Italian Disagreements
Signor Bonomi had a thankless task in seeking to hold together a coalition Government in Italy representing six parties. It cannot be said that the leaders of these parties have achieved much success in setting an example to their country of national unity in the face of disaster,- or in smoothing the path of a Prime Minister whose principal task, as it has turned out, has been to compose their differences. The position, obviously, is full of diffidulties. Italy is a defeated country. Her Government still has no control over the great towns and industrial regions of the North. There is no leader who can claim any popular mandate of any kind ; but there are parties, and each of them has its own Press, whose vociferousness today presents a striking contrast to its enforced silence in the period of the Fascist dictatorship. Ministers of the Left are showing such zeal in summary procedure against Fascists that they do not even refrain from interfering with the staffs of their colleagues. The Socialist Press denounces the disorderliness in the streets of Rome, which its own propaganda does nothing to allay. When Ministers cannot agree among themselves they seek a temporary agreement in uniting to attack Allied control ; and when Count Sforza could not be prevailed on to refrain from intervening in the internal affairs of the Foreign Office, attempts were made to obviate the difficulty by insisting that he should be Foreign Minister. When the much-
harassed Signor Bonomi was at last driven to offer his resignation Ministers appear to have united once again in begging him to remain. The latest report is that Prince Umberto has asked him to form a new Government. So it appears to be his task to form another Ministry of All the Talents, or possibly one with a few of the Talents left out. Count Sforza has himself suggested that he may be a voluntary victim.
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