The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-04-24

on the Adf1Gttc queStaOn as JOUOUS'
"In view of the capital Importance of the ques-
tions affected, and in order to throw all possible
light upon what is involved in their settlement hope
that the following statement will contribute to the
final formation of opinion and to a satisfactory solu
ton.
when Italy entered the she entered upon
the basis of definite, private understanding with
Great Britain and France, now known as the Pact OF
London. Since that time the whole face of circum-
stances has been altered. Many other Powers, great
and small, have entered the struggle with no knowl
edge of that private understanding.
THE Austro- Hungarian Empire then the enemy
of Europe and at whose expense the Pact of London
to be kept in the event of victory has gone to
pieces and no longer exists Not only that but the
several parts of that Empire it is agreed now by
Italy and all her associates to be erected into
independent States and associated in a League of
Nations, not with those who were recently
enemies but with Italy herself and the Powers that
stood with Italy in the great war for liberty.
I'VE to establish their liberty as we'll our
own They are to be among the smaller States whose
interests are henceforth to be safeguarded
scrupulousy the interests of the most powerful
States.
"The was ended, moreover, by proposing to
Germany armistice and peace which should be
founded on certain clearly defined principles which
set up order of right and justice. Upon those
principles the peace with Germany has been con-
ceved. not only, but formulated. Upon those prin-
cipes it will be executed We cannot ask the great
body of Powers to propose and effect peace with
Austria and establish a new basis Of independence
and right in the States which originally constituted
the Austro- Hungarian Empire and in the States Of
the Balkan group on principles Of another kind. We
must apply the same principles to the settlement of
Europe in those quarters that haSe applied in the
peace with Germany. It upon the explicit
avowa Of those principles that the initiative for peace
taken 1t is upon them that the whole structure
of peace must rest.
IF those principles to be adhered to Fiume
must the outlet of the commerce not of
Italy but of the land to the north and northeast of
that port: Hungary Bohemia, Rumania. and the
States of the Jugo-Slav group. To assign Fiume
to Italy would be to create the feeling that have
deliberately put the port upon which all those
tries chiefly depend for their to the Medter-
ranean in the hands of Power of which it did not
form integral part and whose soverei eighty if set
up there, must inevitably foreign, not domestic
Unidentified with the commercial and industrial life
of the region which the port must 1t is for that
reason, doubt, that Fiume not included in
the Pact of London, but there definitely assigned
to the Croatans.
"And the reason why the line of the Pact of Lon
don swept about many of the islands of the eastern
coast of the Adriatic and around the portion of the
Dalmatan coast which lies most to that was
not only that here and there those islands, and
here and there that coast there bodies of
people of Italian blood and connection, but also and
doubt chiefly because it felt that it
sary for Italy to have foothod amidst the chan
nes Of the eastern Adratc in order that she might
make her own coasts safe against the naval aggres
sion of Austria Hungary.