_Italy has shown herself ready to extend to the Poles, to those gallant
Czecho-Slovaks, to the Rumanians, and last, but not least, to the
Yugoslavs, the principles on which her own 'Risorgimento' was founded_,
and on which she may still go forward to a greater future than she has
ever seen in the past. (Cheers.) _That is a great work, and those who
have borne any part in it may well be proud of their accomplishment_.

"People talk sometimes about the dismemberment of Austria. I have no
weakness for Austria; but I venture to think that that is the wrong
point of view. The way to regard this problem is not the dismemberment
of Austria, _but the liberation of the population subject to her rule.
We are anxious to see all these peoples in the enjoyment of full
liberty and independence; able by some great federation to hold up in
Central Europe the principles upon which European policy must be
founded,_ unless we are to face disasters too horrible to contemplate.
The old days of arbitrary allotment of this population or that to this
sovereignty or that are gone--and, I trust, gone forever. We must look
for any future settlement, to a settlement not of courts or cabinets,
but of nations and populations. _On that alone depends the whole
conception of the League of Nations,_ of which we have heard so much;
and unless that can be secured as the foundation for that great idea, I
myself despair of its successful establishment."

_(b) The May Manifestations in Prague_

A direct re-percussion of the Rome Conference was the great meeting which
took place in Prague on May 16, on the occasion of the jubilee celebration
of the foundation of the Czech National Theatre.

The manifestations took pre-eminently a political character, especially as