LITTLE REPUPLIC TO ‘FIGHT ON’

San Marino has been occupied
before in 1,600-year history

UST before San Marino’s new
J anti-Communist government
entered the little republic’s
capital last week, leaflets were
distributed in the streets say-
ing: “The struggle is not over
—it is just beginning.”

The new government had
been imposed on the 38-square-
mile republic near _Italy’s
Adriatic coast by a blockade
by the Italian government
which forced the people of
San Marino into submission
and compelled the Communist-
Socialist coalition government
to resign.

The trouble began when
some Socialist supporters of
the former coalition on the 60-
member Grand Council went
over to the right wing Oppo-
sition, robbing the government
of its majority. The former
coalition government decided
to call elections, as provided
in the constitution, so that the
14,000 people of the republic
could decide which govern-
ment they wanted, and it ap-
pealed to the UN to watch the
elections.

But Italy intervened and de-
clared that the Opposition must
now be the government. Sup-
ported by the U.S. State De-
partment, which promptly rec-
ognized the new government,
the Italian government posted
police on the frontiers to stop
food going in.

The Opposition leaders, who
sought refuge in a disused
foundry on the frontier, were
ushered into their capital last
week by a new San Marino
police force, formed out of
former Italian -policemen- who
had hurriedly been demobbed
and issued with San Marino
uniforms.

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But for no less than 16 cen-
turies, San Marino, enclave of
democracy surrounded by Ital-
ian territory, has been threat-
ened by the rich and powerful
Italians, especially the princes
of the Church.

San Marino has for hundreds
of years been the refuge of
democratic refugees from op-
pression by reactionary states.
That has been its great crime
in the past.

The bourgeois and working
class revolutions that swept
across Europe in the 19th cen-
tury did not miss San Marino
and Italy, and in 1766, 1821,
1831 and 1845 refugees from
Italy found shelter there.

Garibaldi was one of them.
Later, guided by San Marinese
friends, he had made his way

through hostile armies that
surrounded the little state to
join his allies at Ravenna.

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It is not for giving shelter
to refugees that San Marino is
in trouble now. It has offended
the Italian government by
electing a Socialist-Communist
government, which has not
only been in power for over
ten years, but has also been
remarkably successful.

It has: not been so foolish
as to try to build a socialist
state in a country of 14,000 in-
habitants surrounded by Ital-
ian territory, but it has mod-

ernized San Marino with a sys-

tem of new roads, and schools,
taken light and water to
lonely hamlets in the mount-
ains, and has shown great
enterprize in developing San
Marino’s chief asset, the tour-
ist trade.

In the year 1955 no fewer
than 1,350,000 tourists visited
San Marino,

For the Communist-Socialist
government has not only done
well in public works and en-
couraged industry, it has been
remarkably energetic in publi-

cizing the tourist attracions of
the little state, and in conse-
queunce the indefatigable holi-
day-makers of Chancellor Ade-
nauer’s German Federal Re-
public have been pouring their
marks by the million through-
out the summer months each
year into the “Red’ exchequer.

In their final offical procla-
mation to the people, the cap-
tains regent, heads of the out-
going coalition government,
declared:

“Overpowered ‘by the forces
of a foreign government
(Italy), the popular govern-
ment of San Marino, after 12
years in power, has.ceased all
resistance, offering this sacri-
fice for the supreme good of
the country.

“We denounce to the world
the gravest blow in the mem-
ory of the San Marino people
to the freedom of the repub-
lic.”

But one thing is certain, San
Marino has been challenged
and sometimes forcibly occu-
pied by its enemies many times
for nearly 1600 years, but up
to now, it has always recover-
ed its right to govern itself in
its own way in the end.

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Cartoon by Avrom

People living in gllass houses shouldn’t throw Little Rocks

“Ah, so you dare to come hom lit up again!”

OPEN FORUM

tion of being called sub-stant
ard. He believes that there j
still a need to recognize ©

dilution of slums by space 4 oat

Farmers’ conditions
S.S., Aldergrove, B.C.: I
would like to draw to the at-
tention of your readers a
speech made earlier this year
by Dr. L.’ E. Ranta, assistant
medical director of Vancouver
General Hospital, as reported
by Country Life. Some of the
points he raised are well worth
the consideration of anyone
concerned with drawing the
farmers into active political
partnership with labor.

Dr. Ranta said that with re-
spect to the social aspects of
his health, the farmer today
stands in much the same rela-
tionship to his industry as did
the industrial worker in towns
and cities at the turn of the
century.

“People belive that the pro-
duct of the farm (here I am
quoting directly from the
Country Life report) is more
important than the farmer and
his family and that all the pro-
ducer’s problems will be cured
by giving him a bit more
money.

“But this doesn’t gainsay
that the farmer, the farm
laborer, their families and the
rural dweller in general do

‘not share equally with the

urban dweller in- the real
socio- medical advantages of
the 20th century, although the
foundations of modern urban
living and its standards of
living in food and material
rest upon the shoulders of the
farmer.

“But if 10,000 contiguous
farm and country dwellings
were drawn together into one
community, the slum created
in a part of this accumulated
community would be worse in
many respects than the urban
slums which are given so much
publicity.

“Dr. Ranta observed that
often is heard the story that

some farm workers and rural,

dwellers live in quarters
hardly warranting the distinc-

October 25, 1957 —

not solve a_ substand
housing problem. .. .
“With living standards
satisfactory, he felt that i
must be reflected in the he?
standards of rural pon

“ ‘We who derive our strené!!
from the roots in our id
are neglecting to bring its
tillers of the land the bene!
of their labor,’ he emphas
pointing to the Workme? Of
Compensation Act and -
employment Insurance a5 rat |
exclusions typical of the urb
attitude towards the ™
community.

ft
“‘We don’t exactly state -
we regard the agricul
worker as a second-class Bi
zen. We merely hint at it
depend upon the. inactivilY f
rural areas in general 5°
they will not.disturb the

tenor of our ways.”

eve?

I have only quoted wer
consider to be the most a's
portant parts of Dr. Ra?
speech. I think they me’
enough to give us all Ss?
thing to think about.

9
Where are the poe!
¢
K.C., Vancouver, B.C. He
Soviet Union has launched
first ship on the sea of §P fo!
Mankind is reaching ©U
the stars! We have hea?
the politicians, the scieD
the commentators and thé “1,
respondents, But where are
poets?

ntl jst)
ie

dy
Surely there is someb
somewhere, who can look eat |
the future and give neW gro”
ing to such lines as thes¢ bic!
James Elroy Flecker
come to my mind:
“West ‘of these out °

colder than the Hepride?
I must go rs
Where the fleet of sta “8
anchored and wie. yon
Star-captains glow.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—?*

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