On Tuesday Signor Tittoni, the Italian Foreign Minister, delivered his
long-expected speech on foreign affairs. Dealing first with the Triple Alliance, he declared that it was the basis of Italian policy, and denied the reports of friction with Germany. Then he passed to the relations between Germany and Britain, two Powers to which Italy was bound, in the one case by formal alliance, in the other by ancient friendship. It was the supreme interest of both Italy and Austria-Hungary to prevent anj conffiet between these two nations, and responsible statesmen, British and German alike, were
anxious for a rapprochement. The Press was the only danger, and the same remark applied to the possibility of friction between Italy and Austria-Hungary. Turning to France, he urged that loyalty to the Triple Alliance did not prevent Italy from maintaining a dose friendship with her Western neighbour, which the Anglo-French entente made all the easier. He concluded with an eloquent and graceful panegyric upon King Edward,—" the Sovereign who uses the immense prestige he enjoys in the eyes of his own people and of the whole world to devote himself to the noble mission of peace."
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