Over Hainan "Great Democracies Justly Punished" By Japanese Occupation Rome, Feb. 12.
The Italian Press today voiced great satisfaction over Japan's occupation of Hainan Island, which it interpreted as a blow to the prestige of the great democracies.
The "Corriere della Sera" wrote, "The great democracies now receive what they have earned. Their blind conservatism, which prevents them from seeing the legitimate interests and historic rights of Italy and Germany, is now justly punished in the Far East.
"The time will come when repercussions will make themselves felt closer at hand, on the European continent and in the Mediterranean.
These powers will see that, in wishing to keep everything by egoism, they will have lost all. We rejoice infinitely over all this."
This journal added that Italy is happy because Japan is her friend and is one of the main bases of the anti-Comintern triangle. Japan's expansion does not cause any anxiety to the Fascists, it stated.
On the other hand, the Fascists are worried over the "boundless wickedness and imbecility of the demo-
Corriere della Sera" concluded in stating that this anxiety was comparable to that felt when reading a detective novel, for it is well known that the criminal will finish, sooner or later, either in prison or on the scaffold.—Havas.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.