Then the Irishwoman remarked that Mr. Runciman had not satisfied
everybody. She and her husband had met a minister--I found afterwards
he was one of the members of the late Giolotti government--who had been
talking very loudly and scornfully of the bargain Italy was making with
England. I assured her that the desire of England was simply to give
Italy all that she needed.
“But,” said the husband casually, “Mr. Runciman is a shipowner.”
I explained that he was nothing of the sort. It was true that he came
of a shipowning family--and perhaps inherited a slight tendency to
see things from a shipowning point of view--but in England we did not
suspect a man on such a score as that.
“In Italy I think we should,” said the husband of the Irish lady.
4
This incidental discussion is a necessary part of my impression of Italy
at war. The two western allies and Great Britain in particular have to
remember Italy's economic needs, and to prepare to rescue them from the
blind exploitation of private profit. They have to remember these needs
too, because, if they are left out of the picture, then it becomes
impossible to understand the full measure of the risk Italy has faced in
undertaking this war for an idea. With a Latin lucidity she has counted
every risk, and with a Latin idealism she has taken her place by the
side of those who fight for a liberal civilisation against a Byzantine
imperialism.
As I came out of the brightly lit Galleria Vittorio Emanuele into the
darkened Piazza del Duomo I stopped under the arcade and stood looking
up at the shadowy darkness of that great pinnacled barn, that marble
bride-cake, which is, I suppose, the last southward fortress of the
Franco-English Gothic.
“It was here,” said my host, “that we burnt the German stuff.”
“What German stuff?”
“Pianos and all sorts of things. From the shops. It is possible,
you know, to buy things too cheaply--and to give too much for the
cheapness.”