"It was not a little amusing to note the expression of simple amazement with which the general Press of England acknowledged the discovery that Italy 'actually contemplates' this extension of territory. Would they be surprised to hear that such has been her object for the last six hundred years; that in her darkest hour she has never abandoned her claim; that during the last half-century she has urged it with all her might, and that at the present moment she is steadily labouring to the same end? We, who derive experience from the pages of history, firmly believe that the prize would even now be in her hands were it not for Prussia, who calculates upon the gravitation of the Austro-German race, and who already speaks of Trieste as 'our future seaport.' But why, we ask, cannot Italy rest contented with Venice, which, after a century of neglect, might by liberal measures again become one of the principal commercial centres of Europe?
"Under Augustus the whole of Istria was annexed to the tenth region of Italy; the south-eastern limits being the Flumen Arsæ, the modern Arsa, that great gash in the Eastern flank beyond which began Liburnia. Hence Dante sang ('Inferno,' ix. 113-115)—
'Si come a Pola presso del Quarnaro
Che Italia chiude e i suoi termini bagna,
Fanno i sepolcri tutto 'l loco varo.'
Hence Petrarch (Sonnet cxiv.) declares of his Laura, whose praises he cannot waft all the world over—
'——udralo il bel paese,
Ch' Apennin parte, e 'l mar circonda e 'l Alpe.'
And who can forget the glorious verse of Alfieri, the first to discern Italy in the 'geographical expression' of the eighteenth century?—
'Giorno verrà, tornerà giorno in cui
Redivivi ornai gli Itali staranno,
In campo armati,' etc., etc., etc.
"Italy bases her claim to the larger limit, upon geography, ethnology, and sentiment, as well as upon history. Only the most modest of patriots contend that the Isonzo river, the present boundary of Austria, was a capricious creation of Napoleon I. The more ambitious spirits demand the whole southern watershed of the Julian Alps; nor are they wanting who, by 'Alps' understanding the Dinaric chain, would thus include the whole kingdom of Dalmatia inherited from the Romans.
"Ethnologically, again, Istria declares herself Italian, not Austrian. Her 290,000 souls (round number) consist of 166,000 Latins to 109,000 Slavs, the latter a mongrel breed that emigrated between A.D. 800 and 1657; and a small residue of foreigners, especially Austro-German officials. The Italians are, it is true, confined to the inner towns and to the cities of the seaboard; still, these scattered centres cannot forget that to their noble blood Istria has owed all her civilization, all her progress, and all her glories in arts and arms. Lastly, 'sentiment,' as a factor of unknown power in the great sum of what constitutes 'politics,' is undervalued only by the ignorant vulgus. The Istrians are more Italian than the Italians. Since the first constitution of 1848, they have little to complain of the Government in theory, much in practice. Austria, after the fashion of Prussia, unwisely attempts to 'Germanize' her Italian subjects, who in Istria outnumber the Teutons by five to one. The true policy of Austria would be to Italianize the Italians, to Slavonize the Slavs, and to Magyarize the Hungarians; in other words, to elicit the good qualities of her four component races, instead of attempting to unrace them. And her first practical step should be to abolish all idea of 'Germanizing.' If she did not try for it, it might settle itself.
"The chief danger of Italy, at present, is wishing to go too fast. She would run before she can walk steadily: she forgets the past: she ignores that her independence and unity were won for, and not by, her; that each defeat was to her a conquest. She had the greatest statesman in Europe, Cavour; who so disposed his game, opening it in 1854 with the Crimean War, and following it up with a seat for Piedmont amongst the Great Powers in the Congress of Paris, that it led by a mathematical certainty to Solferino in 1859, and to securing Rome for a capital in 1870. But 'milor Camillo' is dead, and Prince Bismarck, who rules in his stead, bluntly says, 'No one can doubt, even beyond the Alps, that an attack upon Trieste and Istria would meet the point of a sword which is not Austrian.' Italy must put her house in order before she can aspire to extend her grounds. Her income is insufficient for her expenses; her gold is paper; her currency is forced, and her heavy taxes breed general discontent. She has a noble estate for agriculture, but her peasants prefer the stocking to the stocks, the Funds, or the Bank. Her Civil Service is half paid, and compelled to pay itself. Her Custom-house duties are a scandal to a civilized power, and her post-office is a farce. Her army cannot compare, in fighting qualities, with that of Prussia, Austria, or even France. Her sailors are not tailors, but she cannot afford a first-rate armour-clad fleet; she was beaten at Lissa, and her seaboard would easily be blockaded by a great maritime power. Moreover, she has that dual Government at Rome, and a terrible skeleton in the cupboard,—her treatment of the Pope.