To the Editor of the "Norru-Cuina Dau News"
Sim—Signor Bamzwi, Jr, in his Jetten of yesterday is a little unkind in his belitüement of long standing Anglo-Italian friendship during certain critical periods of the last century. While French help at Solferino in 1859 might have, as he suggests, been of more immediately practical value, still a price seems to have been placed pon it in the form of the rectification in favour of France of the frontiers in the regions of Savoy and the Western end of the Italian Riviera, including Nice, Moreover your correspondent omits to mention the very valuable, if not vital, help given by British Troops to Italy at a critical time during the Great War.
Granted that Italy wants raw materials and cannot afford to buy them at unfavourable exchange rates; Is she actually any better oft after an enormous, capital expenditure on colonial expansion in Libya and Eritrea which produce very little and are unsuitable for European settlement? Will there be any adequate return from Abyssinia which must be kept under military occupation for years to come at great cost o the Mother Country?
Would not better results have been achieved at practically no cost by making use of the collective machinery provided by the League of Nations? Italy could have made out a very good case for herself, as Germany can to-day, for a fair share of the sunny spots of the world. It is natural in these days of commercial and economic competition for those already in possession to be reluctant to surrender privileged positions, but anything is better than the present state of affairs with the possibility of another and greater World War arising out of individual action, Round Table Conferences, though dull and unspectacular, and perhaps slow in producing results, are a better medium in the long run than wars and international incidents with their heavy toll in human life and happiness and the resultant material destruction which, if persisted in, will finally destroy civilization and human progress, Tt should not be beyond the power of statesmen and international financiers to devise adequate readjustments so as to divide the sources of supply of raw: materials and the markets for disposal of manufactured products equitably among the nations Of the earth. Such a readjustment will necessarily entail certain sacrifices on the part of the more favourably situated Powers, but a purely selfish policy can only have disastrous results sooner or later and as nobody can win in a world war it would seem the part of wisdom for all reasonable measures to be adopted to render such a war not only unlikely but impossible.
Pax.
Shanghai, Feb. 11,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.