THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MARCH 9,1896.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10074, 9 March 1896, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MARCH 9,1896.

The defeat which has befallen the Italian Army in Abyssinia is the culmination of a series of disasters, which have been attending the arms of Italy ever since she essayed the task of founding a colony on the shores of the Red Sea. It is easy being wise after the event, and probably there are few even in Italy that do not recognise the imprudence of the fashion in which that nation entered on a career of foreign contest with the apparent object mainly of sustaining its prestige as one of the great Powers. Incensed at the advances made by France along the Northern shores of Africa, and especially in establishing a protectorate over Tunis, Italy had determined on a colonial career, and the circumstances seeming to be favourable—England having retired from the Soudan, and being favourably disposed to the extension of civilised power on the southern outskirts of the nominal Egyptian sphere—she took possession of Massowah, an Egyptian island and port, which had been the outlet for the trade of Abyssinia. With this as a starting point Italy has been extending the boundaries of her territory until some four or live hundred miles of the littoral, extending from the Southern Egyptian frontier to the Straits of Babel Mandeb, at the entrance of the Red Sea, has been included in an Italian colony named Erythrea. With an undefined boundary inland, she has been in constant collision with her Abyssinian hinterland for the past ten years; and, though suffering frequent defeats, she had established a recognised protectorate over the country. But, in following out the natural destiny of all protectorates, she has been confronted by the determined resistance of the semi-wild mountain tribes of Abyssinia, whose rugged fastnesses have given them advantages to compensate for the superior military skill and aims of their assailants, and who, gaining in experience, and not improbably from the covert assistance and supplies of nations that have no good will to Italian pretensions, they have succeeded at last in delivering a blow under which Italy itself seems to reel. For not only has an army of 10,000 men, with their cannon and munitions of war, been swept away, not only are the remnant in the country beleaguered and in danger of being starved into submission, but Italy itself seems in incipient revolt, while the determination of the Government to redeem the prestige of the nation and to wring victory from the Abjssinians is embarrassed, if it is not almost paralysed, by the popular uprising against an unpopular war, and the strong division of feeling in the Parliament itself of the country. The gravity of the situation is not in the loss of an army, for that can be replaced, and already eight times the number have been summoned to arras, and transports are (iiiior with soldiers for the seat of war. But the finances of the nation had been already strained to what was considered the breaking point, ana the people had been driven by the severity of taxation into revolt in various parts of the kingdom. And just at a time when the national spirit has been broken, by Tunis being virtually made over to France, and by England being alienated from friendship with the Triple Alliance, Italy is called to make new and heavier sacrifices for a war as profitless in promise as it is uncongenial to the popular mind. Sicily and Southern Italy have ' been but recently suppressed by martial aw; now there is a threatened rising at Naples, and we learn that the condition of the northern districts is alarming: rioting is taking place in various cities; the people are rooting up the railways to prevent reinforcements being sent to Abyssinia j military guards have been placed over the parliamentary buildings to protect them from popular violence and the Government has been forced to bow before the popular will. The position is one of extreme perplexity, and it is difficult to look on it otherwise than as extremely critical in the fate and fortunes of the kingdom. So far as the Abyssinian war is concerned Italy will no doubt feel compelled to carry it through at whatever cost. Such a humiliation in the sight of Europe has to be wiped out if Italy is to retain j the position to which she has attained among the nations. But. that done, or that proceeding, Italy is bound to re consider the situation, and to arrest the drift in which she is being carried away towards insolvency ; while we can hardly doubt that recent events which have been attracting considerable attention will assist her in coming to a decision.

' There is something not a little siguificant in the expressed sympathy of France with Italy in this particular disaster. It has been no secret thac France looked from the first with disfavour on this extension of Italian influence on the Red Sea, and that tins extension itself was meant as a counterblast to the operations of j. ranee in extending her power in the Mediterranean. An expression of sympathy therefore coming from Franco has something of the appearance of an overture towards a restoration of the friendly spirit that used to exist between these two Latin races. The joining of Italy in the Triple Alliance was influenced mainly by illwill towards France, and not only lias Italy suffered enough from maintaining her status in the Triple Alliance to make her inclined to retire from it, but , the late escapade of the German Emperor in provoke iug hostilities with England— the most j

popular of all countries with made Italy f u n v Cftna . Italla », U, B P!,ssibl » d *"«« iCTo'i 0 ' longer continuance in an all:. he ' tod<»p ro vok,th.it7;>w and Russia, and posib lv £**»* Britain. The time, therefore ,l Great opportune for a sympathetii J * probable eventuality that t! ra ' harassment that has su(klenlv°f,li on Italy from this reverse in AW may make the occasion for her » siderjng her connection with the Tr'°' Alliance. The recession of Italy f! P ' r ' that Alliance would practically ,C " : ' the breaking up of what was as a league of peace, but one w!,;,!, in the case of Italy at least, has u' nearly as ruinous as war; and as J" from France is ail that Italy in'tewU to protect herself against, an of friendship from France, comi / the alarm created by the Kaiser's [.Q lenge to British ill will, might b,' tU starting point in a radical altiM-.u l . > „ j* the international relations of K Un , ( U The impolitic action of the Urn, Empire in relation to Transvaal lUhh Empire in relation to Transvaal M) , v have more far-reaching issues than I,', ever contemplated, not the least ; ' to him being the possible dissolution If the Triple Alliance,