Italy's Deserts
While the Foreign Ministers in Paris face deadlock on the subject of a treaty with Italy, the Italian Constituent Assembly is meeting in Rome to draft a constitution for the new republic. That is its purpose. But it does not appear to have given much attention to it so far. The apprehension that whatever Government was formed by Signor de Gasperi, who is Prime Minister and leader of .the largest party, the Christian Democrats who hold 195 of the 556 seats in the Assembly, it would have to accept a hard peace at the hands of the Great Powers, has tended to distract attention from the business in hand. Consequently, little is heard of Italy's 22 years of Fascism, of her participation in two aggressive wars and of the correct treatment she has received since defeat forced her on to the side of the Allies in 1943. Instead there is much talk about strangling the infant republic .(a crime which can only be committed by Italians anyway), about the iniquity of Italy's having to pay for the relief she has received (an allegation which has been denied, though there is no reason in equity why she should not pay) and about the vindictiveness of the British. All this rings a little hollow—particularly the last point, which sounds very much like belated participation in the fashionable sport of being rude to the British as a cheap way of being polite to the Americans and Russians. It is a particularly curious way to behave when the main Italian anxiety is to retain Venezia Giulia. It is not the British who contend that this region should go to Yugoslavia. If beggars decide to be choosers they should be very careful when they make their choice.
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