Trieste Votes Italian
The people of Trieste might have been excused if they had made a mess of their municipal elections. For five years they have lived in an atmosphere of violence and uncertainty, and before that they had twenty years of Fascism, all of which is about the worst training for a judicious use of the ballot-box that can be imagined. In point of fact, this week's elections were orderly, which is remarkable, and resulted in a victory for the parties of moderation, which is even more remarkable. The largest vote, 39 per cent. of the total, went to the Christian Democratic Party, which is religious, reformist and Italian. Another 24 per cent. of the votes went to a variety of specifically Italian parties, largest of which were the Socialists and the M.S.I., with its more or less openly Fascist policy, each of which obtained about 6 per cent. The one point on which all these parties are agreed is the need for the return of the Trieste Territory to Italy ; the minority which favours the continued independence of Trieste or its amalgaination with Yugoslavia is much smaller. Probably a majority of the orthodox Communists are Italians, and there can be no disputing the claim of the Italian Prime Minister that the elections have proved Trieste to be ethnologically as well as politically a part of Italy. That fact was admitted by the thrlx Western signatories of the Italian peace treaty when last year they
proposed the return of Trieste to Italy. The elections are a final argument in favour of their proposal, but unfortunately the one thing that has long been abundantly clear about Trieste is that its future status is never likely to be settled by argument.
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