"OURSELVES AND ITALY"
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your correspondent, Mr. H. Howard, rightly recalls us to our lost sense of fair-play where Italy is concerned. I would supplement his appeal by stressing the duty of common gratitude to the same country. Our neglect in both respects is not only shameful, but tragically dangerous to the cause of European peace.
The dating on Italy's War Memorials—viz., 1915-18—lus an odd look to our eyes. But it is eloquent to those not wilfully blind and deaf and forgetful. When Italy joined the Allies they were on the verge of defeat ; had she helped the other side at that critical period, years before the Americans arrived, we should certainly have lost the war. This cannot be gain- said, yet Italy has never received recognition of the fundamental importance of her services. Another sequence overlooked by us is the connexion between the knock-out administered by the Italian Army to the Austro-Germans at Vittorio Veneto at the end of October, 1918, and the Armistice concluded on November 'nth. It was the Austrian failure before Diaz which forced Ludendorff to throw .up the sponge weeks and perhaps months earlier than he would otherwise have done. To admit this is not to minimise the reputation of Foch, greatest commander since Napoleon, neither is it an aspersion upon Lord Cavan. Truth is said to prevail eventually ; it is well to expedite her slow movement.
Is the age-long friendship between Italy and ourselves to perish in our day at the bidding of professionally-hidebound politicians and rabid religionists ? Though perhaps . more harm is done by our insular lack of knowledge of European history than by all the varied activities of political bigots and pacifist mystics. . This ignorance crops out in unexpected places. Recently writing to one of the leading London dailies, an English novelist who has just published a book on Italy (!), declared : "Dante would certainly have found a particularly unpleasant corner of his Inferno for Benito Mussolini." This is to show the completest ignorance of Dante's ideals, and of the fact that the poet actually adjudged Brutus and Cassius, murderers of the Mussolini of their day, to the lowest circle of Hell.
With such .as its mentors, what wonder that the gullible :British public goes lamentably astray ? We are still encouraged to believe that Sanctions failed when within an ace of success, that Badog,lio's clever campaign was a fluke, and that the Italian occupation of Ethiopia can confer no benefit on that country. Were someone to propose inviting Italian, instead of Basque, children to Britain, thereby hoping to promote a better under- standing between our two countries, what would be thought of him ? If the Daily —, which not long since referred politely on its leader page to the King of Italy as a dwarf, were to. describe Mussolini as a cannibal, its readers and many others would swallow the story with the same gusto as their fore- fathers absorbed the like ditties about Napoleon.
We do not realise that Fascism is an experiment in the science-of Government. It is being conducted with intelligent regard to past history and modern conditions, and we should study it impartially. Democracy suits us, but under Giolitti it brought Italy to the brink of ruin. Our two countries derive, one its life-blood, the other its best impulses, from Rome, the Mother of Civilisation. Each has its own mission. Hostility between us is the most perverse and stupid of blunders. Unless a definite stand be taken against the venomous prejudice fostered so tirelessly by the stubborn zealots of Leman, and -by jingoistic pacifism, that most mcnstrous birth of all time, ill-feeling will. harden into custom, and the kindly tradition of the past will be replaced by legends of hatred. If for no other reason than common sense, we should recognise the plain fact of Italy's Roman Empire ; no other act would bring such appeasement to the general situation. Mr. Chamberlain, who seems neither doctrinaire nor drifter, has here a golden opportunity at the very commencement of his Premiership.
How will he use it ?—Yours, &c., J. B. JoNEs. /8 St. Margaret's- Road, Swindon.
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