ITALIAN PEOPLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25798, 20 March 1945, Page 6

ITALIAN PEOPLE

WAR GUILT QUESTION OPINION IN AMERICA Putting on one side the debate over the German and Japanese peoples, it should be clear to anyone with any acquaintance with the history of the Italian people that to hold it, as a people, guilty of the crimes of fascismo is totally to misunderstand that history, states the Wall Street Journal in an editorial article. If there is one thing which is definitely not an element in the Italian character or genius or whatever one chooses to call it, it is fanaticism of any kind. Secondly, the political experience of the people of the peninsula has been until less than a century ago one of decentralised government.

The political unity of Italy under the House of Savoy never reached the stage attained by the Germanies, after 1870, nor did the Italians ever dally with the “ blood and soil ” nonsense of Gobineau, Houston Stewart Chamberlain and their followers, much less adopt it as a national slogan. Fascismo in Italy was at bottom

alien to Italy’s traditions. At best it was a temporary manifestation of the disillusions and disappointments following World War I, antf’succeeded in establishing itself mainly for lack of any opposing political force of national character and scope. This is abundantly 1 demonstrated by the fact that its defeat has left in Italy what is called a political vacuum.

What we have to deal with is a halfdozen “ parties ” who agree in little more than rejection of fascismo, a desirfe for peace and a people generally closer to actual starvation than it has ever been in its long history. In the light of the plain facts, what justification can be found for punishing this people for the sins of fascismo? Whether there is or is not “a method of drawing up an indictment of a whole people ” may be debated, but that the Italian “ facts ” are such as to warrant such an indictment is not merely not demonstrated, but also not even a plausible hypothesis. There is no sign that many Americans entertain it even as such.