The other Powers, whether allied or not, know that Italy intends to follow an energetic and assiduous policy for the protection of her natural and vital interests, intends to be present wherever, directly or indirectly, they are at stake, because this is her right and her definite duty; but at the same time she is in favour of that line of conduct in general policy which tends to bring back as quickly as possible to a normal state the economic situation of our continent. Italy, who too is marching rapidly towards her readjustment, sees this re-birth continually disturbed by general outside factors. There is, therefore, a definite Italian interest in hastening the pacific solution of the European crisis. _The Position of Italy and Reparations._ All such crises, since the Treaty of Versailles onwards, have been dominated by the one problem: Reparations. In the face of this problem the fundamental position of Italy is as follows: 1. Germany can and must pay a sum which now seems universally fixed and which is very far from the many hundreds of milliards talked of on the morrow of the Armistice; 2. Italy could not tolerate territorial changes which would lead to a political, economic or military hegemony in Europe; 3. Italy is prepared to bear her quota of sacrifice, if it is necessary to obtain what is called European reconstruction; 4. The Italian Government maintains to-day more than ever, above all after the last German Note, that the problem of reparations and that of Inter-Allied debts are intimately connected and are in a certain sense interdependent. There is no doubt that the occupation of the Ruhr has contributed to render the crisis of the Ruhr extremely acute, and therefore to a certain extent hastened a solution. It will not be inopportune to recall, considering the rapidity of events, that the French and Belgians went to the Ruhr on account of the declarations of a series of failures of the supplies in kind by Germany, admitted also by England, at any rate as regards that of wood, and the failure of the Conference of Paris. It is certainly worth while to fix exactly in their essential lines the main features of the Italian, English and German projects, in order to have a picture of the situation as regards its agreements and divergencies, and to see what conjectures we can form as to a possible settlement. This will also serve to explain why Italy was not able to accept the Bonar Law scheme at Paris, and why she had to reject the recent Cuno-Rosenberg Memorandum.