In this case, the nationality protected by the Austrian Government (which took the census-making out of the hands of the Italian communal administration) was that of the Slovenes. Hence we are safe in assuming the Italians to be something more than 50 per cent. of the population and the Slovenes something less than 36 per cent. If we blindly accept the Austrian statistics, we shall be forced to believe that the Slovenes in Gorizia had almost doubled their numbers between 1900 and 1910, although the decennial increase of the Slovene population has generally during that period been only from 4 to 5 per cent.* Even allowing for the fact that in a town like Gorizia, attracting to itself the population of a vicinity preponderatingly Slav, the Slav population would naturally increase more rapidly than its rivals, it is evident that an increase of 85 per cent. in ten years is impossible. It would not be far from the truth to calculate that in the town of Gorizia two-thirds of the population are Italian, and one-third Slovenian.t

This being so, if the town of Gorizia, on the left bank of the Isonzo, were incorporated in Italy, as it would have a right to be by the composition of its ethnical majority, this would leave the Slovenian nuclei to the north, scattered in the mountainous zones of Carnia and the Carso, without any economic and administrative centre: if, on the other hand, it were incorporated in the new Slav State, the south-east plateau zone would lose its centre, and a large city with a majority of Italian inhabitants would be incorporated in a Slav State.

In Trieste and the adjacent territory, according to the 1910 census, when the governing authority was favourable to the Slovenes, the 229,900 inhabitants are divided into 119,000 Italians (that is to say, 62.31 per cent.), and 59,000 Slavs (29.81 per cent.). On the other hand, according to the census made by the Italian municipal authorities, 74-67 per cent. were Italians and 19-44 Slavs. Even if we accept the official figures, we are bound in good faith to conclude from this census,

Chevrin, op. cit., p. 11.

†The census of 1900 gave Gorizia 16,112 Italians and 4754 Slovenians.

The census of 1900, made by the municipal authorities, gave 116,000 Italians and 24,000 Slovenes.

which gives for Trieste 38,000 foreigners, of whom 30,000 are certainly Italians, that in Trieste and its territory the Slav population is one-quarter at the utmost, while three-quarters are Italian. And indeed, since the immigration of the Slovenian population into the towns has always been favoured by the Austrian Government as a weapon in its fight against the Italians, we may consider this element as greater now than it would be in different political conditions. In any case, the Slav element is mainly disposed in the country or in the suburbs; the city proper, in its upper and middle classes, even in its populace, is overwhelmingly Italian.

In Istria the census of 1910 gives 168,000 SerboCroatians, 55,000 Slovenes, 147,000 Italians; * but in Istria it is important to distinguish the eastern zone, on the other side of the Vena Mountains and Monte Maggiore (district of Volosca), whose 50,000 inhabitants are overwhelmingly Slav, from Western Istria, where Italians and Slavs are everywhere mingled in such a fashion as to make it simply impossible to divide the territory of the one from that of the other, the only difference being that the Italians tend to concentrate in the cities, while the Slovenes and Serbo-Croatians form the bulk of the rural populations.

The district of Volosca (47,700 Slavs, 955 Italians) has been always considered by Italian writers (e.g. Combi, Benussi) as a 'monstrous appendage' connected with Istria proper by the Austrian Government in order to augment the preponderance of Slavs over Italians in the province. Take this appendage away from Istria, and the Slav preponderance in Eastern Istria would be reduced to not more than 27,000 persons on a total of 327,000 inhabitants. Even this minimal majority is partly determined by the fact that the Austrian Government has always admitted by preference Croatians to work in the Arsenal at Pola, excluding the Italian element as much as possible, without, however, succeeding in preventing an Italian majority in Pola. Furthermore, one must note that the most important Istrian towns-Pola (37,000), Rovigno (11,000), Capodistria (9000), Pirano (8000), Muggia

* Census of 1900: 143,000 Serbo-Croatians, 44,000 Slovenes, 136,000 Italians.

(5000), Isola (7000), Parenzo (4000) and Dignano (6000)— are, generally speaking, overwhelmingly Italian. Pisino and Gimino are the only cities of more than 4000 inhabitants which have a Slav majority. In general the Slavs are scattered over a rocky and miserable territory in small centres which rarely exceed 1000 inhabitants.

To sum up-the population of the Julian Veneto, when the district of Volosca is subtracted from Istria, is divided between Italians and Slavs in equal proportions even on the basis of things created by the Austrian régime, and calculated on the Austrian statistics.

The problem thus deals with a region which is ethnically an equally mixed one, about which it is futile to discuss whether it be Italian or Slav, as do the Italian and Slav Nationalists, since every fair-minded person must see that it is an Italo-Slav region, in which neither of the races that live together there can claim the right of imposing its own exclusive nationality.

This being so, it seems probable that, should it be possible to create a new Serbo-Sloveno-Croatian State, the apportionment of the Julian Veneto to Italy would be the solution which would create the fewest difficulties in daily administration, and would most quickly induce the Italians and Slavs to shake down together in the contested regions, while it would have the further result of more solidly assuring good relations between Italy and the Slav State.

We do not pretend that the Italians in the Julian Veneto are the 'superior race,' as the Italian Nationalists childishly imagine, nor can we fail to recognise that the Italian Government, in its administration of the region, will have great difficulty in restraining the tendency towards reprisals and vendette against the Slavs, because a half-century of ferocious fighting in those regions has perverted too many spirits and destroyed in them every sentiment of equity and liberty; and we cannot even

guarantee that the Italian Government, under the pressure of local hatreds, will not commit errors, perhaps great ones. But, on the other hand, it is not credible that the political agitators for Slav Nationalism have not been at least as much perverted and envenomed by the methods of the Austrian Government as the Italian Nationalist politicians, nor that their mania for persecution and violence might not make itself felt in the government of the new Slav State; still less that this Government, as against the Italian Government, could possibly be the only infallibly just Government recorded in human history.

Moreover, it cannot be denied that the Italians in the Julian Veneto constitute the most cultivated and refined social element, that they predominate in almost all the larger cities, are established at the head of such a great centre of political life as Trieste, and have a larger historical tradition of civilisation and government. They present, in brief, the characteristics requisite to assure to the region conditions of well-being, of order, and of a civilisation superior to that which could be hoped for from a rural Slav multitude, constrained by the sterility of the soil they dwell on to a life of exhausting exertion and of comparative rudeness. Trieste, administered by Italy, especially in the first years of the new régime, would certainly not be a bed of roses for an Italian Government desirous-as indeed it must be, even in its own interests —of maintaining legal equality and peaceful relations between the Italian majority and the Slovenian minority ; but what a real Inferno the town would become if it were part of the new Slav State, with the Italian majority assailed on every side by Slovenian Nationalism!

Naturally, the Slavs who would be included in the new Italian frontiers must obtain guarantees that their own cultural liberty will be respected, and that they will enjoy perfect equality before the law with the Italian majority; and there is nothing to hinder this guarantee receiving the solemn sanction of an international pact. The problem of the treatment of national minorities is not one that belongs exclusively to the Julian Veneto; it presents itself in Alsace-Lorraine, in Bohemia, in Poland, in all lands inhabited by mixed races. It must be decided by the Peace Congress, with guarantees of an international

character. These guarantees Italy must not only give but maintain.

The military side of the problem cannot be passed over. In no part of the district of Gorizia is it possible to establish a military frontier which can protect the Veneto against attacks from the east, unless it be the heights almost as far as the forest of Ternova. The plain to the west of Gorizia, inhabited by Italians, has no possible line of defence. On the other hand, the State which is master of the heights between the Isonzo and Laibach can utilise various lines of defence against an assault from below.

Eastern Istria dominates, from the naval base of Pola, the whole of the upper Adriatic; and the maritime inferiority of Italy is aggravated by the political circumstance that, while the Italian forces are paralysed, as regards any offensive movement against the cities of the Istrian coast, by the fact that they are inhabited by Italians, the Austrian offensive from Pola against the Italian coast is not restrained by any preoccupation due to racial solidarity.

The incorporation in Italy of Istria, as far as the Vena Mountains and Monte Maggiore, represents no great peril for Slovenia and Croatia. In fact, on the other side of the suggested Italian frontier, the mountainous land continues for a long distance, with many excellent lines of defence. By sea, in the Gulf of Quarnero, if Italy should gain, along with Istria, the double island, LussinoCherso (territory ethnically mixed, with a slight Croatian predominance), and the Slav State should take the other islands, a condition of perfect equilibrium would be created; the Slav powers could not make use of the Gulf of Quarnero to threaten the Italian coast, nor would the Italian forces care about venturing into the gulf to menace the Slav coast. In short, even from the military point of view, every consideration of equity suggests that, if this ethnically mixed region were given to Italy, one cause of Italy's unfair weakness on land and sea would be eliminated, so that, in a feeling of reciprocal security, friendly relations between Italy and the JugoSlav State might arise such as have been rendered impossible between Italy and Austria by mutual suspicions and anxiety.