ITALY’S STRONG MAN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 98, 8 December 1911, Page 8

ITALY’S STRONG MAN.

CHARACTER SKETCH OF THE FOREIGN MINISTER. A special correspondent in the Loudon “Daily Chronicle” writes:— When a nation that has long played a passive and subordinate part on tlie. stage of international polities suddenly assumes the initiative and steps brusquely into the very centre of the limelight, it is not, as a rule, the tlie result of opportunity alone. It is usually because opportunity coincides with the emergence of some now and forcible personality. This was so in the case of Austria-Hun-gary’s swoop upon Bosnia and Herzegovina three years ago. It is so again, and to an extent that has been little realised, in the case of Italy’s action in Tripoli. Tho parallel, indeed, between Vienna’s policy in 1908 and Rome’s in 1.911 is curiously close. In both cases a Power, satisfied for some decades with a secondary and defensive role, debarred indeed from positive action abroad by the acuteness of its problems at home, undergoes an unlookedfor renaissance, is stirred to self-asser-tion and expansion, and strikes a decisive and resounding blow. In both cases tiie blow is aimed at Turkey, and in both cases its delivery marks the entrance of a bold and skilful newcomer to the fields of international diplomacy. Bosnia and Herzegovina first gave the world tho measure of Count Aohrenthal; Tripoli is equally destined to reveal the attractive and vigorous figure of the Marquis di San Giuliano. Austria and Italy are friends who harbour an instinctive conviction of future enemity. They are allies because, if they wore not, they would have no option but to bo foes. They are historical, and, in a sense, natural antagonists, locked up in an embrace of forced and embarrassing affection. Nothing could he more disastrous to European tranquility than that Italy and Austria should each recover her freedom. It is only a short while ago that the armies’ of both Powers were ostentatiously' manoeuvring on either side of their common frontier, and almost within sight of one another . The status quo, it is true, both in the Balkans and in Albania, is guaranteed by various Austro-Itali-an understandings, but the dislike of Austria remains innate in all Italians; it is sharply intensified by the persistence of Vienna in repeating in the Trentine and Trieste the Austrifying policy that lost her the Lnmbard'oVonetian provinces and a good deal of pressure is needed to keep it under official control whenever Austra makes a forward move iu the Near East.

Italy’s Newfound Energy. The conflict of interests and sentiment between them has not yet been definite and insistent enough to destroy, though it has undoubtedly weakened, tho Alliance, while tho Alliance itself tends to assuage or at least restrain tho conflict. But for all that tiie scheme of Aiistro-Italian relations remains delicate and unstable, at tho mercy of an irritable public opinion, and liable to be disturbed by any one of a score of incidents. No one*, today least of all, can be blind to the possibility that the new-found energy and aggressiveness of the Bailplaiz and the Consulta may be turned against' one another.* Before very long we may sec 1 Count' Aohrenthal ana tile Marquis di Sail Gniliano drawn into an antagonism as sharp as that of two galdiators in a Roman arena. We may see them duplicating the famous diplomatic duels of Bismarck and Metternich and Bulow and Delcasse.

The Marquis di San Giuliano, the present Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the author and prosecutor of tho campaign against Tripoli, is perhaps better known :in 'London than in any other European capital. Tho two years or so that: die recently .spent hero as Ambassador gave t/s-ati opportunity of studying at close range the strongest arid best-equipped personality tiiat has served the Italian Government since the fall of Crispi. 'idle marquis is a Sicilian nobleman of Norman descent, some 53 years old, a Senator of the Kingdom, and thus happily removed from the exigencies of electioneering, and a confirmed student of foreign affairs. In nearly 30 years of political life ho hag held but four offices. After serving as Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and in the Foreign Office, he accepted the portfolio of Postmast-er-General in the Felloux Cabinet of 1899-1900. But ho did not attain to tho post to which his instincts and ■studies had always inclined him, and for which his talents had long and conspicuously marked him out, until towards the close of 1905, when the ortis Cabinet was reconstituted and ho became Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Tho appointment was not well received either in Vicsna or Berlin. The Marquis di San Giuliano knew far too much for tho comfort of his country’s allies. Foreign and colonial questions have been his hobby almost from boyhood ; lie has something of Lord CurKon’s old passion for investigating them on the spot and at first hand; his range of political interests and information is hardly inferior to that of the late Sir Charles Dilke, tho one man who ever tempted me to believe in omniscience; Albania, the Balkans, the Trontiuo, Tripoli, Erythrea, all the districts, in fact, which are the special concern of the Italian Foreign Office, ho has visited and explored, not as a mere sightseer, but as his admirable writings show, as a keen and comprehensive student of men and affairs.

“Rooseuslticn Power.” With a Sicilian quickness of mind, and a Rooseveltian power of acquitiveness, the Marquis unites a strong and sober judgment, and a detachment not unlike Lord Rosebery’s from the ordinary stress of party politics. He is tlie first Italian Foreign Minister of the last decades who can he said to have a mind of his own, and to bo 1 -' really an expert in tho questions that come before him. His predecessors have been little more than Royal secretaries. They have followed the lino of least resistance, and allowed the practical direction of affairs to rest with tho King—an arrangement which has worked well, because Victor Emanuel HI., in my judgment, is Italy’s wisest statesman.

For good or ill, however, it is impossible for the Marquis di San biuliano to efface himself in that way. I Jo is Foreign Minister in fact as well as in name, a confident, resolute man, of pronounced individuality, and much more used to framing his own policies and opinions than to accepting them from someone else. In Vienna, he is suspected of belonging to the class of men “who have been there and ought to know.” Mon of that class have usually a policy of their own, and as a rule that policy is of the “forward” school. The Italian Foreign Minister has seen with his own eyes the efforts of Austria to suppress Italian sympathies and nationality in the Trent im> and Trieste, and to push her' dominion along the eastern coast of hire Adriatic and the Balkans. In the question of Tripoli, when* Italian interests are vary largely Sicilian interests, the Marquis, a Sicilian himself, has always been peculiarly 'concerned. He knows every aspect of

t, physical as well as political, and ;is present course of action is the nitcorno off views long since formed md often expressed, both on paper uid in conversation. Ho is: not a fin,go: ho docs not seek to revive hose colonising enterprises that rceived so great a check at Adowa; Hit his own observations and the vhole trend of recent events have con.'inced him that Italian interests can 10 longer he maintained by a merely legativo policy. In a little while, when Turkish pow;r in Tripoli is at an end, and all taly is thrilling with a new spirit >f buoyancy and success, it may lie ■.eon more clearly than now that the •hid result of the Peninsula’s risor;imento is to increase the latent anagonism between herself and Austria, a that case the struggle between the larqnis di San Giuliano and Count lehrcnthal will he well worth watching, for personal and psychological is well as political reasons—between he Marquis as I have described him rid'the tall, bespectacled, parchmentued diplomatist in the Balplatz, of ■ slow, methodical, half-pedantic sanity of manner, monotonously precise nd unrhetorical in his form of adIress, a faster of reserves, and biased with the gift of avoiding notice, he tireless planner and firm executor if policies, that aim at little loss than n Austrian domination of tho Near Cast.