ITALIAN SAILORS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23437, 28 February 1938, Page 11

ITALIAN SAILORS

INCIDENT AT MELBOURNE

DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIONS MELBOURNE. Feb. 26. (Received Feb. 27, at 6.30 p.m.) The Minister of External Affairs (Mr W. M. Hughes) announced that diplomatic representations would be made by the Commonwealth Government to -the Italian Government “for an appropriate expression of regret ” in regard to the assault made on a resident of Australia in the Italian cruiser Raimondo Montecuccoli when on a visit to Melbourne. Mr Hughes, who made this announcement after an interview with the Acting Consul-general for Italy (Signor Cavaliere Ai'righi), added: “ I think it would be a gracious as well as an appropriate gesture between friendly peoples if some financial recompense was made to Mr Frigo Orlando, the man who was assaulted.” Mr Hughes said he s intended to submit this view through the British Foreign Office and the British Ambassador in Rome. A series of incidents relating to Fascism marked the visit of the Italian cruiser Raimondo Montecuccoli to Melbourne. In addition to an assault on board the cruiser on an Italian resident of Melbourne, Mr Frigo Orlando, Italian sailors, brandishing knives, are alleged to have caused a disturbance in a club used by the Italian community at Carlton, and two city men who visited the cruiser stated that they were ordered to the commander’s cabin, where they were asked whether they had made derogatory remarks about Signor Mussolini. An officer of the cruiser said the sailors had dealt with Mr Orlando because they had taken him for a man who had distributed anti-Fascist leaflets.