It was vouchsafed me to be in a position during the last year of the war to see at short range and sometimes from a vantage-point the workings of the minds of a people who have had liberty, unity, and nationality on their tongues and in their hearts for half a century and more. The Italians were in the lime-light from the day Germany threw a brand laden with explosives and poison gases into the different Christian countries of Europe. Her conduct as a whole since that time has been one of dignity, honesty, responsibility, and the exponent of the highest ideals of nationality. Whether or not she succeeded at any time in gaining the complete and absolute confidence of her allies, it would be difficult to say. To get the confidence of an individual or a country you must trust them, and the more implicitly you trust the greater will be the confidence and the finer the quality. Every one knows that Italy's alliance with Austria was an unnatural one and the majority of her people have always believed that the issue of it would be disastrous. Even the most shallow student of history knows that Austria stood menacingly over Italy during the entire period of the unholy alliance, but never more insultingly so than in 1912, when she veritably defended Turkey, while Italy was at war with that country. When Italy decided to throw her lot in with the Allies, there is no doubt whatsoever that it was with the hearty approbation of the vast majority of her people. The treaty which her minister of foreign affairs, Sonnino, made with the Allies, and which is known as the Treaty of London, and which sets forth what Italy was to have when victory was hers, although not known to the people, was satisfactory to the government, and one who reads it now can readily understand why it was so. The question was--would it be satisfactory to other governments? Was it an instrument consistent with the new liberty? Was it not at variance with what was going to be considered a fundamental right of the people, the principle of self-determination?