320 



ITALY. 



Alliance. He took an early opportunity to ex- 

 plain that he was not bound by any previous irre- 

 sponsible declarations, but the Cabinet did not 

 pledge itself prematurely to renew the alliance 

 with Germany and Austria. Commercial treaties 

 with those countries were being negotiated, and 

 favorable trading conditions with them were of 

 great importance to Italian prosperity. Although 

 the commercial treaty concluded in 1898 ending 

 the tariff war with France relieved an intoler- 

 able situation, no new arrangements that could 

 be made with the Protectionist Government of 

 France would outweigh the economic advantages 

 of reciprocity with Austria and Germany. The 

 Duke of Genoa in command of an Italian squad- 

 ron visited Toulon to salute the President of the 

 French Republic in sign of the continued good 

 relations between Italy and France. The discus- 

 sion of the Triple Alliance in the European press 

 drew from the Minister of War and the Prime 

 Minister the statement that this secret compact 

 does not bind Italy to maintain any specified 

 number of army corps or strength of armaments. 

 The external ambition of Italy has in recent times 

 been directed neither tow r ard the Trentino nor 

 Nizza, nor seriously attracted to colonial expan- 

 sion in East Africa, China, or other remote re- 

 gions, but Italians of every party look forward 

 to the possession of Tripoli, not alone for its 

 economical possibilities, chiefly rather for its mili- 

 tary value for the security of Italy, since if it fell 

 into other hands Italy would be surrounded by a 

 continuous circle of foreign coast line. For a like 

 reason Italians are jealous of the designs of any 

 power upon the opposite coast of the Adriatic, and 

 are not more willing that Austria should extend 

 her influence in that direction when she is the 

 present ally of Italy than they would be if the 

 two Governments were estranged. Italians still 

 hope to possess the whole coast of the Adriatic, 

 and Albania is the heritage for which they look 

 with assurance when the Turks depart from Eu- 

 rope. Many Italians reside in Albania, and with 

 the progressive weakening of the Sultan's rule 

 they look more and more to the Italian Govern- 

 ment for protection. An independent Albanian 

 state would not be regarded with apprehension in 

 Italy, as it might in Austria, because it would be 

 open to progressive Italian influence. There are 

 200,000 Albanians in Italy who have their own 

 college, and in some districts Albanian blood is 

 mingled with Italian. Congresses for Albanian 

 national independence are held in Italian cities. 

 The country across the seas which stirs the in- 

 terest and pride of Italians is the Argentine Re- 

 public, a region remote from the political and 

 colonial ambitions of Italy, where still the vitality 

 and colonizing capacity of the Italian race is best 

 exemplified, where 700,000 Italians by their in- 

 telligence and industry have created a valuable 

 market for Italian produce. 



The advent of a Cabinet of the Left depending 

 on Socialist support was the signal for forming 

 among workingmen and agricultural laborers 

 leagues of resistance and improvement leagues 

 which covered whole provinces, with the object of 

 obtaining by collective action an increase of wages. 

 Landowners and employers, after the sanguinary 

 suppression of the riots of May 1, 1898, had di- 

 minished wages and withdrawn concessions. 

 Now that Signer Giolitti and other Liberals were 

 in office the working classes attempted to regain 

 by organization what they lost. Strikes accord- 

 ingly broke out all over the country. Signer 

 Turati and the evolutionary Socialists who fol- 

 lowed him declared freedom of Socialist propa- 

 ganda and organization to be the price the Gov- 



ernment must pay for the parliamentary support 

 of the Socialist group, and aimed, through the 

 network of labor organizations with which they 

 covered the country, to sweep the working-class 

 constituencies at the next general election, taking 

 the seats held by their Radical and Republican 

 allies and coming back to the Chamber in such 

 strength that they can demand admission to the 

 committees and to the ministry and shape legisla- 

 tion affecting the working people. The revolu- 

 tionary branch of the party had no sympathy 

 with these parliamentary aims and methods. 

 Minister Giolitti made no attempt to repress the 

 leagues of resistance. He directed the prefects to 

 act as arbitrators in labor disputes wherever they 

 could. In some instances the carabineers per- 

 suaded laborers who took the place of strikers to 

 cease work for fear of provoking a conflict. When- 

 ever disorderly strikers were arrested they were 

 quickly released. The internal policy of the Gov- 

 ernment was accepted, and the life of the Cabinet 

 was assured after a declaration of loyalty to the 

 Monarchy from Signer Zanardelli by the voting of 

 the estimates of the Ministry of the Interior on 

 June 22 by 264 votes to 184; but in the Senate 

 the ministerial majority was only 3, owing to 

 animosity against Signer Giolitti. The Prime 

 Minster said that the motive of the Liberal ad- 

 ministration was to safeguard the free exercise of 

 public rights though giving a free scope to agita- 

 tions, since liberty is won by struggles and is to 

 be preferred with all its perils; but if recourse 

 were had to violence he promised to repress it 

 with inflexible severity. Immediately after the 

 Chamber gave its approval to the liberal policy of 

 the Government, in a tumult at Berra, near Fer- 

 rara, 30 peasants fell victims to the revolutionary 

 fermentation, or to a reckless blunder of the lieu- 

 tenant who commanded the troops to fire, who 

 was maligned by the whole Liberal press and by 

 the Socialists in the Chamber, but was acquitted 

 by a court-martial. There were no other riotous 

 disturbances, though at Mantua the striking har- 

 vesters burned barns. The strikes increased up to 

 and after the adjournment of the Chamber on 

 June 30, and the agricultural laborers, brick- 

 layers, cigarmakers, operatives in macaroni fac- 

 tories, railroad brakemen, and other workers gen- 

 erally succeeded in obtaining a considerable rise 

 in wages. A strike of seamen at Genoa was not 

 settled, despite Signer Zanardelli's effort to induce 

 arbitration, because the ship owners would not lis- 

 ten to a delegation of the united labor league. 

 The excitement caused by the Berra incident led 

 to monster meetings of Anarchists, Socialists, and 

 Republicans in Rome, Milan, and Naples, in which 

 the King, the upper classes, and the army were 

 violently denounced. This agitation served to de- 

 velop the cleavage, already pronounced, between 

 the opportunists and the extremists or idealists 

 of all three groups of the Extreme Left between 

 the Radicals who adhered to the Monarchy and 

 those who would not: between the Republicans 

 who would evolve the Republican ideal out of the 

 existing monarchical Government and those who 

 aimed to establish the republic upon its ruins; 

 between the Possibilist or Ministerial Socialists 

 and the Revolutionary or Anarchoid Socialists, 

 who would join the Anarchists in precipitating a 

 convulsion. The Anarchoids were most numerous 

 in the rank and file of the Socialist party, and 

 compelled Signer Turati and his partizans to with- 

 draw from the Milanese Socialist federation in 

 order to found a new federation of Possibilists. 

 Clerical peasants' 'leagues committed outrages in 

 Lombardy, which were checked by the prompt 

 action of the police and troops. Signer Wollem- 



