ITALIAN FRONTIERS
SIR,—Mr. Bevin rightly insisted that Trieste was a more important inter- national issue than South Tyrol. Yet his great conception of Trieste as a world port can be carried out only by connecting it through a corridor with its hinterland. Such a corridor, under international control; would not, like Danzig and the Polish corridor, cut a national territory into halves by inserting another antagonistic national group. It would keep apart two rival nations by an international trade lane, and prevent both from tampering with the flow of commerce from Central Europe. Mr. Bevin's evaluation of the economics of South Tyrol was less convincing. The country's economic mainstays were high-grade fruit farming and the tourist traffic, both depending on northern customers. Italians do not flee to Meran from the rigours of a Neapolitan winter, nor are they willing to pay lire for fruit they can get from their backyards for a few centesimi. Power-stations were established in South Tyrol, with the double object of having generating centres far removed from the French—potentially hos- tile—border, and of Italianising the population by planting Italian immi- grant workers amongst it. The Italians are both rational and imaginative. Cannot they see that a policy of generous renunciation will be much wiser in the long run than clamouring for the moon in language reminiscent of D'Annunzio?—Yours, &c., M. J. BONN. Kensington Palace Mansions, De Vere Gardens, W. 8.
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