ELECTION EVE IN ITALY MAY BE CALM

Grey River Argus, 17 April 1948, Page 5

ELECTION EVE IN ITALY MAY BE CALM

Police on Alert at Ail Centres

(Rec. 7.30). LONDON, April 16. The Daily Telegraph's correspondent at Rome states: The Government of Italy has ordered that all active election campaigning must end at mid-night tonight (Friday). This is to allow one day’s calm in Italy before the polling starts on Sunday morning.

All over the country the police are now making a show of force. They are parading, drilling and speeding through the cities in jeeps.

Many fear that there will be some last-minute surprise by Communists.

The electoral chances of the Communists appear now to be continuously dwindling. Aircraft are in readiness to fly reinforcements to any trouble spot.

Italy’s Foreign Minister, • Count Sforza, told the Rome correspondent of the Daily Herald that victory for the Christian Democrat-Liberal coalition in Italy’s general election this week-end was now "more certain than ever.”

Count Sforza said that he expected to retain his post in the new Government. He added that Italy’s foreign policy would not be changed. He said that he was prepared to collaborate with the Communists, provided they acted as "an independent political party.” ROME, April 15. Five persons were injured in a street light last night between the Fascsists and Jews —the first such post-war clash. Two hondred members of the Italian. Social (Fascist) Movement marched into Jewish quarters, sang a Fascist song and shouted ‘‘Death to the Jews.” Jews rushed roond from houses and cafes and attacked the Fascists with sticks and chairs. Police escorted the Fascists away. PARIS, April 15. The Italian Embassy stated that no visas will be granted to. foreigners for entry to Italy until after tne elections on April 18. The Embassy refused visas to three United States delegates to the international pro-Communist ‘‘aid lor Greece” conference meeting in Rome. U.S. WARSHIPS TO BE IN ITALIAN WATERS FOR THE ELECTIONS

(Rec. 10.10). LONDON. April 16. The Daily Mail states: A goodwill visit to Portsmouth was to have been made by the American naval task force which is now at Gibraltar. This visit was unexpectedly cancelled on Thursday “for operational reasons”. The task force consists of the air-craft-carrier Valley Forge, and two destroyers. They were due to arrive on Monday at Portsmouth. Great preparations for their reception had been made in Portsmouth, including a ball for the ships’ companies.

A spokesman for the United States Navy in London agreed that the only operational reason which could keep the ships in the Mediterranean would be to show the flag in Italian waters during Sunday’s elections.

Visit of U.S. Warships to European Ports

WASHINGTON, April 16

The Navy announced to-day that the battleship Missouri, the aircraftcarrier Coral Sea, the heavy cruisers Columbus and Mason, and eight destroyers will visit Lisbon and other foreign ports in June and July during the annual training, cruise for midshipmen of the United States Naval Academy. A United States fleet of 15 ships is now cruising in Mediterranean waters in the neighbourhood of Greece, Turkey, Trieste and Italy.

BRITISH LABOUR’S ATTITUDE TO ITALIAN ELECTIONS

(By Radio). LONDON, April 12.

The attitude of Britain’s Labour Party to tomorrow’s Italian elections was made unequivocally clear in a week-end broadcast by Mr Denis Healey, secretary of the International Department of the Labour Party. Mr Healey told of the shock sustained by the nabour Party last month in seeing that the P.S.I. (Partito Socialist! Italiani) had sent a letter of good wishes to M. Fierlinger, “whose treachery to Czecn Socialism cleared tne way for the Communists.

He and Mr Morgan Phillips, secretary of the Labour Party, immediately flew to Rome, to discuss the situation with the leaders of ail groups of Italian Socialism and saw many leaders ,but in view of their sudden arrival, were unable to arrange meetings with Sendr Saragat (the Right Wing Socialist leader/ ox- Senor Nenni (who, as the P.S.I. leader, recently allied himself with the, Communists, in a popular Democratic front. ■'Before we left,” said Mr Healey, “we announced publicly that, in agreement with the French Socialist Party, we had invited Unita Socialista to send delegates to our conference on the Marshall Plan in the forthcoming week.” PROOF ASKED FOR

The next Saturday the committee of the International Socialist Conference in London unanimously passed a resolution in which it called on the P.S.I. to prove by deed that, faced with a choice between subjection to the Cominform and voluntary Socialist, co-operation in European reconstruction, they had chosen the Socialist way. But Senor Morandi and Senor Vecchitti, the F.S.I. delegates, had refused even to discuss this resolution, and left the committee of tne.r own accord.” . Mr Healey went on, “Since then, I have seen articles in ‘avanti’ ov both these men claiming that they went to London without any warning of the choice they might have to face. I regret to say such, star**ments are untrue. Last October the Cominform divvied the world into two camps and toK< the Communist parties to treat the Democratic Socialists as their first and most dangerous enemy. Since then Communist parties everywhere have carried out their orders, in Hungary. Bulgaria and Rumania me Socialist Parties had alreadv been destroyed by fusion with the Communists. In Czechoslovakia the Communist police put their agent, Fierlinger, in control of the Social Democratic Party, directly flouting the decision of the last Party Congress. c I nPoland independent leaders of the Socialist Party are being, expelled preparatory to fusion. And m Western Europe the Communists have been fighting above all to destroy the influence of the Socialists even where as in France this meant working, in alliance with the extreme right wing. In fact the very tactics by which the Communists put Hitler into power in