ONE WEEK'S GRACE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 06, Issue 95, 3 August 1943, Page 4

ONE WEEK'S GRACE

THE repeated assertions of the newly constituted Badoglio Government that it is intended to maintain Italy's war relations with her Axis partner, has led to serious rioting and mass demonstrations in all the major towns. If we are to believe the reports from neutral sources, these popular demonstrations of unrest were intensified when the British broadcast the Allied intention of continuing the olfensive with large-scale bombing attacks on all Italian strategic targets. It would seem on the face: of the present predicament of the Italian masses that they have succeeded in overthrowing one regime of force only to initiate a further power which may very well lead the'm into fresh highways of misery and dispair. Those who read the announcement of Badoglio's first official broadcast to the people of Italy were arrested mainly by the cryptic concluding note "the war goes on." The common conclusion then was that this pronouncement, amounted to little more than a futile attempt at 'face' saving. One week of grace however has failed to produce the anticipated peace overtures, and the result is as indeniably disappointing to the Allies as it apparently, is to the Italian people themselves. What has served to bring about this new hardening of Italy's national outlook which flies so bravily in the face of popular opinion? Can it be that the German divisions, known to be quietly occupying the main strategic defence positions, have seized the powers of Government and are even now dictating which course their erstwhile ally shall follow? Such conclusion would seem the most logical under the puzzling attitude of the new cabinet, which outlaws Fascism in one breath and makes fresh overtures to Fascism's ally with the next. In the midst of the strange enigma we can assuredly the hand of Naziism, a movement which knows its Gestapo well and does not hesitate to use it even in the midst of international disaster.