ITALY’S PERIL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 23, 10 January 1912, Page 8

ITALY’S PERIL.

HER APPEAL FOR INTERVENn TTON. . ; ;

Neinc'sis is a slow-footed deity, but she is dlfeady at the heels of Ttaly (wrote W: T. Stead- in tho Daily Chfonicle :l ’liist mrthth); -" Signs 'are abundant 1 ! that!’thb ' 'ltalian ll ' Government As “already ilPriox'o straits. '• In another' month it will bo in extremis.

If anyone had told the Italian Ministers that six weeks after they declared war they would have utterly failed to possess themselves of an inch of Tripoli that was riot commanded oy the guns 'of their ileet, they would nave laughed' him to scorn. The whole affair was to be over in a week. There would be no war. Only an betaipatiori tllrit Would' be practically! uft’oppbised. 1" Therefore Ltlxlian Ambas-1 sadofriHkmiled aivay 'trie suggestion; 1 chat they.should appeal to The Hague., “Why ihvokri arbitration to deal with; an incident that is closed?” , -m i

So they spoke in the first week in, October. \Ve are now in the third week of/November. Thirty-five thousand Italian troops are penned up like rats in a cage in a cholera-smit-ten camp, lying between the desert and thef-deep sea. Tne conquering host of the invading army is besieged within hastily-constructed defences. Four miles of barbed-wire entanglements, c. earth works, and brick walls have been thrown up to prevent the Turks and the Arabs rushing the town. By day and by night the ironclads pound the desert with nineinch shells. Never a sun sets, oxrises but the wearied, harassed defenders await with dread a fresh attack from the intrepid sons of the desert, who in defiance of all maxims of military science are constantly attacking with numerically inferior forces a much larger army in possession of a fortified town, with a secure base on the sea. The advance into the desert wo are told is now postponed till the spring! Meantime Cholera, bred of the unburied corpses of trie victims of the great massacre, is avenging the slain. In order to afford Europe, Asia, and Africa this edifying 'spectacle of military impotence, the Italian exchequer is spending two millions sterling a week.

Under these circumstances the Italians are already finding themselves in sore straits. That was inevitable. But 1 confess I was xxot prepared to near the Italian press squeal so soon. There is, however, no mistaking tho significance of the Corriere della Sera’s insolent 1 demand that the Powers should < come to her rescue. Italy naviug undertaken a task that is beyond her strength, the Powers are now lectured as to their duty to help her to complete the garotting of Turkey so that Italy may be able to carry off her booty. For sheer insolence this demand beats the record. Italy, to the extreme inconvenience of her allies and to trie detriment of the interest of her friends, has trampled underfoot tho public law of Europe in order to grab Naboth’s vineyard, which she imagined she had only to stretch out her hand to seize. Naboth, however, has proved more than a match for his adversary. The Italians can only squat on the edge of tils property, and fling shells into the land they had hoped to occupy and possess-. ’ Now, when tho grim truth oegins to break upon the Italian mind, the press sots up an arrogant howl for the other Powers to intervene.

There is indeed good reason for the other Powers to intervene, hut not to do the bidding of Italy. Intervention is urgently called for to vindicate the public law of Europe, to repel a wanton and lawless aggression upon the territory which all the Ponces have guaranteed, and to investigate and punish the violation of The Hague Hides of Land War. It is safe to say that if there is any intervention it will be intervention in this sense. But that is not what tiie Italians want. 'They hector and bluster and tell the Powers that if they do not compel Turkey to hand over the swag which the international highwayman demands, flic said highwayman will proceed to make things mightily inconvenient for the whole of Europe. It is true that at the be-

ginning of the war they pledged themselves to confine their operations to North Africa to the defence of the Italian coast. It was on that pledge that Britain proclaimed her neutrality, and when that pledge ceases to be observed our neutrality ought at trio same time to cease and determine. But that is not what the Italians want. They argue that by carrying tho firebrand of war into the heart of that packed powder magazine known as the Ottoman Empire they can produce an explosion that will injure all their neighbours, therefore threatening to commit this crime they can compel the Powers to coerce Turkey to give up Tripoli. Now there are some crimes which even the British Foreign Office will shrink from committing, and one of those is the use of the British fleet to help an invader whose strength has failed to complete the spoliation of a friendly Power whose dominions we have guaranteed. The only importance of this insolent and arrogant attempt to dictate to the Powers lies in the evidence which it affords that tho Italians are beginning to realise that they have undertaken a task beyond their strength. In vulgar phrase, they have bitten off more than they can chew in Tripoli. They are feeling themselves whipped, and are crying out to the Powers to come to the rescue and accomplish for the benefit of Italy the deed of spoliation which hexown strength is unable to accomplish. Italy has presumed too much upon the patience and forbearance of the world. She has entered upon a career of mad adventure which will land her in bankruptcy, revolution, and possible disruption. She now begins to realise what is ahead of her, and shrieks to the Powers to extricate her from the situation she has created, by helping her to plunder the victim whom she has assailed.