ITALY 1051 



by a group of younger members led by Sig. Romeo Gallenga, the member for Perugia. 

 In the debate on the Insurance bill the Government cut a poor figure and was finally 

 induced to limit the proposed monopoly to policies of over 1 5,000 lire capital or 1,500 lire 

 of annual interest, while the companies were given ten years during which to liquidate 

 their business for insurances below those figures. Even in this modified form the meas- 

 ure was strongly opposed, and the Government finally agreed to defer the final debate 

 until the autumn. The Chamber rose on July loth. 



In the summer Italy had a dispute with the Argentine Republic in consequence of 

 the cholera epidemic. The Argentine Government, professing not to be satisfied with 

 the very drastic precautions taken by the Italian authorities, demanded 

 Argentina'. that Argentine medical commissioners be placed on all emigrant steamers 

 bound from Italian ports to Buenos Ayres. The Italian Government, who 

 had its own commissioners on all emigrant vessels, naturally refused to admit this 

 interference with its -jurisdiction, whereupon the Argentine established a quite unneces- 

 sary quarantine on Italian steamers; Italy retaliated on July 3oth by suspending emigra- 

 tion to that country. The truculent attitude of the Argentine appeared to indicate its 

 contempt for Italy, and the latter 's energetic action, with its injurious consequences 

 to the trade and agriculture of the Republic, probably came as a painful surprise to that 

 Government, but did much to enhance Italian prestige and the position of Italian citizens 

 throughout South America. Negotiations were eventually instituted for the conclusion 

 of a sanitary convention, which after much laborious discussion was signed on August 

 I7th, 1912; the document contained all the provisions on which Italy had insisted so 

 as to prevent similar conflicts from arising in future. 



During the last few years Italy's relations with the Ottoman Empire had been grow- 

 ing strained; with the advent to power of the new regime the situation became worse 

 instead of better, for the Young Turks, in their blind hatred of everything 

 Turke. ' foreign and believing Italy the weakest of the great Powers, lost no oppor- 

 tunity of showing their contempt for her. Italian enterprise was hampered 

 in every way, and in the vilayet of Tripoli, where Italy's reversionary interest had been 

 recognised by Great Britain and France, where much Italian capital had been invested 

 and where the Italian Government had created schools, hospitals, etc., the hostility 

 of the Ottoman authorities was even more marked and the life of Italian residents ren- 

 dered intolerable. An Italian missionary, Father Guistino, had been murdered by a 

 native at Derna on March 22, 1908, and another Italian, Gastone Terreni, near Tripoli 

 by a Turkish Zaptieh on June 2Oth, with the direct complicity of the local authorities, 

 but it proved impossible to obtain redress for these crimes. Italy's efforts at concilia- 

 tion proved unavailing and were regarded as proofs of weakness, " incidents " multi- 

 plied, and Turkish gunboats even fired on and sank Italian sailing craft in the Red Sea. 

 Italy had originally intended to extend her influence in Tripolitania only by means of 

 pacific penetration, but with the reopening of the Morocco question, it became clear that 

 the last unoccupied Mediterranean lands were being divided -up, and Italy, who with 

 her large emigrant population has need of more territory where her sons can settle 

 under the national flag, realised that this was her last chance of acquiring a colony. 



For some time the Nationalist party, which had come into being at the Florence 

 Congress in December 1910, had been conducting a propaganda in favour of a more 

 vigorous foreign policy and roused public opinion to the need for action; 

 declared. although the Giolitti Cabinet was most anxious to avoid international 

 complications, it could not disregard the new spirit pervading the Italian 

 people. By July it informed the Powers that the conduct of Turkey could no longer 

 be tolerated, and no change for the better having occurred military preparations were 

 begun on September 2oth. On the 23rd the reservists born in 1888 were called back 

 to the colours, and a Note was presented to the Porte on the 26th calling its attention 

 to the risks to which Moslem fanaticism was subjecting the Italian residents, and adding 

 that the sending of reinforcements or arms to the African vilayet would be regarded as 

 a very serious act. On the 2;th the Turkish steamer " Derna," flying the German flag, 



