Venezia Giulia Must Remain Italian Cheering Assembly Members Assert

Northern Advocate, 26 June 1946, Page 5

Venezia Giulia Must Remain Italian Cheering Assembly Members Assert

After wildly cheering assertions by members that Venezia Giulia must remain Italian, the Constituent Assembly, by 466 votes to 65, elected 48-year-old Guiseppe Saragat its President.

He is a former Right Wing Socialist and is a former Ambassador to Paris. Signor Orlando, last of the Versailles Big Four, told 500 delegates: ‘‘No material force and no immoral barter can detach Trieste and other towns in the area from Italy. “The threat against the very existence of the nation appears today more terrible than at any time in our history.” He added that Italy’s treatment threatened at the Paris conference

was an offence against the soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought and died in thousands.

It transformed them into mercenaries, inasmuch that it meant that they fought for foreigners who still considered Italy an enemy. Communists, Socialists. Republicans and Monarchists joined in a tremendous ovation as Signor Irlando concluded. The Prime Minister (Signor de Gaspari) revealed that he told the Foreign Ministers’ Conference: .“'The Italian community >vill never be able to support certain mutilations,” adding that if the neace treaties were too oppressive, the Allies would put out a light sorely needed in a world slipping back into darkness.