THE INVASION OF ITALY.

Taihape Daily Times, 11 March 1918, Page 6

THE INVASION OF ITALY.

HUN'S FAVOURITE METHODS.

WHOLESALE PLUNDERING.

Italian soldiers have heard desperate cries for assistance from their coun-try-women beyond the Piave, where plunder and robbery are permitted by the officers according to what one of them described as the “German System/’ writes the Morning Post correspondent, No wonder, then, that public opinion demands vigorous ac tion against the Germans in Italy, an that the Fine Arts Society has passe a motion advocating the confiscation of the German Embassy on the Capitoline, where on the remains of Jupiter’s Temple stands the throne w ic toi made for the Kaiser when he visited Rome. Even the Clerical Corxiere d’ltalia, in an article on the Paris conference, declares the prosecution of the war to-day to be an imperious necessity. Leaving aside what might have been done .yesterday nothing is possible to-day, says the Corners 0 d’ltalia but to continue fighting. To-day peace is impossible, ALLIED ASSISTANCE. Signor Nitti, Minister for the Treasury, has stated that of all the allies, Italy runs the greatest dangers She could not live a month without allied assistance. They alone can provide the raw material and the ships she lacks, but before she can ask the allies for aid the must make herself. She must fight if she wants others to fight for her. “There exist in Italy.’’ says Signor Nitti, “invisible enemies who spread lying rumours Whoever fails to denounce them is their accomplice.’’ The Vatican, which usually takes little account of what English newspapers say. is much disturbed by the leading article in the Morning Post of the 23rd, a summary of which was telegraphed from London and has made a considerable impression. Statistics just published show that during the first seven months of 1917 Italian exports were only 1500 million lire (£60,000,000 whereas the imports were thrice as much. This helps to explain the present rate of exchange, which, as is well known, is extremely unfavourable to Italy. Imports from Great Britain increased more than four-fold, and those from British India more than tenfold. In connection with the arrest of exDeputy Cavallini on suspicion of being an accomplice of 8010, it is stated that the ex-Khedive, entrusted him with a mission here, begging him to ask Baron Sonino to use his good offices with the British Embassy to enable him to effect a reconciliation with England. The Khedive promised to abdicate in favour of his eldest son. The OTtalian Foreign Office, however, declined to intervene, as the British Government considered Egypt an interel affair.