"ITALIA IRRIDENTA."

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 28 May 1915, Page 3

"ITALIA IRRIDENTA."

WHAT rr_VLKl^^F|^iia3No":F^.' . "Ita4ialrridenfa" (tfnr£deemed>s Italy) w the .batt leery with which the peninsular powerVof-the Mediterranean enters on tbe present conflict. We occasionally read* in the papei-s about the Irridentists. and presumably we have a better idea of the meaning of the name , than the German child who asked her father, "Pa, -what \is an Irridentist ?" . "Irridentist,- dentist, let me see, *tha+ must be' some kind of tooth-doctor" (the German word fordemtist, "zahnartzt," it may ?>e explained, literal v means a tooth-doctor). The Irridentist, needless-.to say, is a man who makes ar active propaganda in favor- of unredeemed Italy, and ho has been very much to the fore of late. What is unredeemed Italy? It includes Savoy nnd Nice, the latter the home of, Giusenpe Garibaldi, though now a part of France." It also includes Corsica, the home of Napoleon, the inhabitants of which are Italian by race and language. Napoleon himself it may be noted, seems to have had no feeling of nostalgia for his island borne: in his later years he almost forgot Italian, though it was his mother tongue, aud he altered the Italian spelling of his name, Buonaparte, to the French form of Bonaparte. This was iust after hi* first Italian campaign, wii en he wished to identify himself with France aud her dostiiifes. Trieste and the Trentino, as we know, are also part of unredeemed Italy. -These are the districts which Italy now aims at recovering, and they are likely to be the scene of* military operations. Ihe Dalmatian coast, too, and the islands which lie off it, ar.e largely Italian in speech, and the language of Dante is also generally unoersiood in the lonian Islands (tnat former British colony, ceded by Gladstone to Greece), and in parts of the Eastern Adriatic. Ticino is the only canton of Switzerland which is wholly Italian in language, but the same tongue is the .vernacular in part ot Gnsons. but not least, the British colony of Malta, where the Maoris are undergoing garrison duty, arid Australasian soldiers wounded in the Dardanelles are being sent to recuperate, also forms part of unredeemed Italy. It is true the Maltese have a language of their own. a sort of bastard Arabic, wliich denotes their Punic origin, but Italian is the language of the uppe-. classes; it was formerly also the official language, though English has now su.perseded it m this respect, not without protest on the part of the natives. «t? 1"?e,-r then > we see the SC°P® of -Italia Irnden ta," avast region which yet remains to be annexed to thecountry of Garibaldi before she can be, said to have absorbed all her kinsmen. It is her ambition to he the great power, of the Mediterranean and the sole ruler of the Adriatic—the latter an honor claimed by Venice in the time of the Doges. ' Italy, thougji the, smallest of the great Powers, has always played a leading part in the history of-civilisation. She has a culture which is older than that of any other European State, and in proportion to her population she has produced as many great men as any other country—if not more. This is all the more notable from the fact, that it is only Northern Italy which has produced eminent scientists; men who have, made for themselves names in the arts of astronomy, electricity, galvanism, telegraphy, and many others. The Southerners are more^ illiterate, passionate, and more addicted to crime. It is the home of Mafia and the Camorra. • Thei verjf names Calabrese, Napolitan, or Sicilian are terms of opprobrium in Argentina, which has a large Italian population. But if the Italian of the North is more energetic, intelligent, and entemrising than his brother of the South, is not this same distinction between North and South visible in other Euronoan countries? Ever since Italy has been a united country, she has sought to extend her borders so as to include all Italianspeaking races. This is only natural. For centuries, the peninsula was the football of other grant Powers, notable

France and Austria. Napoleon I. carved several States out of Italian territory, placing over them rulers who were his

own relatives or adherents. Milan and

Venice formerly belonged to Austria, Tuscany was ruled by scions of the bouse of Hahsburg. The Pope, assuming to himself temporal power, lone ruled over a large portion of central

Italy, a position in wbich he was unbeM by French bayonets, till the Italians, taking advantage of the Franco-German war, denoted the Pope pud took possession o^ his territory. Venice continued to be an Austrian province till 1&66, when it va* ceded to Nanolcm ITL, who handed it oven to Italy. But Fre^h co-operation co=t I+aly dear: she paid for it with her provinces of Savoy and Nice.

Italy. like G£r*na"v, o*\ce united soon became a colonising Power; both pttained unification about the same

ti^e. and both commenced to acquire colonies nboll*' the <sa"ie time. The Ttalian colonies p™» Eri+'"'><i. on the T-te-l Sea, and nart of Rn'n nHI nnrl. to whifh miiR + now h^ rvdded Tri"-^1". In flddi+ir>n +o this, Tfnlv hp-ftft? C^npied pn-^e n-F +1->o

'Hn-rVioi, islands in the Aegean.—Auckland Star