A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
SOME notes I have just received from a well-qualified English observer in Italy confirm rather strikingly reports from other sources. In spite of the Rome-Berlin Axis, according to my informant " there is no doubt that anti- German feeling is rapidly growing in Italy. Germany on the Brenner is the inevitable topic in the cafés and criticism of the Axis is quite open." He adds that a merchant whom he had occasion to visit, one of the Fascist old guard, launched forthwith on a diatribe against " the Boches," their greed for conquest, their brutality and inhumanity, pointing out that the Germans had always since the days of Theodoric come to Italy to conquer and exploit, and that though there might be an official affiance between Italy and Germany the Italians were against it to a man and would readily fight against the Germans on any front. At the same time the widespread dissatisfaction with the war in Spain and with the high prices and poor quality of foodstuffs, and the increasing burden of Abyssinia, are creating a situation which might make Signor Mussolini think it necessary to attempt some desperate throw. It is worth noting by the way that at the Congress for the Study of Foreign Politics at Milan on Satur- day Signor Pavolini observed with a complacency hardly calculated to commend itself at Berlin that " the Third Reich was a derivative of Fascism."
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