ITALIAN LAND SETTLEMENT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3137, 2 October 1922, Page 7

ITALIAN LAND SETTLEMENT.

Thus writes the Home correspondent of the New York Herald:— Tho Italian farmer, who not so long ago was a serf, is now tho most important political element in the country. He got the voto in 191:3, but it is only since tho war that he has come to be the most courted of all groups.

A dramatic proof of this new position is the fact that tho Chamber of Deputies has just passed by a large majority a law calling for the appropriation by the Government of the large uncultivated estates, putting them into the hands of co-operatives of farm workers. The measure is a radical one, entailing the socialising of any large tracts the Government may decide and involving the expenditure of at least 200,000,000 lire. The measure is supportde by the Popular ,(Catholic) party, tho Socialists and 'most of the other parties, who desired to win the favor of the farmers. And this measure is only tho last one of scores enacted by the Government in the last few years for the encouragement of the farmer, and' particularly of tho landless farm worker.

From time immemorial tho agrarian problem has boon tho most important and the most perplexing in tho peninsula. Conditions of climate, of dry or mountainous areas, alternating with marshes, have complicated it. But from tho agricultural point of view the worst complication has been tho fact of political competition for control of the country's farming system and workers which has grown up sinco the war.

The Socialist party was the first to interest itself in the peasant, beginning at least thirty years ago tq domi unto the farm workers in tho Po valley. Hundreds of collective farms which now dot central Italy were the product of Socialist teaching. Most of these grew up in a natural fashion and have had more or less success. When the soldiers began returning from the trenches and war factories, where they had been bombarded by Socialist theorists, they brought back a strong desire for ownership of the land, with the result that many experiments in collective farming were launched. Some of them were very radical, involving the forcible occupation of the land, hiring the former proprietor as the manager of the new colony and! profit-sharing. These mushroom cooperatives have nearly all crumbled, having had too little practical basis. At the same time the Popular and Faseisti parties, began to form co-opera-tives of their own, or to take over cooperatives formerly under Socialist control, with the result that the co-opera-tives are now divided betweeir the "White" Popular Party, the "Green" Faseisti and the "Red" Socialist*. Farming co-operatives are increasing in Italy at a rapid pace. In 1914 out of the 7429 co-operatives in the country 1242 were agrarian. During and since the war the formation of new societies has gone on at a rapid pace, so that now there are about 10,000 in the country.

These co-operatives have been operating under such a variety of circumstances that it is difficult to generalise on the success or otherwise of the system in Italy. In the opinion of Dr Giulio Costanzo, expert on rural co-op-eration of the International Institute of Agriculture, the co-operatives which have been' established tor some time, particularly in Central Italy, often have proved successful. Where they have failed it is chiefly because of tho lack of capital and efficient management and the failure to find a tract of lank suited to collective farming.