l national wealth?_) and that she is bowed down under an
enormous load of taxation and a staggering burden of debt. But what has
been largely overlooked is that she is faced by the necessity of
rebuilding a vast devastated area, in which the conditions are quite as
serious, the need of assistance fully as urgent, as in the devastated
regions of Belgium and France.

Probably you were not aware that a territory of some three and a half
million acres, occupied by nearly a million and a half people, was
overrun by the Austrians. More than one-half of Venetia is comprised in
that region lying east of the Piave where the wave of Hunnish invasion
broke with its greatest fury. The whole of Udine and Belluno, and parts
of Treviso, Vicenza and Venice suffered the penalty of standing in the
path of the Hun. They were prosperous provinces, agriculturally and
industrially, but now both industry and agriculture are almost at a
standstill, for their factories have been burned, their machinery
wrecked or stolen, their livestock driven off and their vineyards
destroyed. The damage done is estimated at 500 million dollars. It is
unnecessary for me to emphasize the seriousness of the problem which
thus confronts the Italian Government. Not only must it provide food and
shelter for the homeless--a problem which it has solved by the erection
of great numbers of wooden huts somewhat similar to the barracks at the
American cantonments--but a great amount of livestock and machinery must
be supplied before industry can be resumed. At one period there was such
desperate need of fuel that even the olive trees, one of the region's
chief sources of revenue, were sacrificed. The Italians have set about
the task of regeneration with an energy that discouragement cannot
check. But the undertaking is more than Italy can accomplish unaided,
for the resources of her other provinces are seriously depleted. We are
fond of talking of the debt we owe to Italy, not merely for her
sacrifices in the war, but for all that she has given us in art and
music and literature. Now is the time to show our gratitude.

From Cortina, which is Italian now, we swung toward the north again,
re-crossed the Line of the Armistice at Tarvis, and, just as night was
falling, came tearing into Villach, which, like Innsbruck, was occupied,
under the terms of the Armistice, by Italian troops. We had great
difficulty in obtaining rooms in Villach, not because there were no
rooms but