I T may interest your readers who know Venice as a
city of splendid Art and pleasure, of lagoons and gondolas and man- dolins and magic moonlight—in Venice they don't hire the moon- light any more, it breeds aeroplanes—to hear some dry facts about the way in which the war has been and is being met. The traditional theory of the fiaca Veneziana, Venetian slackness, so deeply ingrained in Italian and foreigner alike, must now be considerably modified. Under stress of war, Venice has discovered unsuspected fountains of energy and shown how a city can look after itself. She is displaying a spirit which many Venetians, long before the war, desired to cultivate, an impatience with the mere museum aspect of the'city, and aspirations summed up in Signor Salandra's phrase, nano alberghi e pies officine.
When hostilities broke out in August, 1914, the question of Italian intervention hung in the balance for nine months. That was the most trying period Venice had to face. Venice was the only Italian city of importance seriously affected by the European situation, help from outside was not readily forthcoming, and she had to rely on herself. The chief trouble with the Venetian population is its want of discipline. The long stagnation and decline of the Republic, the backwater into which the city fell through loss of its commercial position, the pernicious Austrian rule that deliberately depressed Venice in the interests of Trieste and allowed the people to do as they liked provided they did not meddle with politics, slowly undermined all alertness and discipline, and during the recovery which has undoubtedly taken place since Italy became a united kingdom, the catering for a facile, fluctuating, and exotic tourist-market has hardly sufficed to restore tone and evoke the old capacities which, probably, are not dead but only dormant, as this period of trial seems tending to prove.
With the outbreak of war in Europe the Adriatic was instantly
closed on account of mines ; the port of Venice ceased to operate. The gradual strangulation of all commerce and transport business, on which sixteen thousand of the population depended, the cessation of the fishery, the absence of tourists and the closing of hotels—all this sudden shrinkage of resources, entailing great hardships on the poor and lower-middle classes, coupled with the dread that their men might have to fight with and for their secular enemy, Austria, induced a ferment among the population which ended in ugly riots in tho Piazza and at the Bragora. The situation was alarming, and the prospect of one half of the population living on the other through the approaching winter intolerable. It is comparatively easy to " give " ; it is far more difficult to " help " ; obviously work, not charity, was needed ; and upon that sound principle Venice has endeavoured to act throughout the crisis. The most pressing problem was to find employment and pay for the wives and families cif the dock hands. With great courage and a genius for prompt and effective action, a lady, to whom Venice owes much, supported by the Town Council, took possession of one of the communal schools, hastily installed a few sewing-machines, gathered a handful of the more reasonable among the women, and started a workshop which not only undertook contract work at the shop itself but furnished raw material to be worked up at home. The sight of money to be gained soon brought in most of the rest. Fresh industries, toy-making, basket-making, regimental badges, and, after Italy went to war, milks/7 clothing of every kind, were set ageing, and now these Laboratorii ifunicipali are employing well over five thousand hands, and have largely helped to tide Venice over the most dangerous period of distress. At first of course all sorts of frauds were attempted ; but vigilance, firmness, constant employment, and punctual pay are making these workshops into admirable schools of industry and discipline.
When Italy at last declared war on Austria in May, 1915, the situation sensibly improved. In the first place, the younger men, who had been thrown out of work by the closing of the port, were called to the colours ; the volume of war work increased ; but the departure of all the able-bodied, the final cessation of all trade, and the disappearance of the last tourist left the authorities facing a very serious problem in the economic conditions of the poor.
War being actually declared, sentiments of patriotism and charity unlocked the purses of the rich and all classes of society freely offered personal service. The admirable " Committee of Civic Aid and Defence " undertook to organize the various sources of public and private beneficence, and to see that there was no reduplication and overlapping in its distribution ; an aim achieved by an elaborate system of card-indices of all applicants and recipients. The great theatre of the " Fenice " was placed at the disposal of the Committee, and is now its headquarters. It works on much the same lines as the Laboratorii .1funicipali as regards the dis- tribution of war work, but its activities-are more extended. -It has organized the handicraftsmen of the city, carpenters, smith% &c., and finds them in raw material, while it undertakes very largo Government contracts and thus secures for the craftsmen constant employment and steady pay. The Committee also distributes the Government allowance to soldiers' families and the charitable funds for relief of distress. It is the centre of a vast organization which has spread out all over the town in workshops, stores of raw material, creches for orphans and children of soldiers and work- women, and warehouses where are accumulated the prime necessaries of life, flour, maize, beans, peas, potatoes, coffee, sugar, &o., bought at wholesale prices and distributed partly through its own retail shops, partly through the ordinary channels ; thus helping to temper the cost of living for the poor.
Inspired by the same wise principle of finding work rather than distributing charity is another institution, the Associazone pet Lavoro. The Association is of the nature of a company with a capital of 223,000 lire, subscribed by a few wealthy private persons. It does not aim at profits, though, on grounds of sound economy, it hopes to cover expenses. Inquiries among the small industrials in Venice led to the surprising discovery that, hidden away in garrets and up rickety stairs, there still existed craftsmen capable of beautiful and artistio work in the traditional industries of the city, such as fine leather, brocades, ironwork—men, artists in the true significance of the term, inspired by the old guild-sense of craftsmanship, but who, for lack of capital, organization, and the opportunity to reach a market, were now dragging out a precarious existence. The old spirit is not dead in Venice. It is to rescue and re-establish such artificers, and at the same time to co-ordinate and give impulse to the more prosperous Venetian industries such as lace, glass, and furniture, that the Society has been formed. It aims at winning the confidence of the industrials, and offers to act on their behalf as a paternal support and guide. It is ready to find raw material for the smaller men and to make advances to the larger, to receive and help to distribute the finished article, to open the way to new markets ; its hopes extend beyond the close of the war and aim at a general revival of Venetian industry. So far it has met with encouraging success. It is paying its way, and slowly acquiring the confidence of the crafts. France is already taking considerable quantities of brocades and furniture stuffs, and the Society hopes to hold an Exhibition in Milan, and desires to stretch out further afield and to establish touch with the British-Italian League, whose objects are in sympathy with the efforts of the Society.
The general outcome of this fine endeavour is that, in spite at great hardships, the people of Venice are facing the war with a kind of philosophical endurance not untempered by a just pride in the part they are playing, nor unrelieved by a hope that Venetian industries may revive on sound and healthy lines when the war is
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