LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
ITALY AND SOMALIA
Sm—Mr. Eric Dodson favours the reinstallation of Italian rule in Somalia; this would be a " gesture of encouragement " to her, and would suitably recognise "her undoubted colonial achievements." It is true, as he says, that the Somalis are not yet—in spite of a recent and hopeful movement in Mogadishu—capable of erecting or conducting a country-wide govern- ment for themselves ; unless the world decides to let Somalia relapse to anarchy, an outside trustee or helper of some sort there must be. But should it be Italy? What has been her record there? Apart from the -usual Italian colonial window-dressing in one or two towns, and an attempt at public services for the Europeans in these, one good road and one short railway serving the private estate of an Italian prince, the record was one of the suppression of such local Statelets as existed (the Sultanates) in favour of .Italian direct rule, a numerous and costly civil service, wholly disproportionate to the needs of the terri- tory, the inculcation among all Somalis of adulation of the Duce, forced and harshly treated labour on the Italian-owned estates on the Juba and Webi Shibelli, where for the sake of Fascist autarchy bananas and cotton were grown in absurd defiance of economic reason, and preparation for the 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, for the pretext of which (Walwal) Somalia was bidden to provide the scene.
No, Sir! Italian colonial achievements, however "undoubted," should not be thus rewarded ; nor could sandy, thorny, parched, barren, harbour- less Somalia be of any more real benefit to Italy than it ever was in the past. It will be a liability to any European State asked to help in it. Mr. Dodson is entirely right, however, on one point. The almost complete unanimous hatred of Ethiopia by Somalis (and particularly by those of the Ogaden, conquered by the Ethiopians late in the nineteenth century) is clear to all. That Christian empire, to which we all wish well, should not be allowed any finger at all in the Somali pie.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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