The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1914. ITALY’S FINANCIAL STRENGTH.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 297, 14 December 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1914. ITALY’S FINANCIAL STRENGTH.

a true friend of tlie Italian nation since 1819; 1 mean England, but my country will never be said that it allowed its soldiers to be bought by anyone.”

■ Writing to an Auckland paper some days .ago, a correspondent, in the course of Ids letter remarked; England possesses the wand of wealth! that can call into the fighting line a million and’ a-half fully equipped soldiers from Italy, and Japan. Ihe United Kingdom, because she would not listen to the words of the late Lord Roberts, must needs pay for aid from countries vastly poorer than herself.” These rather ill-considered words are taken exception to by a, sea-faring visitor to the northern city who takes the correspondent to task, and incidentally in doing so, supplies some interesting information regaiding Italy’s finance. Captain F. Olivari, who takes up his country’s cudgels, states that the Bank of Italy has a war fund, which was started in 1866, amounting now to something like £38.000,000, which in case of war is placed at the disposal of the Italian Government. This fund, Captain Olivari states, has never been, touched at all, not even at the time of the Abyssinian war in 1b96, nor dining the Lybia war in 1912. As a matter of fact, both during the Abyssinia and Lvhia wars special short period loans were called, each for £1,600,000, to carry out such wars, and it is significant that in each instance these loans were raised internally, and were covered in a short space of time ovei twenty-fold. Both these loans, with the exception of the last one, of which there is an amount still outstanding of £20,000, have all been repaid, without . extra taxation being placed upon her people.' Italy, like England, the Captain asserts, will never be bought for any pm pose whatever. Her individual honor and Hag of her country, like the Union Jack and the individual true born Briton, will never be bought, more especially in a war of ibis kind, where, be says, England is to bo admired for the humanitarian stand she has taken. It is very good to read in' this connection the Prime Minister’s determination that there shall ho no weakening or wavering, and no patch-ed-np truce, exposing the children to a revival of the German menace. The English Empire has gone into the warj determined to see it through, and the only way to see it through is to smash the German military power beyond hope of recovery. Concluding his reply this gallant Italian tells as: “Italy, when the time comes, will most heartily respond to the call j without monetary consideration, and, most decidedly will stand by the ‘Entente.’ as the whole of the population of Italy are eagerly looking! forward to join and fight ‘en masse’ and shoulder to shoulder with the;