THE ITALIAN SITUATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15915, 12 May 1915, Page 6

THE ITALIAN SITUATION.

If judgment is to bo founded upon facts rather than by statements and rumours, it appears to be inevitable that Italy must soon enter the lists on the side, of the Allies. At the outbreak of the war Italian popular feeling was so pronounced that no government could have carried Italy into active co-partnership with Germany and Austria, and the Italian Cabinet unhesitatingly refused to take part in a war of aggression, being bound by treaty only to support the Central Powers in a war of defence. The grandsons of Garibaldi raised an Italian Legion to fight, on behalf of France, and the question at Rome turned upon the point as to whether Italy should remain neutral or join the Allies. There has never been any suggestion that she might join Germany and Austria. The French have been able to leave their Italian frontier practically unguarded, and the opposite Italian authorities have been apparently concerned only in preventing the too-visible passing of Italian volunteers over the border. Since August Italy has been strenuously placing her army on a war footing, and the successful raising of an Italian loan in London last year suggested that the British

authorities were quite satisfied to assist in this preparatory step. Steadily during past months Italy has been visibly arming and getting ready. Her reservists have been called home. Her liners have recently been forbidden to sail. Her Austrian frontiers are strongly held. Her railways have been cleared for troop transportation. Germans and Austrians are leaving the country. The Austrians, on their side, have placed their frontier zone under war conditions and made complete preparations. The sinking of the Lusitania, intended to terrify neutrals, has aroused intense indignation in Italy, which was too unhappily familiar in the past with Austrian methods to be frightened now by German murderousness. If we dismiss from the problem the statements which are often designed to confuse, and look solely to Italian and Austrian acts, it appears certain that Italy is moving steadily towards intervention.