of the railway station at Nine Elms. Cavour was a deep student and a
great admirer of British institutions, both political and economic, and
in a large measure founded Italian institutions upon them. And the first
public speech he ever made was made in London in the English tongue.
These great men passed in time from the stage of Italian public life,
and others took their places, but amid all the shifting complexities of
recent international politics, no shadow has ever fallen across the path
of Anglo-Italian friendship. And indeed during the Boer War Italy was
the only friend we had left in Europe.

Italy's membership of the Triple Alliance was always subject to two
conditions, first, that the Alliance was to be purely defensive, and
second, that Italy would never support either of her partners in war
against England. Thus, under the first condition, when Austria proposed
in 1913 that the Triple Alliance should combine to crush Serbia,
victorious but exhausted after the Balkan Wars, Italy at once rejected
the proposal. And, under the second condition, as German naval expansion
became more and more provocative and threatening to Britain, we were
able to transfer nearly all our Mediterranean Fleet to the North Sea,
secure in the knowledge that, whatever might befall, we should never
find Italy among our enemies.

* * * * *

The part which Italy has played during the war just ended, the great
value of her contribution to the Allied cause, and the great sacrifices
which that contribution has involved for her, have been often and
admirably stated. But I doubt whether, even yet, these things are fully
realised outside Italy, and I will, therefore, very shortly state them
again.