THE HEAVY HAND

Hokitika Guardian, 8 March 1928, Page 4

THE HEAVY HAND

(Auckland Star.) “ Singing is' prohibited.” This is the cheerless announcement placarded on the walls of a celebrated inn in Bolzano. Not that the inhabitants particularly want to sing, or have any cause for jubilation. The prohibition is meant to forbid the singing of German patriotic songs, and is only one of tinmany means by which the Italians are seeking to make the inhabitants o! South Tyrol into good Fascists. Great indignation, we are told, has been caused in Italy by recent speeches delivered in the Tyrol Diet and in the Austrian Parliament protesting against the administration of the Italian Government, and against the application of Italian laws in the Province of Bolzano. Italy entered into possession of the South Tyrol with solemn undertakings to respect the linguistic and cultural individuality of her German subjects. These undertakings wore merely on paper, and. like much of the paper money issued after the war, they have proved inconvertible. The Italians arc acting up to the declaration made by .Mussolini early in last year, that lie meant to Italianise the Fpper Adige. In two years’ time the use of the German language for any public purpose will be absolutely forbidden. Today every notice in Bolzano is printed or written in the two languages, Italian having the place of honour. Most official announcements are written in Italian only. Within two years all educational use of tlic German language will cease. It is hoped to make Bolzano as Italian as Naples, and to Italianise every town and village for fifty miles round. Scattered over the length and breadth of South Tyrol there arc towns, villages, and hamlets where German and German alone is spoken and understood by the people. Yet all public use of the German written language is absolutely forbidden. The village grocer, to whom Italian is an unknown tongue, is obliged to solicit custom in a language equally unknown to bis customers. The virtues of shoes, eggs, jam and liver pills are extolled in advertisements in the Italian language among a people who know just about as much of the Italian as the Knglishman knows of French when be lias learnt to call “ oeufs ” “ oois.” Italians in South Tyrol are called

“die Welsche,” ur Welshmen. Our own word “ Welsh,” means a foreigner, and it is in this sense that the peasants use.it of the Italians. The Italian occupation is regarded ns exceedingly irksome hut quite impermanent. The peasants v say, '‘lt will end with war.” They do not specify what kind of a war, hut apparently they anticipate a war between Italy on the otic side and Kranee and Vugo-Slavia on the other. The Italian fascists publish a daily paper in Dol/.ano full of the bombastic Imperialism ol Mussolini, and this paper has led the Tyrolese to believe that Italy is on the brink of war with all her neighbours, more particularly with Tugo-Slavin. The *' Manchester Guardian” has recently published three interesting articles on conditions in the South Tyrol written by its special eor- ! cHpoudcut in tin* count ry. These articles show how deeply the Italian methods are resented, and how little progress the Italians are really making towards eradicating the German language. At. home the Tyrolese children hear nothing lint German, and they regard this language with affection. They Irani Italian at school, and see it used

in proclamations and prohibitions. They thus come to link the German language with all that speaks of home love and influence, and they link the Italian language with a)I that is distasteful and disciplinary. The Italians might well reflect on the line of their ancient compatriot: Horace. “Nature will assert herself though you drive her out with a pitchfork.” Coining down to their own times, they might reflect, up'-n the failure of the attempt to Germanise Alsace and Lorraine. Nations, however, arc just as prone as individuals to ignore the teaching of experi-