On the Petition to Remove German Civil Servants from the Italian Districts

Südtirol, Dec. 25. For some days now, there has been talk here of a petition addressed to the Ministry demanding the removal of German civil servants from the two Italian districts, originating from the patriotic association in Trento and circulated to the various judicial districts for the collection of signatures. Whether this petition owes its inception to the collective will of the local population or rather to the separatist desires of a few disaffected Italian-speaking officials, we leave undecided; yet it is certainly in the best interest of those whose removal is sought to wish wholeheartedly that this request be granted a favourable hearing and a prompt resolution.

It cannot be unknown even to the Italian Tyrolean that, with the exception of a few bound to Italian soil by family ties, a recall to their native land has been for months, indeed for years, the most earnest and sole desire of the German officials residing here, and that the fulfillment of this wish has been thwarted largely by measures taken by the superior authorities.

We shall not trace the origins of this homesickness, nor shall we occupy ourselves with laying out the grounds that justify the posting of German civil servants to South Tyrol, nor examine more closely the circumstance that Italian Tyrol itself brought about such a policy through the aversion of a great number of its sons to civil service and higher education in general; these matters have been illuminated too often to waste further words upon them, only to incur accusations of divisiveness. Yet permit us but one remark, allow us to pose but one question to the signers of that petition: namely, whether upon signing it they were conscious of the number of their Patrioti holding the most distinguished posts in other provinces and even in German Tyrol, and whether they considered that regarding these men, the strictest reciprocity would be observed by the other provinces and the remaining parts of Tyrol?

Amidst all the tension currently prevailing among the different nationalities, no German province, no other part of the realm was so bold as to demand the removal of civil servants of Italian Tyrolean descent employed there; yet the adoption of the proposed measure must, notwithstanding the universal esteem and respect rightly accorded to these officials, evoke a similar reciprocation of such neighbourly affection.

If the demand was justified on the grounds of the welfare of the South Tyrolean population, a few hundred signatures seem to us to offer no adequate guarantee of the common good, nor do they reflect the collective will of the people; if the reason lay in the ambition and career aspirations of individuals, they deserve general pity for having been forsaken by their calculations on this occasion; and should the petitioners nevertheless consider it in the public interest and in their own to submit the petition, we would have advised them to offer it for signature to the local German civil servants themselves, for of their endorsement they need not have doubted, and the attainment of their objective would thereby have been all the more assured.