The question' of the Southern Tyrol has found the feelings
of the House of Commons constant over a period of twenty-seven years. Nothing caused more concern and indignation in 1919 than the allocation of this purely Austrian-speaking and Austrian-thinking territory to Italy. Italy was then a victorious Power (even though carried to victory on other people's shoulders) and the excuse for wresting the Southern Tyrol from Austria then was that Italy must haye a strategic frontier on the Brenner. That pretext will hardly serve today, so it is contended that though the Southern Tyrol remains completely Austrian through and. through Italy must retain it for economic reasons. Economic reasons mean the hydro- electric plant which Italy has constructed in the province since she improperly secured it after the last war. The fact is that there was never a shred of justification for giving the Southern Tyrol to Italy—as I believe 41r. Lloyd George himself came to realise when he visited the province some years after the Treaty of Versailles was signed, and saw for himself the intensity of the surviving Austrian nationalism there—and there is not a shred of justification for leaving it in Italian hands today. Mr. Boothby seems likely-to secure the support of at least two hundred members for the motion he Is putting down in condemnation of the proposed transfer, but Mr. Bevin appears to have assented to the iniquity, and it will be hard for him to shift—or be shifted—from the position he has taken up. * * * *
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