ITALY AND AFRICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20521, 24 March 1930, Page 8

ITALY AND AFRICA.

While the Franco-Italian difficulty is hampering the progress of the Naval Conference and contributing to the gloom that now clouds its outlook, a new cause for international anxiety is furnished by the debate on the colonial estimates in the Chamber of Deputies at Rome. The source of the news is so wellinformed and reliable that what is reported cannot be lightly set aside as negligible. Italy seeks territorial expansion in Africa—not a mere deepening of her littoral holdings in the Mediterranean, but a southward thrust into Africa's equatorial expanse. The speeches of some of the deputies may be discounted a little, perhaps, as sudden outbursts of national feeling, but recent history gives considerable support to the opinion that, underlying whatever extravagances of utterance may require trimming before a just view is obtained, there exists a serious purpose. Time and again has international trouble arisen through' the assertion of Italian claims at various spots along the southern shore of the Mediterranean. There has been, at times, a manifest reluctance on Signor Mussolini's . part to conciliate the Powers regarded by Italy as rivals there, and at one stage a marked coldness towaj'd the League of Nations was exhibited by him when it undertook a settlement of competing claims. To assert that Tripoli is destined to be one of the master lines of the world's commerce may sound like hyperbole, but in an age of extending communications this is by no means beyond the bounds of possibility. For the Colonial Minister to ally himself with the ambitious idea is to give it much significance. Even if nothing more is heard of it immediately, it is certain that the Italian mind will be more or less inflamed to accept it and to cherish it until opportunity favours its being given practical effect. Fortunately, the other Powers concerned—Britain and France—will be able to exercise restraining pressure through their influence in the League. A decade ago, this tribunal, though in existence, would have been too weak to intervene. Now it has prestige sufficient to command a hearing, and the hope of averting a grave clash of national policies may be held with considei'able confidence, however serious the risk may be.