Sept. 26.
Tur question of Italy's attitude towards the war has been rendered more acute by the reported formation of a new Italian Ministry containing a strong radical element. When it is recalled how much more closely akin to Conservatism the so-called Liberal Italian Ministries have always been than to the kind of Radicalism of which the Roman Messaggero"'—now ardently hing that Italy must join the Allies—is the exponent, the change is sufficiently remarkable. Had the inclinations of the Italian populace been followed, Italian neutrality would long since have been a thing of the past, and Germany and Austria would have had another foe to face. The strength of popular feeling in Italy may be gauged from the reply made by the Italian Government to German representations: that public opi ion would not allow of Italy's going to war for the Triple Alliance. What that public opinion is, Britons may possibly realize by picturing to themselves their own emotions if Mr. Asquith had announced that Great Britain's best course was to go to war, not against Germany, but with her. The situations, of course, are not parallel. Yet the breach of faith that Britons would have felt, had so impossible an announcement been made, could ly have been less keen than Italians would experience if they were asked to fight for the oppressor of their countrymen in Trent and Trieste. The recollection of Ttalian wrongs at Austria's hands is one of the most vivid and bitterest facts of. European modern history.
It has fo be admitted that in time past the Triple Alliance has not' been without its uses for Italy. In 1882 when' she was persuaded to enter the Dreibtind, she was not in sich a position as to desire the lonely splendour of isolation, and for some considerable time to come, it was uhquestionably more advantageous to Italy that she and "Austria should be yoked together. than enjoy full independence of action. A certain restraint was thus put upon their mutual animosity which would otherwise not have existed; and while the temper of the country chafed under the bond, Italy could not, in the closing yeara of last century, have
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.