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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 281, 24 May 1912, Page 4

THE WAR IN TRIPOLI. The war in Tripoli still drags along, though there are signs that Italy would welcome some action on the part of the great Powers that would provide an acceptable modus vivendi for bringing hostilities to an end. In commenting on the situation, the London Times remarks:— "We do not condone the form of the Italian descent upon Tripoli. We have from the outset recognised that sb sudden an invasion of the territory of a neighboring State could not be brought into harmony with the spirit of international law, and that it must give pause even to those warm friends of united Italy—friends nowhere more numerous and sincere than in Great Britain—who knew how patient had been Italian diplomatic preparation for action in North Africa, and how intense the concentration of Italian national hopes upon Tripoli ever since France snatched Tunis in 1881 from the tightening Italian grasp. Yet in the very ruthlessness of Italian conduct lay a sign which no thoughtful observer could overlook. In the descent upon Tripoli the Italian Government has had behind it the pressure of an imperious people, determined at all costs to acquire what they rightly or wrongly believed, and believe, indispensable to national security and development. The war in Tripoli is the work of the wholenation, convinced it is fighting for moral unity, and as determined as were the leading classes throughout the long struggle of the Risorgimento not to waver or to look back, come what may. This fact —for it is a fact, not an opinion—needs to be realised by all Ottomans and Europeans who wish to read the future aright; for it will enable them to appreciate the danger, that, although Italian public opinion is not likely to weaken in its support of the war, growing impatience at the protraction and localisation of the war may lead to the adoption of what may be called tactics of direct and indirect political sabotage against the Ottoman Empire—an eventuality deplorable alike from the standpoint of the higher interests of Italy herself, of Turkey, and of Europe. From such a development Turkey and Italy would have much to fear, and the peoples of Macedonia and Albania, who might be at once its instruments and its objects, little to hope. Both belligerents and Europe would have, on the other hand, much to gain from the early conclusion of an honorable peace —Italy from the simplification of a task that must long remain arduous, Turkey from reconciliation with a neighbor whom she has now learned to respect, and whose friendship may be of inestimable' advantage to her in future, and Europe from the cessation of a conflict fraught with constant danger to international tranquility. •■