The adhesion of Italy to the Allies may be noted as perhaps the most important political event of the year, while the circumstances in which it was decided on dispel all doubt that the Italian people were actuated by lofty motives and rose to the highest ideas involved in the European conflict, and that the Cabinet's ideals were nowise identical with those of the nation. It is alleged by certain personal friends of Baron Sonnino, who had exceptionally good opportunities for knowing what took place--and I have grounds for acquiescing in their view--that this statesman was for declaring war against Germany as well as Austria, but that Professor Salandra negatived this logical and straightforward move. That the Salandra Cabinet damaged the cause of Italy by thus endeavouring to blow hot and cold, is a fact which its warmest supporters no longer call in question. They now merely plead for extenuating circumstances on the ground that the damage was done unwittingly. "It would be unjust," the Nationalist Federzoni said in a speech delivered before the Chamber on March 16,[99] "to accuse the Italian Government of disloyalty or insincerity, but none the less the treaty it concluded with Germany has proved superlatively baleful to the country." Like the other allied peoples, the Italian nation has been served by a Cabinet which defeated many of the objects it was striving after. [99] March 16, 1916. Studying Italian politics since the war broke out is like threading the Cretan Labyrinth in a dense fog. The fog, curiously enough, which now seldom lifts, would seem to form an integral part of the politics. For one of the maxims of the present chief of the Consulta, Baron Sonnino, is that secrecy is the soul of efficacy. And as thoroughness marks his action whenever it is quite free, the mystery that enwraps the schemes and designs of King Victor's Government is become impenetrable. One may form a faint notion of the stringency with which this un-Italian occultism is observed by the eminent Jewish statesman, from the circumstance that during the crisis that preceded the war, only one of his colleagues was kept informed of the progress of the conversations with Austria, and that was his own chief, Professor Salandra. As for the nation at large, it was so out of touch with the Government, and so led astray concerning the trend of events, that for months it confidently anticipated an accord with the Central Empires. Again, down to the day on which Baron Sonnino read out his last declaration in the Chamber (Dec. 1), officials of the Ministry had rigorous instructions not to give any one even a hint as to whether Italy would or would not sign the London Convention, renouncing the right to conclude a separate peace.