iends. In order
to favour some of these new friends, it has happened that not only
have Italy's sentiments been offended, but even justice itself.
Montenegro was always mentioned in the declarations of the Entente.
On January 10, 1917, Briand, speaking in the name of all the Allies,
united at that time _pour la defense et la liberte des peuples_, put
forward as a fundamental programme the restoration of Belgium, Serbia
and Montenegro: Montenegro was in this on an equality with Belgium.
Just a year afterwards, January 8, 1918, Wilson, when formulating his
fourteen points, had included in the eleventh proposition the duty
of evacuating the territories of Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro, and
restoring them. The exact reason for which it was established that
Montenegro should be absorbed (even without plebiscite) by the S.H.S.
State, thus offending also Italy's sentiments, will remain one of the
most melancholy pages of the New Holy Alliance that the Entente has
become, along with that poor prestigeless organism, the League of
Nations. But let us hope this latter will find a means of renovating
itself.

While France was ruining the German people's sources of life, the
peoples who had fought most ferociously against Italy became, through
the War, friendly nations, and every aspiration of Italy appeared
directed to lessen the prestige of the new friends and allies.

The territories annexed to Italy have a small economic value.

For more than thirty years Italy had sold a large part of her richest
agricultural produce to Germany and had imported a considerable share
of her raw materials from Russia. Since the War she has found herself
in a state of regular isolation. A large part of the Italian Press,
which repeats at haphazard the commonest themes of the French Press
instead of wishing for a more intense revival of commercial relations
with Germany, frightens the ignorant public with stories of German
penetration; and the very plutocracy in France and Italy--though not
to the same extent in Italy--abandons itself to the identical error.
So to-day we find spread throughout the peninsula a sense of
lively discontent which is conducive to a wider acceptance of the
exaggerations of the Socialists and the Fascists. But the phenomenon
is a transitory one.

Italy had no feeling of rancour against the German people. She
entered the War against German Imperialism, and cannot now follow
any imperialistic policy. Indeed, in the face