THE COLONIAL POLICY OF ITALY. Tripoli, but Morocco and the
Greek islands, from French ambition. Italy, however, is assailable by land, and the King not only keeps up an Army which could, on the outbreak of war, be raised to 500,000 effectives, but throws himself strongly and decidedly into the alliance of Central Europe. Aided by the better classes of the electors, and by the general disposition of Italians to leave diplomacy to the Government, he has maintained steadily his agreement with Germany and Austria, which irritates the Irredentiste, and is not quite pleasing to the Radicals, but which renders it impossible to attack Italy while she is perfecting her organisation and accumulating wealth, the latter a process which, in spite of the backward condition of the Soiithern provinces, and of the existence of a wretchedly poor class just beneath the peasants, is going on pretty rapidly.
That is a clear policy enough, and an effective one, though it involves the danger that Italy may one day be called on to wage an offensive war with France, and so to encounter, as Germany now does, the long-lived hatred of the French ; but the Colonial policy of Italy is much more obscure. It seems to be understood by all well-informed observers that the Italian desire for Colonies is as keen as her desire to be safe, and we should like to understand more clearly why. It is not from any overpressure of population. That increases, perhaps, too fast ; but then, Italians have long since perceived this, and have adopted the easiest and most perfect remedy, Unlike the French, they emigrate in great numbers, the outflow in good years reaching 200,000 souls, and they have found a field for emigration which exactly suits them. They like the climate of South America, they can get along with the Spaniards, and they find in agriculture and the petit com- merce of the cities work to which they are well suited, and which they tend to monopolise. Though not more laborious than the Spaniards, they are more steadily industrious, and they attend to the minute details of profit in a way the Spaniards cannot or will not imitate. They swarm in the South American cities, and in the Argentine Republic they are so numerous that Italians call that State "America," as we do the Union, and that within twenty years they will completely control its national affairs. Indeed, there is no reason why, if they would concentrate their emigration upon the valley of the Plate, they should not make of the Republic a purely Italian State, in such strict alliance with the Mother-country as to realise their brightest dreams of Colonial expansion. Instead of doing this, however, the Italian Government appears to have a restless desire to occupy some country in which its colonists shall be avowedly its own subjects, and is always putting out efforts to secure some inferior land upon which it could pour the overspill of its population. This is the first motive of the desire for Tripoli, though no doubt Italy is also, for strategical reasons, jealous of French settlement there ; this is the popular apology for the recent entrance into Abyssinia, with all the expense and hard fighting it threatens to involve ; and this will ultimately lead Italy to occupy some one of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. It seems a dreamy kind of policy. If, indeed, there were any unoccupied country in the world where Italians could work and flourish, founding a new Italy of their own, we could understand the aspiration ; but there is no such place. Italy cannot acquire Tripoli except by joining in a great war ; and there is no vacant land in America which the Government of Washington would permit her to take, or in the Pacific which is large enough for her intentions. Sir Charles Dilke says, indeed, in the Fortnightly, that the Italians think they could settle in tropical lands ; but if so, they are very ill-advised. There is nothing in their position or race to differentiate them from other Europeans ; and Europeans without Indian or Negro subjects, have, outside the temperate zone, almost invariably failed. They die, or they degenerate. Even the Portuguese have not succeeded in really populating any torrid place, Brazil, the apparent excep- tion, containing only a small proportion of Europeans of pure blood. Labour under semi-tropical conditions will be too severe even for Neapolitans, and they will find themselves unable to compete either with native Indians or with Negroes.
The mistake is, at this moment, seriously embarrassing the Italian Government. The Ministry have no money to waste and no popularity to lose, yet they are perseveringly, not to say doggedly, maintaining a position at Massowah which, unless they intend to conquer Abyssinia, is a great waste of force. From the language employed in their journals, and the Ministerial assurances that when Europe is more settled they will do great things, we pregame they do intend conquest ; and, of course, if they will expend force
enough, they may realise their project. The Abyssinians defeated the Arabs in the first flush of their successes in war, and they have ever since maintained their independence ; but still, we admit Sir Stafford Northcote's expedition overthrew the monarchy of Theodore very easily. With an expenditure of ten years, ten millions, and thirty thousand men, Italy may possibly reduce Abyssinia into a Dependency ; but what will be the use of that ? An Italian nation can never grow in Abyssinia, and it is an Italian nation beyond seas which, as we conceive. Italy is longing to found. We wish her every success in the enterprise, if she can find a fitting locale ; but in this instance we are convinced her energy is misdirected. Her people colonise better than the French—who, however, did not fail in French Canada, and may not fail ultimately in Algeria—but with a hostile and abnormally brave population under foot, with desert tribes all around, with a land needing irrigation before it can be productive, and with a climate just too hot to allow Europeans to retain their energy, no Colony can be expected to grow into a nation. With half the expendi- ture of force, the Italians might in a few years, by strictly legal processes, get the Argentine Republic into their hands, or repopulate Peru, or even acquire a dominant influence within the Empire of Brazil. Almost anything can be done when a Kingdom pours out industrious children in such numbers ; and what does it matter if the new State is called a Colony or not ? The Italians surely do not dream of imitating the French in Algeria, and acquiring a new dominion with new conditions of life, but to be treated as if it were a part of the mother-land.
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