The Fate of the Southern Tyrol
In his important article on another page on the Italian Treaty Mr. Anthony Nutting puts the case for the retention of the Southern Tyrol by Italy. Such a case can be made ; otherwise so well-informed a writer as Mr. Nutting would not make it. But it is permissible to hold that a much stronger case exists for the return of this unfor- tunate territory to Italy. The fate of the territory ought never to have been settled, as it was in 1919, on purely strategic grounds, and it ought not to be discussed now in terms of rewards and penalties. That the territory was originally pure Austrian, and that it was forcibly but unsuccessfully Italianised, no one can question. Neither are the general wishes of its inhabitants today in doubt. Nothing could be more impressive than the-description published last Tuesday by the Innsbruck correspondent of The Times of the mass demon- stration in which Tyrolese from both north and south of the Austro- Italian frontier demanded the return of the Southern Tyrol to its motherland. The Southern Tyrol was wrongfully given to Italy when Italy was an ally of Britain and France ; there is small excuse for leaving her in possession after a war in which she opposed them.
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