made clear how difficult it was to reverse, as it were, the relations between Italy and her two . . . allies? and to prove two.. to her that Germany was her most relentless and dangerous enemy. Those writers who desired to see Italy join the Entente did their utmost to spread these views, and have at last succeeded in convincing the larger part of the Italian nation that not only motives of generosity, which had from the very first played their part, but practical economic reasons as well should influence them in favour of intervention.

The conviction that Germany, under the guise of friendship, was despoiling Italy and making economic preparations for conquering her by force of arms as well, should circumstances be favourable, is being brought home to the nation more and more as incontrovertible proofs of this conspiracy come to light-proofs which are only too numerous and glaring, more especially in the banking and industrial world centring round the Banca Commerciale managed by Otto Joel, who is to all intents and purposes the German Proconsul in Italy.

The Banca Commerciale, which was started with very little capital, has now at its disposal an immensely large sum of Italian money. This capital, amounting to over a milliard and belonging to Italian depositors, is no longer in Italy, but has been sent to Germany and invested almost entirely in industrial undertakings. The defeat of Germany will sign the death-warrant of this artificial power, and the Italian milliard will be swallowed up in the crash-a fact which the nation is beginning to take in. The Banca Commerciale followed the time-honoured German plan of campaign in order to get our trade into its clutches. Whenever a business house applied for assistance to the Banca Commerciale, its request was granted, no matter if it had already applied to other banks in vain. This assistance was, however, coupled with stringent conditions, such as the admission of a certain number of Germans to the board of management, the undertaking that none but German electrical appliances should be used (it was in this way that Allgemeine Electrische Gesellschaft obtained the entire control of the Italian market), the promise to supply private and accurate information relating to similar industries. The information thus obtained-a peculiarly objectionable form of espionage-was forwarded to Berlin, where it was classified and utilised with a view to a possible invasion of Italy. I need hardly give England examples of the working of this system.

Firms which declined to submit to these exactions were punished by the refusal of credit and by the dumping system— i.e., the flooding of the Italian market with German goods of the x x*

VOL. XCVIII. N.S.

same kind as those manufactured by them, offered at under cost price, until they either gave in or failed.

In the iron and textile trade Germany had it all her own way in Italy. She did not always put men of her own on the boards of the companies she had thus contrived to hoodwink, sometimes selecting as her tools Italian political men whom vanity or cupidity had induced to become her agents (every Parliament in Europe numbers a few worthless men of this type), who, when some law which did not further Germany's interests or some industrial or banking measure which did not meet with her approval came up for discussion, received their orders to oppose and scotch it at any cost. For instance, some years ago the project for the construction of a double railway line from Florence to Bologna-a line which would be of immense strategic value to-day as compared with that running along the Adriatic coast, which is exposed to bombardment by the enemy-was rejected owing to the strenuous opposition of a well-known Tuscan nobleman of German sympathies. In like manner the election to the Senate of Luigi Albertini, the editor of the Corriere della Sera, was imperilled by the opposition of a group of Germanophile senators, whose leader and spokesman was di Camporeale, Bülow's brother-in-law.

At the same time the German agents who had fomented anarchical riots amongst the population of Romagna and the Marches in June, 1914, so as to distract the attention of the Government from the Austrian intrigues in the Balkans, renewed their pernicious efforts with the help of various revolutionary and syndicalist agitators with the object of causing anti-war demonstrations-efforts which were unfortunately successful in some places, though their methods were so unscrupulous that they were shown up and repudiated by the better elements of the Socialist Party. Thus at Prato the men employed in the cloth mills of Kössler, Mayer, and Klinger acknowledged that their employers had authorised the strike, and had even guaranteed the men their wages for the days they were on strike! I was the first writer in Italy to denounce in the columns of the Idea Nazionale what the Prime Minister, Salandra, later termed "the impure sources" of the anti-war demonstrations, and I do not believe we have yet got to the bottom of this disgraceful plot, since I have proof positive that in certain sections of the populace, which are more interested in mob-tactics than in politics, these underhand German agents are actually paying political agitators to stir up so-called political riots should our forces meet with any Of a piece with this meddling are the following instances the anti-Italian propaganda carried on in Libya by

reverse.

German agents, who supplied the rebels there with both arms and money, thus continuing the insidious, treacherous work begun in those regions in the days of the Triple Alliance; the disgraceful conduct of the Puglia Steamship Company. When Italy was still a neutral Power she might easily have secured the Austro-German trade with the Balkans, which offered a wide field for our activity and were already inclined in our favour. We were unable to accomplish anything, because the Puglia line, though subsidised by the Italian Government, took off its steamers on the Bojano for no reason whatsoever; and when the consular and commercial pressure brought to bear on it induced it to resume the service, it demanded such enormous and complicated rates at its ports of arrival as to alienate all the markets we might have conquered. This outrageous behaviour becomes explicable when we remember that the Puglia Company is bound hand and foot to the Banca Commerciale.

Similar blackmail goes on in the insurance world, the emigration bureaux, and the consular agencies, in which last department German consular officials have succeeded in getting themselves made consular agents for Italy as well-Chee Foo, Nagasaki, Zanzibar, and Manilla being amongst the places where this arrangement was in force. It is also rife in our commissariat department. In the course of our anti-espionage campaign we have many a time come up against the privileges enjoyed by German spies, who, in virtue of their position as purveyors of military stores, had free access to our Ministry and to our arsenals. My inquiries as to how their tenders came to be accepted showed that the Germans had supplied their goods at enormous reductions sometimes amounting to as much as 52 per cent. on ordinary wholesale prices. Amongst goods thus supplied were the ventilators for the forts on our eastern frontier and the plate for the officers' mess on our men-of-war. It is easy enough to see how Germany could afford to supply her commodities on such terms; what she lost on the goods, she gained on the secret service work done gratis!

Espionage! I have seen its criminal working in Belgium and France during the early months of the war; I have studied it dispassionately (since there is always a risk of exaggeration to be guarded against) and with melancholy interest here in Italy, and I can say with truth that in this respect neither England nor France has cause to envy us! Even now, when we too are at war, our Government has not succeeded in eradicating it, and the nation does not help as it should, because many important Italian towns have come to regard the foreigner as a generous benefactor to be given a cordial welcome. Most fortunately for

us our country has not been invaded; had it been, our defence would have been choked in the meshes of German espionage. All the artifices used against you have been practised here as well, from the hotel-keeper whose hotel stands empty but who prospers none the less, to the art critic provided with dynamite; from the German-American demi-mondaine who gets young, inexperienced officers in her clutches, to the Swiss professor from-Nuremberg, and his Dutch colleague from Leipzig! Our Military Geographical Institute, the management of the Red Cross, the civil administration of the Royal household are all at their wits' end to know how to keep out intruders-more especially women bent on espionage, bribery, and treachery. Whilst the success of the economic espionage system was, as I have already shown, turning the independent kingdom of Italy into a German Protectorate, another unsuspected, but all the more dangerous, German movement was going on in the world of science, attaining its ends through the German institutions for higher education in Florence and Rome. I have, I believe, proofs of the way in which the German has wormed his way into politics through these institutes which are so far unknown to the public-proofs which I hope to set before my readers in a subsequent article written, I trust, from the trenches, whither my rights, even more than my duty, as an Italian citizen call me to give my personal help in the war which Italy and her Allies are waging in the cause of civilisation. EZIO GRAY.

VIGNETTES FROM THE ITALIAN FRONT.

ON THE EVE OF BATTLE.-"LA MESSA DEL SOLDATO."

BRESCIA, August 15th, 1915.

IN the old winter cathedral of Brescia we watched the "Messa del Soldato," a service at which no civilian was allowed to assist, and to which we were only admitted by invitation in our capacity of war correspondents.

The Duomo where the soldiers' Mass was celebrated is a beautiful old Lombard building dating from the twelfth century. We had to descend two flights of steps to reach it, as it is built below the level on which the town of Brescia stands to-day. The Duomo Vecchio, as it is called, is of circular shape, it has beneath big arches a gallery running all around it, from which one can look down on the floor of the church where the congregation was assembled. The Duomo is built entirely of bare grey stones, not an ornament nor a picture breaks the impressiveness of the great simple lines. No more fitting setting could have been found for this solemn and poignantly suggestive ceremony.

It was indeed an unforgettable sight! I was taken aback when I first realised that in all that great building, filled as it was to overflowing, there were only men, and those men, soldiers. Hundreds of grey-green clad men stood there; row upon row, ranging in age from early youth to mature manhood, most of them men of these northern provinces-wiry, earnest-looking, fair-haired and grey-eyed; a mass of soft-toned, greenish colour, broken only by the dazzling whiteness of the linen cornettes, the headdress of two Sisters of Charity, rising up like twin Lenten lilies from a carpet of moss, bringing by the gentle purity of their presence an ideal and feminine note to that warlike and virile gathering.

At the lighted and richly decorated altar, gleaming like a jewel, the priest officiated in festal vestments, assisted by two soldiers wearing the Red Cross armlet. It was fitting that the acolytes of such a ceremony should have been chosen from amongst the few whose duty it is to help and cure in these times when it seems to be the duty of the greater part of humanity to injure and kill their fellow men.

What deep, earnest thoughts, what prayers for strength and courage, what calls for help and safety, what striving to keep up

.