A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
REPORTS that opinion in Italy is moving so fast. that there is even a majority on the Fascist Grand Council in favour of a peace move fall so agreeably on our ears that it is obviously wise to give them for the moment very limited credence. It is very difficult, moreover, to see how Hitler could tolerate the idea of a separate peace by Italy, and if, to prevent that, he proceeded to occupy the country there is nothing very immediate that we could do about it. Such a move would be bad for Italy ; it would also be bad for Germany in entailing a further dispersal of force. German bombers on Italian aerodromes would be more dangerous to us than Italian bombers, but in fact German bombers are there already. If, in spite of everything, the possibility of a separate peace does materialise—and the United States might be able to do much to facilitate it—the question would at once arise how far we should do well to offer easy terms in order to get Italy quickly out of the war. The decisive factor there would have to be the extent to which Italy repudiated Fascism—Mussolini and cer- tain other leaders in particular—and the nature of the regime succeeding it. No peace could inspire any confidence so long as totalitarianism retained any strength. There might have to be for a transitional interval some form of military or other dictatorship as the alternative to anarchy, but the condition " no peace with Mussolini " ought, I suggest, to be fundamental. In any case the Italian fleet would have to be handed over per- manently or temporarily, if only to make sure of keeping it out of German hands.
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