Relations between German Tyrol and Italian Tyrol

South Tyrol, Dec. 8. It truly seems to belong to the peculiarities of the Italian Tyrolean character to be based on general mistrust, and to see in every expression of sentiment, in every piece of advice, however well-meant, the most despicable selfishness, the basest self-interest.

Even if this peculiarity may have its foundation in bitter experience and in the awareness of certain other weaknesses of character, and therefore deserve some excuse, its display in a period when only mutual trust can resolve the discord that existed and unfortunately still exists is certainly not justifiable.

If, on the one hand, the German living here fancies he perceives the most desirable sentiments in many utterances of local inhabitants, and publicly expresses his joy over them, as did formerly the reporter on the displays of loyalty of the conscripts of Trent, experience shows that the Italian Tyrolean, on the other hand, follows the opposite principle.

Thus recently, a polemicist in issue no. 119 of the Roveredo newspaper branded the author of that well-intentioned, if not flawless, article in issue no. 159 of the Tiroler Bote a hypocrite, and warned the chosen people of South Tyrol against such Pharisees; thus, in every article of German Tyrolean newspapers preaching reconciliation, people seek to find the ravenous wolf in sheep's clothing, responding with vulgar vitriol that proves nothing except its origin.

Yet how should such conduct surprise us, given that in Trent they did not hesitate, upon the news of Archduke Franz Joseph's accession to the throne, to describe this act critically as a power grab by the government in order to unabashedly revoke the peoples' liberty granted in March and overthrow the nascent constitutional work at a stroke. And when these zealots found their assertion refuted by the manifesto of our current regent, they did not fail to label it empty sound, dust thrown in the eyes of a gullible people, to misinterpret its content in an unconstitutional sense, and in this manner to cast suspicion on the Emperor's word in the eyes of the population.

Whether one finds the sole reason for such conduct in the distrustful character of the Italian Tyrolean, or whether one may not discern in it the striving of a party seeking to suppress the loyal sentiment still prevailing in a large part of the population and to nourish the spirit of agitation, and whether finally the reproach made against the German Tyrolean of a disposition shunning reconciliation does not fall back on the Italian Tyrolean himself — this remains left to public judgment.