IMPERIAL ITALY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 25 May 1926, Page 5

IMPERIAL ITALY

MUSSOLINI’S AMBITION. / NEGOTIATIONS WITH VATICAN. FOR THE POPE’S SUPPORT. BY CABLE—PBESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. Received 10.15 a.m. to-day. LONDON, Alay 24. The political correspondent of the Westminster Gazette stated: Signor Mussolini is secretly negotiating for the Vatican’s support for Italian expansion on the lines of a Holy Roman Empire. The bargain includes the settlement of the question of the Papacy’s temporalpporer,w r er, giving the Pope actual territory on the Vatican side of the river Tiber. Signor Alussolini hopes to profit by the Vatican's troubles in Franco and Jugo-Slavia, thus gaining the Pope’s blessing and interest in the Fascist internal policy and external expansion. Italian officers arc already wearing wristlet watches upon ■which a miniature appears of Imperial Italy, which include Nice and Alalta. The prime mover at the Vatican is not the Pope, who is acutely worried and anxious, but a powerful personage behind the Papal throne, who threatens to resign whenever the Pope expresses Ms misgivings too forcibly.—Sydney Sun Cable