ITALY AND OURSELVES
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your correspondent, Mr. T. S. Phillips, complains of " blind and unscrupulous attacks " made by Italian news- papers upon Britain. What does he expect ? Is it possible
he is unaware that abuse in the Italian Press can not only be paralleled but outclassed in virulence by the venomous outbursts which are a common feature of certain London dailies ? One would like to know whether Mr. Phillips really believes that Signor Gayda and his confreres " bitterly and unscrupulously attack " this country without the grossest provocation.
Foreign travel is one of the best preventives of, and antidotes to, international misunderstanding, yet Mr. Phillips wishes to see such opportunities curtailed. He scolds English journals for advertising tours beyond the Alps, and inveighs against Italy for attempting to seduce us thither in order, as he genially puts it, to bolster up an " impoverished " country by good English money. Is it a sin to be impoverished ? Mr. Phillips would be mightily annoyed if Signor Gayda, seeing his letter in The Spectator, taunted us with our distressed areas and huge unemployment totals ?
Some years after the introduction of Fascism, any wife and myself were spending a holiday near Aosta. We went up on the neighbouring St. Bernard Pass to see, for one thing, the famous dogs at the Swiss hospice just over the frontier, and, unfortunately, I forgot my passport. It can be cold even in July at 8,000 feet, but the customs authorities, though unable to allow us through the barrier, received us into their blockhouse, sharing their rations and blazing fire with us, while sleet and snow fell . blindingly outside. - As there were two or three hours to wait before the next diligence down, this kindness, upon which we had no claim but our nationality, was beyond price.
Wisdom would see, to quote Shakespeare, " A Roman and a British ensign wave Friendly together."
Today, thanks to the , political quacks who batten upon democracy, relations between Italy and ourselves are no longer amicable. A friendship which has ever been cherished by the foremost men of both our nations is being replaced by hate. Such is the triumph of the ineffable folly of Sanctions.
To repair this folly is the uphill task bequeathed to Mr. Neville Chamberlain, and to which, fortunately, he is per- sonally addressing himself. The omens are imperative when Japan and Spain, once our friends, are also showing unmis- takable symptoms of Anglophobia. But neither security nor the cause of peace itself seems to count much with Mr. Phillips and his fellow-partisans provided they can keep the breach open which the new Prime Minister is endeavouring to close.
—Yours, &c., J. B. JONES. 18 St. Margaret's Road, Swindon.
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