The Press THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1946. Peace Treaty for Italy

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24900, 13 June 1946, Page 4

The Press THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1946. Peace Treaty for Italy

The prospect of breaking the.fourPower deadlock on the Italian peace treaty still seems bleak. According to Reuter’s correspondent in Paris, the Foreign Ministers’ deputies have not much chance of producing for their principals, who are due to meet to-morrow, anything more than a skeleton draft for the treaty. The clauses on which all the deputies agree are, he says, few and far between, and they do not cover what Mr Molotov called the three fundamental issues—colonies, reparations, and Trieste. Their failure is anxious not only as it reflects the deterioration of the war-time alliance of the ,Big Three. Until the treaty is drawn up, Italy cannot know what economic and industrial sacrifices are to be asked of hep* and any systematic planning of the country’s economic future remains impossible. To rise to her feet again, Italy must have credits to enable her to import the raw materials to feed her many intact factories and give employment; but until the victors have determined their claims on her she cannot negotiate credits on an adequate scale. “ This country ”, a “ Daily “ Telegraph ” correspondent has written from Rome, “is like a “ ruined but still enterprising man “ struggling to set up business “ again. Friends may keep his head “ above water and enable him to do “a little cash trading, but nobody “is going to finance his rehabilita- “ tion while his books present a “ tangle of unsettled claims and ‘‘even the lease of his premises is “ shaky ”. Inevitably, widespread distress has accompanied this economic stagnation. The factories of the north, the economic nervecentre of the country, are in general working at only one-third of their capacity—some of them at much less—and unemployment and hunger are rife. In the north, the number of unemployed was authoritatively put last month at 750,000, and over the whole of Italy at more than 2,000,000. compared with 1,500,000 in February. Food prices are now more than 30 times those of 1938, while wages of manual workers have risen only fifteenfold and those of clerical workers less than sevenfold. It has been a brighter aspect of this sombre picture that the people contrive, on the whole, to be hopeful, patient, and willing; but the possibility of social upheavals is by no means remote. Indeed, the Milan correspondent of “ The Times ” last month saw in the frequent demonstrations of destitute former servicemen a signal that, if the hardships of the people were not soon alleviated, the situation might easily take a serious turn. the coming months ”, he said, “ Italy will need all the aid, “ guidance, and understanding the “Allies can extend to her if social “ upheavals are to be avoided ” and neo-Fascism to be denied a source of strength.