 In the first decades of the 20th century there was even a struggle within Maltese society and politics over the "language problem", which came to a head before World War II.In 1933 the Constitution was withdrawn over the Government's budgetary vote for the teaching of Italian in elementary schools.The use of Italian in official matters was politically motivated by the antireformist party and by the Roman Catholic Church as a form of status quo and conservative measures against the Protestant British colonial power.