A CRISIS IN ITALY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16384, 15 May 1915, Page 9

A CRISIS IN ITALY.

A dramatic situation has been created in Italy. A courier is said to be hastening from Vienna bearing a despatch which apparently embodies the final and unalterable statement of the extent to which Austria is prepared to make tenitorial concessions to Italy as the price of the continued neutrality of the latter Power. At this hour oomes the information that the Italian Government has resigned upon the ground that it does not command the unanimous assent of the constitutional parties regarding the interpational policy which the gravity of the situation demands. The construction which is to be placed upon this incident must be a matter of conjecture, but, reading between the lines not only of the messages from Rome but also of that which reports that the Kaiser and

the Empeior Francis Joseph have been x —considering the military dispositions that shotild be ■ made in the event of Italian intervention, w© are disposed to conclude that the efforts of Signor Giolitti to persuade the Government that it should accept the proposals of Austria and remain neutral have failed. Popular feeling in Rome seems to be strongly in favour of the entrance ®f Italy into the war, and in the long run popular feeling must prevail. Coincident with the demonstration in Italy

in favour of intervention in the war is a

suggestion that the restoration of M. Veni- ' 'zelos -to power is probable in Greece, in which event the participation, of the kingdom of the Hellenes In the war in support of the Allies is certain. The developments of the next few days in both Italy and Greece will be awaited with great interest. Upon them depend important issues which must affect, one way or the 'other, the duration of the titanic struggle in Europe.