The careful account given on Friday week by the Italian
Minister for Foreign Affairs of the final arrangement with the Mullah is in one way most satisfactory, but in another suggests some melancholy thoughts. The Mullah has clearly surrendered, and will henceforward keep the peace ; but he receives a heavy reward for doing so. The Italian Govern- ment, said Signor Tittoni, not without a note of sarcasm in his voice, was entirely unable to spend 24,000,000 in hunting the Mullah. They bad agreed, therefore, with the consent of the British Government, to give him a small kingdom carved out of Italian Somaliland, and subject to an Italian protec- torate. The Mullah is to have a port, the revenues of which are to be collected on his behalf by an Italian official; he is to fix his residence where he pleases ; he is to be aided by an Italian Resident ; and the limit of his dominion towards the Hinterland is apparently to be fixed by himself. All disputes between him and Italy are to be settled by special Italian Commissions, and he is for ever to keep the peace both with Italy and England. He becomes, in fact, a Monarch like one of the semi-independent Princes of India, and as Italy desires no wars, will do pretty much as he likes. That will prove, we dare say, a working arrangement, and is so far satis- factory; but then what did we spend so much money and so many lives for ? We could have made a similar agree- ment before undertaking this, the least fructuous of our many little wars.
