SEPARATE PEACE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3272, 4 June 1943, Page 8

SEPARATE PEACE

NOT WANTED BY ITALY . PROBLEM OF FINANCES . FUTURE OUTLOOK HOPELESS Hope held in some quarters that Italy will sue for a separate peace is unfounded, according to Don Luigi Sturzo, exiled leader of the Italian Popular Party, who is now in the United States. Italy’s situation would not permit of this solution of her diffi- . culties, Don Sturzo believes. Father Sturzo, an anti-Fascist spokesman, analyses “the idea of a separate peace” in a study, “Italian Problems in War. and Peace,” just published by the Review of Politics, quarterly of Notre Dame University. Italy’s crisis will be very acute at the end of the war, foi’ then her economic and social condition, already disastrous, will be unbearable with the demobilisation of the soldiers, the return of the prisoners, and the readjustment of the group economy, he believes. • King a Party to Fascism That the House of Savoy can survive the catastrophe is questionable, for the King was a party to the triumph of Fascism and did not resist it, although cabinets, parliaments and parties resisted from 1922 to 1926, he points out. If the House of Savoy falls, he believes, it will be the end of monarchy in Italy; there will be a republic. “If, as is commonly believed, Fascism will fall as soon as defeat looms, the change of rulers will be tumultuous and violent, and, per-

haps, in the general turmoil the spirit of revenge may find doleful opportunities,” Father Sturzo writes. “One cannot foretell whether the formation of a provisional government will be accompanied by a revolt, or whether the popular masses will have the upper hand over the ruling classes.” At the proper moment, he says, the underground movements will certainly emerge and rally the unarmed masses, uncertain and stunned by the enormity of the disaster. What is needed now, he believes, is formulation of a clear and sincere policy by the United Nations towards Italy to win the Italian people to the United Nations’ banner as Italian-Americans have been won to it. Facing Nothing But Despair The Italians now can do nothing but despair, so it is difficult for the psychology of revolt to develop, Father Sturzo points out in his analysis of the idea of a separate peace. “That Mussolini and Fascist leaders might foster such an idea must be excluded a priori,” he says. “They know that only by an- Axis victory will they be able to keep on ruling Italy. “The others that are usually mentioned —the King, the Crown Prince, Badoglio, the industrialists, the bourgeoise—all are tied up with Fascism (or rather, bound by Fascism) and could not seek a separate peace unless through a revolt and civil war.

The chances for the success of such a hazardous undertaking with the Germans present, are slight. “In addition, these are the- least qualified to promote a revolt. It is not in their temperament. And, moreover, such a step would compromise their own position in a war the purpose of which it identified, in their minds, with the position and interests of Italy. “What is the immediate advantage that they—or others, it does not matter—could attain from 1 the Allies? The Greeks and Yugoslavs are on the side of the Allies and would exact payment from Italy for the unjust war waged on them and for the vexations and cruelties to the populations of the occupied zones.”