ITALY CHANGING TUNE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 September 1940, Page 4

ITALY CHANGING TUNE.

QNLY a month or two ago, Italian propagandists were gleefully declaring that Britain was next on the list of Axis victims and must prepare to meet her doom. According to a cablegram published today, however, the Italian people for some time have been warned not to expect a short war and this theme is taken up by Signor Gayda, writing in the “Giornale d’ltalia.” The war will be long and difficult (he writes). England is rich and well supplied. She can therefore still offer resistance. While Signor Gayda is said to blame the United States for this, to him, unhappy state of affairs, it may be supposed that he is also, on behalf of his master, Mussolini, turning a reproachful eye on the senior partner in the Axis. Of all the belligerent countries, Italy is least able to face with equanimity the prospect of a war extending indefinitely. Under the leadership of the Duce, she entered the conflict in the hope of gathering in spoils at small cost. No doubt she had hoped that before now Germany would have launched her much-advertised blitzkrieg against Britain. Faced instead by the strong reinforcement of British naval, land and air forces in the Mediterranean, Italy, naturally is disquieted and discontented. With hard fighting rather than easy gains in prospect, her stocks of essential materials are diminishing day by day. Her economic life is in great part at a standstill. She is cut off, save by air, from her East African colonies arid, as the sinking of three of her supply ships by a British submarine (reported yesterday) bears witness, her sea communications with Libya are exceedingly uncertain. Italy appears to have even better reasons than Signor Gayda has indicated for entertaining troubled anticipations.