Italian Feeling On Foreign Policy— London Press Estimate

Grey River Argus, 11 October 1948, Page 5

Italian Feeling On Foreign Policy— London Press Estimate

LONDON, Oct. 4 A correspondence of “The Times” at Rome says:—Hints have been recently given by the Italian Foreign Minister (Count Siorza) that the Government was ready to collaborate more fully with the Western Powers. These hints, coupled with the growing bitterness! of the clash between East and West, have brought the question of Italy’s foreign policy to the forefront of Italian political life. All shades of opinion are now awake to the implications of Count Sforza’s speech, but unfortunately even less national unity exists in foreign pplicy than in home affairs. The Socialist Party has said that the Socialists’ first task in the event of war would be to defend Italian neutrality. The Communist have called for an open declaration that the nation would not support Count Sforza’s policy. Moderate Socialist opinion is that Italian adherence to the Brussels Pact would violate the peace treaty in Russia’s eyes and would be “provocation as well as an unfriendly act.” The correspondent says: It is said that Count Sforza, by “servility” to the West in connection with the Brussels Pact has ruined Italy’s last chance of entering the United Nations by agreement among the Great Powers. ItalyT foreign policy has covered a long distance towards the West, but it is questionable whether she is yet ready to take the final plunge and enter any powerful political, economic, and, above all, military union. The Government in moving further towards the West would widen a gulf dividing it from the Left extremists and narrow the support it now receives from the more moderate groups of both Left and Centre.