THREE PROBLEMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 27, 2 February 1938, Page 12

THREE PROBLEMS

IN ABYSSINIA i .

I ITALY'S TROUBLES

LACK OF CAPITAL

ißeceived February 2, 2.,'J5 p.m.) LONDON. February 1. The Aden correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" says that Italy has still three big problems in Abyssinialack of capital, passive resistance by the natives, and the stifling effect of a Stale-controlled system of trading. Italian officials state that Italian industrialists have already invested £5,000,000 in Abyssinia, but the Government in Rome is not putting the money into the country, in which there is no visible sign of prospecting or of industrial development. Italians are returning home in considerable numbers via Massawa and Djibouti, including soldiers, traders, and navvies. Lack of capital has retarded the colonisation of even the comparatively secure zones around Addis Ababa and Harrar. Timber and other building material from Italy costs double the normal price, and everything else, including flour, eggs, and meat, is equally expensive and often difficult to get. Since the first hundred were placed on the land two years ago, little has been heard of the soldier-settlers who were to leave the rifle for the plough. The Italian occupation is firmly established in Addis Ababa, Harrar, Diredawa, and other towns and within a fifty miles radius of them, but the native chieftains still hold sway over the greater part of regions where lack of roads makes quick movement of troops impossible. It is estimated that only about one-third of the arms the natives possessed at the close of the war have been surrendered. The Djibouti-Addis Ababa railway is constantly harassed by brigands. Blackshirt legionaries equipped with rifles, daggers, and machine-guns man the trucks, but are sometimes outnumber- i ed by the hordes which swoop down to | plunder the trains. This does not mean that the Italian occupation is in jeopardy. So long as Rome keeps the peace in Europe, Egypt and French North Africa she will hold her new empire, but in the event of war beyond her own frontiers the Abyssinians might drive her out. The natives have abandoned agriculture and many thousands have fled to the hills and the jungles. They resent being paid less for wheat, cattle, ] and coffee than their own market price. _____■__——