The South Tirol The recent agreement between Italy and Germany
on the question of the South Tirol continues to provoke specula- tion. In pursuance of the agreement, an order has been issued by the Italian police expelling foreigners from the South Tirol, and the order appears to apply to all foreigners, tourists as well as residents. The natural assumption is that the Axis powers wish to have no foreign witnesses of the uprooting of the German minority from their home- land ; for 20 years they have been the most brutally mis- treated minority in Europe, and the new agreement is the culmination of their misfortunes. But the expulsion order has been justified by the Italian authorities on military as well as political grounds and the suspicion has arisen that it may be connected with movements of German troops through the Brenner Pass, which the South Tirol imme- diately adjoins. It is noticeable that the agreement, and its consequences, have had no publicity either in Germany or Italy ; Herr Hitler certainly has every reason to wish that it should receive as little attention as possible. For, firstly, it surrenders in perpetuity a land which is almost over- whelmingly German, despite the ruthless attempts at Italianisation ; secondly, it shows that the principle of self- determination is subordinate to wider political considera- tions ; thirdly, it shows that minority questions can be settled not by surrender of territory but by transfer of populations. Such admissions completely destroy the grounds on which Herr Hitler demanded the Sudetenland and now demands Danzig.
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