THE NEW SPIRIT IN ITALY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 293, 6 September 1919, Page 10

THE NEW SPIRIT IN ITALY

1 ITALIAN OPINION ON THE WAR,ISSUES A UNITED NATION Mr. Hilaire Belloc, who v.-as recently in Rome, writes interestingly in "J.and and Water" of "liis impressions of what the Italian.-; are thinking and saying to-day about the issues of the war. "It is a curious consideration, within living memory—before J -18—that the conception of one Italian nation was acadcmic," says Mr. lielloc. "Jt was tho pas. sionato desiro of many men, but not the masses. There was no historical precedent, no tradition. The Italian cities and districts had been States with varying (and conflicting) histories for much mora than a thousand years. . . . The whoio affair has changed. There is undoubtedly present to-day one highly conscious people fully united. It has not vet developed the strains.and internal divisions which como of long-established unity in a great mass of men. it is olill simple and enthusiastic, something which everyeno with a. care for the future of J'limme should watch -aad know. Mhc mere observation of the present Italia"feeling, the universal experience of it is ot great eit'cct upon the muni. Accident has helped it. Three mo:-t vivid strokes impressed themselves upon llie whole people: Capcretto, the J'iave, VcnetuV'enetia. . - - Italy's Tremendous Day, "Italy alone of the Allies had a short, complete, and tremendous day. Such an isolated experienco has worked very powerfully upon tho public mind. 1 have seen, in tho course of my present journey, every kind of town and namlet in the'centre'and north of this country: from tho little villages of tho Mugello and of tho Hmilian Marshes to tho great cities, and now Rome, where I W'l'ito this. In all, without exception, you sec set up prominently, long familiar to every child, often carved in stone, tho dispatch of General Diaz, which they cull 'The Bulletin of Victory.' In the courtvard of that solemn town hall, which is "tho most dignified among the things of Florence, it is inscribed upon a great marblo slab, set up high, on tho northern wall. Jn a small inn of thb Apennines I saw it carefully pinned up I to tho wooden panels written out by hand. It is everywhere. The same lioto is struck throughout all tho Press. The emphasis i-i always on the lvord 'Victorious.' Such and such a demand 'cannot be, denied to a Victorious Italy. The adjective and the noun liavo come to form one phrase, based oil the chief experience of ,• a new people. Tho element of exaggeration in all this is obvious. It is what first impresses (and often anuoys) the foreigner. But the sincerity, the passion, of the feeling aroused admits ot no doubt. It takes too littlo account, by far, of tho vast ruin ill Northern France, of the enormous naval tind industrial cftovt of Great Britain—the basis of the land actions—of the proportionate lines in .European population. It will seem an isolated and almost provincial expression of emotion in the eyes of other, older, and some-more tried national groups. But tire point nf a wise statesmanship to note is its intensity. I should add, its permanence. Italy's Future, "Italy has a future of which—as of every other future—wo know nothing. But wo have certain elements known in a problem of so many unknowns. Wo know, for instance, that there is hero a nation' increasing very rapidly in numbers and possessed of a new energy. We know, or should know, that its national unity and fonimon feeling is arm (now) nnd also' increasing; it is the chief lesson of these very instructive days. AVe know that the present boundaries and external controls of Italy leavo that nation dependent upon others for what, are still the mam materia necessities of a nation at war, iron and coal, and dependent also upon others for the new necessity—oil. AVe know, on tho other hand, what geographical position that nation holds, and how tjio Mediterranean turns upon it. , ' "AVe i know, or should know (few say it, perhaps the past is still too strong), that the unnatural thing so long and much admired in the north, the special power of Prussia, has gone; that bad north has been pulled out of the head of Europe nnd tho gap will be apparent soon enough. We know that the tiaditions of such groups'which are-the very antithesis of Prussia, Poland, and Italy, Latin in spirit, tend to fill that void. Italy in tho future will command the outlet of her neighbours to.the Mediterranean. If the present ferment upon tho Adriatic compels lior public men to consider the whole possible iuturo of their country it will have proved of advantage to us* in spite of its immediate peril."