A Left Alliance?

By DOUGLAS HYDE
TRANCE'S PRESIDENT COTY'S VISIT TO ROME HAS TENDED TO DISTRACT PUBLIC ATTENTION FROM THE LATEST GOVERNMENT CRISIS IN ITALY WHICH WAS STILL UNRESOLVED WHEN HE ARRIVED.
In the moments when President Gronchi was not entertaining his French guest he was anxiously trying to find a new Government for his country.
The present crisis arose when Sen. Saragat. the Social Democrat leader, suddenly decided to bring his party out of the Government, which was based upon the three centre parties, Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Liberals.
His reason for doing so appears to have been for no better purpce,e than to demonstrate his party's independence of the other two tor, conversely, to demonstrate how they cannot continue to govern
ithout his support) and so to consolidate his own position within his party.
A first consequence, however, was that the president of his party's parliamentary group at once declared his intention of resigning on the ground that Sig. Saragat had not sufficiently consulted his colleagues before taking action.
More important may be the effect of the present crisis upon the regrouping which is slowly taking place within the Italian party system. The weakening of the Christian Democrat party on the one hand and the continued strength of the Communist Party on the other, is making the various parties look for new alliances. The most interesting and potentially most far reaching in its consequences—of these is, of course the attempt to bring Sig. Nenni's powerful Socialist Party into some sort of coalition with Sig. Saragat's Social Democrats and so to end the Nenni party's link with the Communists.
WEAKENING MOVE
SIG. SARAGAT'S sudden with drawal from the Government seems if anything to have weakened the prospect of this move materialising in the foreseeable future,
Last weekend it was announced that the special Social Democrat Congress which was to have been held next month to discuss the question of Socialist unity will not now be held before net October.
And at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Nenni Party held last week, those groups who favour no further move away from the Communists were shown to have strengthened their position.
Meanwhile. the Left Christian Democrat group, whose main centre of support is in Venice and
■ \ hose most powerful friend they claim to be President Gronchi himself, continue to work for a Left alliance which would exclude the Communists but would include the Nenni Socialists, the Saragat Socialists and themselves. The failure so far to achieve a clean break between Nenni and the Communists is leading the extremists among the Left Christian Democrats lu suggest that the Left alliance should include the Communists. This presumably is what underlies the recently renewed warning by the Cardinal and Patriarch of Venice about the impermissahility of Catholics associating with the Communist Party.