rred in the great harbour warehouses. They hoped, they thought
that if the town fell to the lot of Italy no questions would be
asked.[15] There must also have been some who could not bear to
contemplate the loss of their old privileged position.

THE I.N.C.

For a considerable time it was not known who were the members of the
Italian National Council. From internal evidence one saw that they were
not particularly logical people, for they made much play, in their
announcements, with "democratic principles" in spite of the undemocratic
fog in which they wrapped themselves. Of course they had not been
elected by anyone except themselves; but there was a vast difference
between them and the self-elected Croat National Council, since the
latter derived their authority from the Croatian Government at Zagreb,
which Dr. Vio, in the name of the Rieka municipality, had
recognized--whereas the Italian National Council was destitute of any
parent, though they would, had they been pressed, have claimed, no
doubt, the blissfully unconscious "Madre Patria." Subsequently it turned
out that the I.N.C. consisted of Dr. Vio and of fourteen persons who had
hitherto not taken part in public life. They were fourteen worthies of
the background, the most remarkable act in the life of their President,
Dr. Grossich, for example, dating from twenty years ago when he was the
medical attendant of the Archduchess Clothilde, and decorated, so they
say, his consulting-room with black and yellow festoons. The I.N.C.
appeared at its inception to be different from a Russian Soviet because
it had no power.

THE CROATS' BLUNDER

A number of deplorable transactions ensued, and they were not all
committed by the Italianists. The proclamations which were sent from
Zagreb, exhorting the people to be tranquil, were printed in the two
languages, but some Croat super-patriots at Rieka tried to make the town
mono-lingual. At the railway station and the post office they removed
the old Italian inscriptions and put up Croatian ones, they wrote to
the mayor in Croat, which, although Dr. Vio has a Croat father and
visited a Croat school and a Croat university, was tactless; they wrote
that Croat would now be the language of the town, which was a foolish
thing to do. They even seem to have demanded the evacuation of the town
hall within twenty-four hours. And the irresponsible persons who made
this demand were very properly snubbed by the municipal authorities.