HOW ITALY HELPS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 257, 9 March 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

HOW ITALY HELPS.

MOST ECONOMIC ARMY. FIUIITLNU ON i;I,OUO,(KW A DAY

A LK.-SON FOH AUSTRALIA

j Italian railwaymen worked day and night in the first days of mobilisation, and refused extra payment. In Australia transport.-* have been held up and work at the small arms factory and other war establishments impeded by strikes. —Sydney Sun. The secret of how Italy is conducting j her part of tlie war on less than : .£1,000,000 a day is to be found prii marilv in the intense patriotism and natural frugality of her (>eople rather | t'lan in her economic reorganisation. , !t will be recalled that the railway ; men who worked day and night to moj the army in the first days of | May, 1015, would accept 110 payment i for their extra labour; that in the pre- , ceding weeks the doekers at Genoa I threatened to strike, not for higher j wages and shorter hours, but because ; t'hey feared that the cargoes they were j unloading might be destined for Ger- • many and Austria. To-day these dock | labourers receive £\ a day, but those i at Naples, who receive much less, do I not envy them 011 account of the fact 1 that the disproportion in the cost of ! living about makes up (he difference. At the beginning of the war home hardships were suffered by' Pie towns of the Adriatic, where coastal trade and fishing supported the inhabitants, but most of the men thus forced into idlej ness were untimely called to the colours, and those who remained invented various ingenious method., for their support. The Italian working classes, boti of the cities and the country, are very moderate eaters, their meat diet rarelv going beyond chicken and lamb two or three times a week. The climate is conducive to temperance in meat diet. The men live even better in the army, where, besides their rations of meat, bread, flour, coffee, and vegetables every day, they have a draught of light red or iv<hite wine. This last makes it unnecessary for the soldier to spend his "soldi" at the taverns. Often he saves the few cents a day he receives from the Government, sending them each week to his wife, sister, or mother who is keeping up the farm or shop at home. Many families of tie poorer classes are much better off than they were oefore tlicwar, for after the stagnation in certain industries in the early summer of 1915 there was soon work enough for all, including, in certain cases, Government clothing and rations.

Of Italy's total female population of working age. 9,000,000, merely 5,000,000 were in occupations before the war, and of these nearly 2,000,000 were engaged in industry proper. To this number war industries have added 150,000. This does not include the voluntary workers of the better class who have patriotically left good homes for Government workshops, where they receive no wages, but arc carefully fed and lodged )>_v the authorities. The war industries, however, are not apparent in the southern or central sections. But in the north, aside from the great military training grounds in the vicinity of Milan and Turin, many cities have been transformed outwardly as well as inwardly, so that neither their historic buildings nor their life would be recognised by the tourist of a few years ago.

This is particularly true of the cities of the great QuadrilateralMantua, I'eschtera Verona, and Legnago—a few miles south of the Trentino, and of the cities on the railway lines which run from Yieenza and I'adua across to Venice, the great naval repair shop, or to the battle fronts in FruiH or the coastal regions of Gradisca, Gorizia, and the C'arso. In these cities are the great repair shops of the Italian Army, which from an organisation entirely apart from the factories for munitions and clothing, as they are originally produced. These cities are now armour clad, to protect not only their historic buildings, with their art treasures, from air raids, but their repair industries as well. For the Italian Arfy not only refills its lighter shells and repairs its guns and rifles as near the front as possible, but it looks after the health, even the comfort, of the soldier in the same efficient manner. In Italy's Army there are to-day no men with ragged uniforms and soleless shoes, any more than there are those with defective teeth. Venice is typical of these armoured cities where the repairing goes on, and at Venice many former gondoliers are now making more money in the Government shops than they ever did by rowin tourists about the canals and laoons. From nearly all the hotels flies the fla of the Red Cross. The reat Patriarchial Church on the Piazza di San Marco has entirely lost its usual appearance. The bronze horses are one from the facade, and the arches have been built in with brie and wood. A mass of solid sr-affblding has been erected in the interior. Before other edifices with sculptured fronts huge bags of sand lies piled to a height of H 0 or 40 feet. It is so with Mantua, Verona, and the re>t. And at night the.se cities return to their nocturnal mediaeval past, with oil and tallow replacing electricity. Almost everywhere the Government workers arise with the dawn and shut themselves in their homes at sundown.

Most of cloth u.-ed in the uniform of the Italian soldier comes from J-Jigland; the shoes come ready made from America, but from South America comes the leather which is to repair the .shoes. This, of course, partly accounts for the increase in commerce which gives high wages ion the docks in Genoa.

When Italv first entered the war she lacked many things, which could not lie at once imported, owing to the scarcity of ships. Since then she 4ias purchased many and built many more - more work for idle hands—and, aside from textiles, she now gets abundance of -teel and coal from Knglaud. returning- fruits, vegetables, and even dairy products, -which Albion formerly obtained from the Low Countries and Scandinavia

Nearly every week at the repair .-hops o ft he Quadrilateral or those on the line »icenza-Vcniee arrive tons of clothing and s-hoes to be repaired. All arc instantly distributed afong the cleansing station-*, and then among the sorting stations, whence tliev go to the renair .-hops, ulirre thousands o eager, skillful hand- are waiting to make them nvc.

There i- no wn-tage. The be-t parts of rondemned uniforms and of <-ond"i'ineil -hoes are carefullv cut away, to fie u-ed in repairing ot-'iers. for nothing i- n'd. however worn, l'ven the rags nf cl'ith ami -craps nf leather that remain

have tlirir u-«s. the fnrmcr to lie rec.T-d----eil anil mixed with hemp fur t '■ e powder fia"'- of flu' great gun-, and the latter t i In- boiled and mad.' into bullet-proof -finofs liv 'hydraulic pressure. Others and men wear tlt** - uiv -« rvie» uniform eft !..• -am- 1 eh'th: -hoe-, blinket-, anil i.ther ei|iiipment are

also common to all. Thus a soldier may tome day wear a part of the uniform or literally stand in the shoes of his captain and never know it. Hut tnis possibility id only one of the many democratic phases of tie Italian Army of to-day, the consciousness of which .teems to bind officers and men together in a wav that no mere rules of discipline could achieve.