ave arrived, even now it is certain that in a plebiscite not
10 per cent. would vote for Italy--and this minority would be largely
made up of those _leccapiatini_ (the "plate-lickers") who were the
humbler servants of Austria during the War and are now begging for
Italian plates. When the offices of the Socialist newspaper _Il
Lavoratore_--the Socialists are by far the most important party in
Triest--were taken by storm and gutted, the American Consul, Mr. Joseph
Haven, and the Paris correspondent of the _New York Herald_, Mr. Eyre,
happened to be in the building. They afterwards said that the attack by
those ultra-nationalist bands, the fascisti--very young men,
demobilized junior officers and so forth--was entirely unprovoked. The
carabinieri gazed indifferently at the scene. Such is life in Triest,
where the labour movement is gaining in strength every day. Its old
prosperity has departed--there is hardly any trade or water or gas,
since most of the coal was consumed, by order of the Italian
authorities, in making electric light for illuminations. These were
intended to show the city's irrepressible enthusiasm at being
incorporated in the kingdom of Italy. But the inhabitants know very well
that being one of Italy's many ports is worse than being the only port
of Austria; they know that the most direct railways to Austria pass
through Yugoslav territory, that henceforward the Danube will be much
more largely used by Austria, Czecho-Slovakia and Hungary (none of whom
had a seaboard) and that Rieka will now be a more formidable rival than
of old.... So, too, at Pola we find that a majority of the population do
not wish their town to be retained in Italy; a number of Italian workmen
fled from the idle shipbuilding yards and actually came in 1919 and 1920
with the Slovene refugees, their fellow-townsmen, to Ljubljana in search
of employment. There are not sufficient orders to go round among such
yards in Italy where, owing to the absence of coal and iron, this
particular industry labours under great disadvantages. But if Rome
considers that the retention of Pola is strategically essential, then in
order to meet her wishes this town might be taken out of the
Triest-Istrian Free State--maybe the Italians will be able to do
something that will cause the citizens to cease regretting those good
days of old when, as Austria's chief naval base, she flourished on the
largesse of officers and men. But what can she do, and what coul