It is a little difficult to understand the Italian position
and aims in Africa. Broadly speaking, she claims Abyssinia and the Somali country down to Witu as her share ; and on the 24th inst. Marquis Rudini and the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava signed a protocol settling limits to the south. Italian influence is to stretch southward to the mouth of the Juba, the interior line running north from that river till it touches the Blue Nile. -Italy appears, however, to have given up her claim to Kassala, and the new Government has so reduced the African expenditure that she can do nothing for the present to utilise the Convention. Moreover, she is invelved in a. quarrel with King Menelek of Abyssinia, which may turn out serious. That potentate, who has some very brave soldiers, interprets "protection" to mean only- alliance, which is not the Italian view at all. The truth is, we suppose, that the Italian Government wishes for African territory and influence, but wishes also to make them pay, directly and at once, which is impossible. It would not sur- prise us to hear of an offer of the whole concern to a British Chartered Company.
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