advisers do not want rit. One of the sad absurdities into which their emotion has led a section nf frustrated " Imperialists" is the claim that D&lmatia once belonged to Rome I But the claim to Fiumo is by no means preposterous, though the difficulties of granting it are too great to be overcome. Racially, the city is just as much-Italian as superficially Slav. Commercially it is at present the only feasible outlet for Upper Jngo-iSJa-via, and with Trieste will tap Bavaria and Austria. Short of a definite assignment to one Ally or Ihe other, it should bo made the concern of an International Commission.

But to refuse Italy's " legitimate aspirations" is a very different thing indeed from deciding, as most seem to have done, that the whole thing is a mercenary bluff. [According to the latest cabled information to hand since the above was in type, the Fiume question has been settled to Italy's satisfaction. Fiume will be autonomous for two years and Italian thereafter.]