ITALIAN PREMIER'S OPINIONS.
TNTER V IEWING is a bad method of reporting opinion. The public is left too dependent on an individual reporter, who may misunderstand, or misrepresent, or amplify, or, as has recently occurred in Germany, may even invent. The speaker interviewed, too, is at a disadvantage. He forgets he is speaking to the world, and is apt not only to become indiscreet—which is, of course, his interviewer's burning hope—but to utter half-formed thoughts, as one does in conversation, which, when printed, are discussed as if they were convictions leading to action. It is difficult, therefore, to know how much of an inter- viewer's report is important, and when the reporter boils down into paragraphs the essence of a long discussion, it is nearly impossible. The reader, for instance, must reflect very coolly before he quite sees what the Italian Premier exactly meant in his long conversation with the agent of the Figaro, which has been so much discussed this week ; and must remember, too, the special char- acteristics of the speaker. S. Crispi, who now rules Italy, is a hot Sicilian, whose temperament once made him an ultra-Radical, though he is now the Opportunist adviser of a Monarchy ; but he is an Italian too, never reported to be wanting in finesse. As he granted an interview to the Figaro, we may be sure he meant to profit by it politically, and one must think first in what direction he would seek to persuade. Clearly his interest, as well as that of his country, is to please Frenchmen, while maintaining that Italy is not to blame for the attitude she has of late years assumed. There is a French party in Italy, which, being Radical, is interesting if not important to the old Revolutionary, and it can never pay Italy, while she is waiting for the great struggle, to worry France, which can be intensely aggravating in the matter of tariffs, and can also, and sometimes does, make residence in France and Algiers unpleasant for tens of thousands of Italian immigrants. The sweetest relations between Rome and Paris will not dissolve the League of Peace till 1892, or prevent its secret renewal ; while they may make it much easier both to govern Italy and to borrow money on good terms. S. Crispi, therefore, would wish to. conciliate French opinion without surrendering his grievances against France, and certainly the means he adopted in this conversation to secure that double end, were of an Italian adroitness. S. Crispi understands quite well that Frenchmen are sore, not only because they have lost provinces, but because their ascendency in the world has momentarily departed. They love to be in a grand position, to believe Paris the pivot of the world, to hug themselves with the thought that nothing can happen on the planet without their ruler's consent having been first obtained. This spirit, which is not precisely ambition so much as the desire to be always considered worthy of deference, dominates France much more completely than any thirst for territorial expansion—to which, indeed, her people often object as involving an export of conscripts—and it is to this that S. Crispi directed his appeals. The secret of the situation, he says, is that " France dominates Europe, which fears a rash action on her part." " You understand that we Italians cannot struggle with you Frenchmen. You have always invaded us, trampled us under your feet, even under the Republic, even under the Empire." When " there is a question of patriotism, every- body is at one among you." A " Republic can do more than a Monarchy, because it cannot be told that it makes war to save the dynasty." A " Republic can do every- thing." " Formerly I was only fond of France ; now I admire her." (Pray note that climax, and recollect that it was said to a Frenchman.) " Never shall I attack France "—that is, of course, voluntarily and of malice— "and if Germany wished to do it, I should prevent her." We " need a strong France, and I shall not allow one inch of territory to be taken from her,"—that is, by Italy, the silent reference being to Savoy and Nice. Was ever flattery more adroit, more delicately calculated to soothe an irritated pride ? France, then, is necessary ; France is terrible to all men ; France is specially feared by Italy : there is not a Frenchman who, as he reads the Figaro, makes those reflections, who does not lift up his head with pleasure, or is not ready to declare that S. Crispi personally has been misapprehended, for he- obviously has a just appreciation of the unapproachable and awe-inspiring greatness of France. Not that the Frenchman quite believes it all. In the actual business of life, his credulity is exceedingly limited, and it is almost comic to notice that the day after these revelations were published, M. de Freycinet, as War Minister, specially in- spected the new barracks in the French Alps which are intended to enable France to accumulate an army for the invasion of Italy without attracting notice and without losing time. Still, the Frenchman is soothed, and feels that even if his mistress intends to betray him, she is pleasant, for she has recognised in himself the most adorable of qualities,—the capacity of creating fear. S. Crispi knows France well. Her amour-propre thus soothed, the Italian Premier proceeds, with a frankness truly Bismarckian, to state' the case against France. It is all her fault. It is because she is feared that Europe is crushed with armaments. It is because she threatens that Italy is a member of the Triple Alliance She stabbed Italy when she took Tunis. " You treat us even now as if you were Sovereigns, not brothers." " You bring about difficulties in Massowah." If you would only disarm ! Italy cannot disarm, says; S. Crispi, and the remainder of the world will not, till France takes the initiative; but if she only would !—"Ah ! if the French would begin, I should profit by the smallest, earliest bit of encouragement." There is even the Alliance itself, which so irritates Frenchmen. It expires in 1892: and disarmament—for this, as we judge, was the actual sequence of the argument—might even permit of its non- renewal. Such an utterance is really marvellously clever. France is asked to do alone what she cannot do until all Europe does it, and because she refuses, she is left in the position of the grand cause of all the evils of which her advocates complain. You complain of Italy,—well, leave off prodding her. You complain of the Alliance,— well, disarm. You complain of the general attitude of Europe ; but it is due to the deep terror Europe feels of you, and you alone, " whom once I loved, but now I even admire." S. Crispi must have chuckled to himself at the delight he evoked in his interviewer, and have reflected for the ten-thousandth time on the difference between the wits of Italians and the wits of any barbarians in the world. He had proved France to be the source of all evil with such compliments that she was sure to be pleased ! But it has been suggested that the Italian Premier might be thinking of quitting the Alliance, and intended to hint that, for an adequate consideration, the Treaty might never be renewed. That is not probable. Italy, it is true, guides her foreign policy mainly according to intelligent self-interest, and the House of Savoy was not a pendulum for a thousand years, swinging always between France and the Empire, without learning how to move at a second's warning ; but where at present, or in the near future, is the temptation to move ? The threats of France matter little while the Alliance stands ; and what has she in her hands with which to bribe the most astute of European diplomatists ? Frenchmen will not surrender Nice and Savoy even to reacquire Italian friendship ; and they could not give Trieste, even if Italian statesmen were mad enough to desire an acquisi- tion which must, from pure geographical and commercial necessity, make of Germany and Austria alike their secular foes. Tripoli is no payment for such a risk as would be involved in abandoning the League, even if Italy had not already obtained an English alliance and the protectorate of Abyssinia ; and the vague ideas which float through some Italian brains of grand acquisitions in the Balkans are the ideas of young Radicals, not of the statesmen of Rome. The present position is the safe position for Italy ; it must last till 1892 ; and, as S. Crispi says, politicians are not fond of looking too far ahead. Besides, the Italians understand Frenchmen, and know that, Alliance or no Alliance, they are not loved ; that France thinks she has a natural claim to dictate to the Latin races ; that the Roman question is always open, and always attracts half France ; and that, in brief, the first idea of French rulers, from Richelieu to Thiers, has been to surround their country with petty States, and so at once to preserve her from sudden attack, and leave themselves the virtual dictators of Western Europe. The unity of Germany has for that reason, if for no other, gravely increased the Italian danger of dismemberment.
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