Evening star., 1928-11-04
BY FRANK H. SIMONDS.

n 70 consequence of all the many
which have resulted from the
VI Anglo-French naval agreement
i has been more disturbing than
Italian anger. For many
months the tension between Rome and
Paris had seemed appeased. All the
quarrelS about TuniS and Tangier had
disappeared from the italian newspapers
and thus from French attention. But
the news that the British and French
foreign Offices had reached an agree
ment over certain naval issues and
other matters of land armament pro-
duced something like sensation at the
Chigi Palace, where Mussolini has his
Offices.
The italian resentment was not due
to anything in the Anglo-French agree
ment itself The Italian answer to the
proposals which we're submitted to
Rome shows no particular animation.
1t was the fact that the British and
the French we're negotiating together
and without Italy which provoked pas
Sionate protest, for 1t was an unmis-
taxable affront to italian pride and
thus blow to italian prestige.
Unlike France and Great Britain,
Italy has no fixed and definite objec-
tives in its foreign policy. 1t has no
immediate dangers such as can always
threaten France from the German side,
it has no imperial problems such as
absorb the attention of the British.
While the maintenance of a supremacy
in the Adriatic Is vital concern, for
the present this supremacy remains
beyond challenge.
Want to Be Recognized.
What the Fascist rulers of Italy
seek is a foreign policy which will en-
able Italy to play an important part in
teachings of Fascismo is the constant
emphasis of the fact that Italy is
great power, the heir of ancient Rome
and at the same time nation young,
virile, destined. to accomplish great
things.
This constant stimulation alike of
national pride and ambitions neceSSi-
tateS some achievement to balance the
expectations thus awakened. But it is
Italy's misfortune to find herself un-
necessary to the calculations of any of
the other great powers. Great Brit
ain is friendly enough, but in any real
crisis British support goes to Paris and
not to Rome, because British and
French interests are everywhere parallel
and not conflicting. In the Adriatic,
London will assent to Italian policy,
even when it extends to making Albania
a mere Italian protectorate. But in the
Mediterranean it is otherwise.
And 1t Is precisely in the Mediterra-
mean that Italy would be great Sur
rounded by the sea as she is, save on
her Alpine frontier, Italy is at the
mercy of the nation possessing the con-
troll of the inland sea. All Italian in
terest would thus be served by an
Anglo-Italian alliance But, on the
other hand. all Italian aspiration en-
visages a change in the distribution of
the territories on the shore of the
Middle Sea. France is. her rival and
the spectacle of France in possession
of Tunis. Algeria, Morocco and Syria
weighs heavily in the eyes of patriots
who think of Rome and then are forced
to see that of the old Roman empire
Italy has been able to acquire only
Tripoli.
British Are Satisfied.
The British, seated at Gibraltar,
Malta, Cyprus, in the Holy Land and
proclaiming a Monroe doctrine of their
own which covers Egypt, have no desire
to see the status quo in the Mediterra-
mean changed. Least of all have they
any desire to see Italy in Tunis as well
as in Sicily, thus holding both shores
OF the narrow sea which passes the
British road to India and the Far East.
Moreover, the Italian aspiration to ac-
quire Adalia and large slice of Asia
Minor has miscarried. The work of
Kemal PaSha has, for the time at least
arrested the disintegration of Turkey
and restored Turkish military power
sufficiently to make any adventure in
the Aegean beyond the financial re-
sources of Italy.
The obvious alternative for Italy to
alliance with England or France is some
sort of agreement with Germany. AL
though the italian persecution of the
German population in the Upper Adige
has aroused much German resentment.
the basis for an agreement is clear.
Germany is rapidly recovering her
strength and is certain one day before
long to regain her prewar position,
What more natural, then, than an alli-
ance between Italy and Germany, which
would Offset the French combination
with the states of the Little Entente
and thus permit Great Britain to retire
from European complications, reassured
by the fact that the balance of power
is again safe?
But while there are two conflicting
conceptions in Berlin-that of the re- |
publicans, who would march with Brit |
ain and France, and that of the mon |
who would seek a Russian ORR |
entation-there is no party or group |
which favors an italian partnership.