26 APRIL 1919, Page 2

It might be possible to satisfy the very proper desire

of Italy for naval security if the South Slave were deprived of the right to maintain a Navy. We do not know whether this suggestion has been before the Conference during the discussions on the limitation of armaments, but we have seen no record of it. Readers of the Spectator know that we have -never been backward in our sympathy with the South Slays. For years before the war began we preached the rightness of their cause and denounced their Magyar oppressors. And just as the Great War had its cradle among the South Slays, so would it be almost certain that another Great War would break out some day if the causes of war were allowed to remain in their old place. But the South Slays must yield to the common cause just as everybody else is bound to yield. We most confess that we have found signs among them of a tendency to increase their demands at moments when one might have expected a tendency of good neighbourliness on the part of Italy to disarm them.