Political Disunity in Italy

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 54, 7 March 1944, Page 5

Political Disunity in Italy

LONDON, March 5. Political disunity within liberated Italy has reached its climax at the end of the first six months after the conclusion of the Italian armistice, but there is a notable recovery on the material plane, says Reuter’s correspondent in southern Italy. “The food situation,” he adds, “has perceptibly improved, enabling the Allies in the last few weeks to allow a ration of six ounces of bread. Disease has also been checked,' and the approaching summer promises to relieve other hardships. Mr. Henry Grady, chief of the economic section of the control commission, has foreshadowed an early improvement in the population’s basic food supply. ‘Our Business,’ he said, ‘is to heal and not to punish. The Allies' effort in liberated Italy is a new thing in peace-making. It is an experiment with far-reaching implications. ’ “Mr. Grady instanced the marked betterment of the conditions of four million Sicilians. However, the majority of Italians are not balancing their budgets. Good shoes cost the equivalent of £5 a pair, and suits £ls, and other costs are proportionately high, while the average employee is fortunate if he is receiving £5 a month. Great numbers of people meanwhile are enjoying comparative well-being because, firstly, the peasants have never ceased to hoard; second, a black market on an enormous scale is giving a livelihood to myriads of people; and third, there is inequality of wealth which removes the upper classes from the privations of the masses.

“At a moment when the material miseries of common Italians have a chance of alleviation and the climax of the war is approaching, moral disunity is deepening among the Italians. Many of them regard Mr. Churchill’s references to Italy in his most recent speech in the House of Commons as a pledge by Britain and America and especially by Britain, to support the Badoglio Government, and therefore some of the keenest traditional lriends of the Allies among the anti-Fascists are barely concealing their bitterness. ’ ’