Triple Alliance Justified To Italy.

New York Times 100 years ago today, January 5, 1913:
Foreign Minister Replies to the Attacks on the Dreibund in the Newspapers.
GUARDS COUNTRY'S SAFETY
No Motive for Modifying It, and None of the Allied Powers Asked for Its Modification.
    ROME, Dec. 25.— As has already been pointed out, the Italian press, save those papers which take their dictates direct from the Government, has been severely censuring the Ministry for renewing the Triple Alliance before it was necessary to do so by the terms of the compact, and while the Balkan situation was such that a European war might at any moment break out, in which the people of Italy, it is thought, would never permit the Nation to throw in her lot with the Austro-German combination, notwithstanding the Triple Alliance.
    The reply of the Government to this censure, therefore, was prepared with great care and was delivered in the chamber this week by the Marquis di San Giuliano, Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the sign of the Premier, Signor Giolitti, who had been interpellated on the subject by Signor Barzilai. The brief  from which the Minister spoke runs as  follows, and is considered a marvel of logic and, of rational patriotism while throwing a flood of light on the Balkan situation. He is said, moreover, to have declaimed with great eloquence.
    "For more than thirty years the Triple Alliance has been a guarantee of peace for the whole of Europe, and, for the three powers composing it, a guarantee of security. In the relations between the allies, the treaty strengthens the reciprocal disposition to harmonize their respective interests; in their relations with the other powers, its pacific and defensive objects render easier friendships and agreement. In great international questions it has always brought a contribution of good-will and peaceful concord, which has found its counterpart in a similar disposition on the part of the other great powers, and of which the whole world must recognize the beneficent results.
    "The guarantee of peace for the allies and for Europe resulting from this state of affairs is one of the principal causes of the great and general economic progress, which, uniting ever closer the interests of the whole civilized world, constitutes a fresh obstacle to great wars which are not determined by the supreme necessities of life or of national dignity.
    "The Triple Alliance can, however, bear its full fruits for each of the three powers, provided a full reciprocal confidence exists between them for the present and the future, and that each ally is convinced that it can rely for to-morrow on the support of the others, as recompense for what it is doing to-day for them, and provided that all three feel that there is no question of a transitory combination, but of a solid and lasting bond. It resulted from these premises, tested by the experience of thirty years, that it was to the equal interest of the three powers to renew the Alliance some time before its expiration.
    "The Triple Alliance, in the form in which it is drawn up, guarantees all our interests and provides, in a complete manner, for our safety. There was, therefore, no motive for modifying it. None of the allies asked for modification. It is superfluous to repeat that the treaty has defensive and pacific aims. Experience has shown that, in order to conform to the spirit of the treaty, and, in view of its duty towards its allies, to do everything possible not to drag them into unnecessary complications, each of the allied powers has endeavored, and will always endeavor to maintain cordial relations with the other powers, and to avoid all possible causes of ill-feeling.