ITALY'S PROGRESS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1366, 17 February 1912, Page 10

ITALY'S PROGRESS.

HER RECORD SINCE THE UNION

Italy's expansionist effort in Tripoli prompts Jlr. If. Nelson Gay to give in rlio "Nineteenth Century and After an interesting summary of the progress which Italy lias.made sineo she became a united and independent realm. It appears that both her imports and exports have more than doubled in the last 20 years, and in the exports the'percentage of increase has been by far tho greatest on manufacurcd goods. There has, in fact', lieen a rapid development of manufacturing in tho country, due, it is said, in no small degree to the employment of.clcctricity as motive power. Italy was greatly handicapped as a manufacturing country by tho almost total want of coal supplies within us borders. The coal it used had to be imported, and its high cost adds materially to the price of manufactured goods. Of late, however, the Italians have learnt to use instead of coal their abundant water supply. Electrical engineering has been able to transform water power from the streams (lowing from tho Alps and tho Appenines into electric power, for the use of factories. In 20 years silk products liavo more than quadrupled, while tho value of shares of companies engaged in cotton manufacture increased thirteen-fold between ISS2 and 190 S. Agriculture, too, lias shown great progress, thanks to improved methods, reclamation of marsh grounds, and the use of fertilisers, which have becomc 0110 of tho staple products of Italian industry. Sanitary improvements and regulations have brought down tlio death-rate from 3 per cent, to about 2 per cent.—a decrease representing the saving of 250,000 lives annually; the excess of births over deaths now amounting to about 400,000 a year. With present economic conditions Italy cannot provide for this population as rapidly as it increases, and consequently emigration presents one of her most serious political problems. 'J'he rapid growth of emigration is largely duo' to th«_ saving of lives by improved sanitation, and at the present moment there are five and a half millions of Italians resident in foreign countries. This emigration is an important factor in tho economy of the home country. Official estimates indicate that savings, amounting to no less than <£'20,0(10,000. are sent or brought back annually to their nativo country by Italians working abroad. "It is," says Mr. Gay, "this enormous sum of emigrant earnings which lias enabled Italy to meet, without difficulty, the large and constant excess of imports over exports in the annual trade balances. Italy has no desire to stop lier current of foreign emigration, but, in its nature, it is a precarious l factor in the country's economic situation; Italians can never be certain that the ports of Argentina and the United States, to which emigration is largely directed, will not be one day closed lo Italian labour, or that economic conditions in the Americas will not in time becomc so altered as no longer to provide employment for it. Such a change would involve Italy in a terrible economic crisis; for, great as has been her recent commercial and agricultural development, her conditions arc not such as would enable her to furnish witliin her present territory additional employment to 400,000 ]K?rsons annually." It is in search of a solution for the problem of emigration that Italian statesmen have kept their eyes fixed across the Mediterranean to the northern shores of Africa, nnd it is realisation of tho need for fields lo which emigration can take placo that has united tlie whole Italian nation, except extreme Socialists, in support of the Government's Tripolilan policy. Italian?, driven by the need of emigration, aro encouraged to incur just now tho expense of an expansionist policy, because of their country's sound financial position. Italian Government stocks hold a very high place in the markets of tho world, and for twelve years Italy has shown an unbroken series of favourable balances in her budgets.