THE ITALIAN ELECTIONS.
THE overwhelming majority by which the Italian electors have endorsed Signor Crispi's dictatorship, a majority almost without precedent in modern European history, is all the more significant because of the multitude of the interests and opinions to which he was supposed to be abhorrent. The extreme Radicals of the peninsula were said to detest him as a renegade who, though in heart still a Republican, adhered to the Monarchy because King Humbert was willing to admit him to the first place in its counsels. The Vatican was known to hold him in unusual antipathy, not only as a disbeliever, or, worse still, a heretic trained under Greek teaching, but as an irreconcilable enemy of the Papacy and the priesthood. The Irredentists, who are still strong among the middle-aged Liberals, and who think that nothing is accomplished until every man who speaks Italian becomes a citizen of Italy, despise him for selling part of the country, as they say, to secure an iinglorious safety for the remainder. The very numerous ,friends of France taunt him as the upholder of the Triple Alliance, which they think places France and Italy in per- manent antagonism to each other; and all Italians who possess anything, resent the financial position to which, as they contend, his policy has reduced the Treasury just -when it began once more to flourish. Add to these sources of discontent the personal dislikes which the fiery Sicilian - constantly arouses, and the opinion, known to be widely entertained, that to waste Italian conscripts on an Abys- sinian adventure is certainly cruel, and in all probability profitless, and we have a body of hostile feeling on -which it was only natural that the enemies of the Government should rely, if not with confidence, at least with a new hope. The result has proved that they all alike misread the minds of the mass of the electors. That mass now includes every Italian who can read and write, and its broad opinion turns out to be that, whether Signor Crispi has or has not committed errors of policy, he can govern Italy, and he shall continue to do it. Irredentists, Clericals, friends of France, economists, all have been sent into obscurity, and Signor Crispi remains Premier 'with a majority in Parliament of at least four-fifths of the -whole body of Deputies,—a majority, in fact, which, if it proves unmanageable, will be so because of its great bulk, and the impossibility of satisfying its demands for patronage. There is, in truth, no Opposition left, especially -on foreign affairs, which can make itself felt, and Signor "Crispi is free to keep the country under arms, to carry -out some large economies which in the old Parliament might have irritated large groups, and, to propose some " Socialist " measures, chiefly on the lines suggested in Germany, which he is said to have greatly at heart. It is argued that the total poll was small, in Rome in particular ; but all experience proves that criticism to be futile. Excited opponents do not abstain from voting, and with a brave and decided Ministry in power, acquiescence is almost as valuable as direct support. Acquiescence, indeed, is the ,support of all but the most popular Administrations. His countrymen have decided to trust Signor Crispi, and he -can carry almost any internal measure he pleases, while his external policy must acquire a new vigour and distinct- -mess, if only because every agent of Italy is now sure that the present head of affairs will continue to bear rule.
The result of this great election must affect foreign politics throughout all Europe. To begin with, it im- mensely simplifies and strengthens the position of the Triple -Alliance. Italy is not one of the giant buttresses of that great arch, but it is its key-stone, the division without which it could not hold together. The Italian electors have decided that the key-stone shall remain im- movable; and a secret fear felt both in Berlin and Austria, and developed by some of Signor Crispi's crafty utterances, will thereby be removed. The German Emperor will be satisfied that King Humbert can carry out his policy, which is adhesion to the League, even in the event of war; and. the Austrian Emperor will be satisfied that the Irredentist cry—which personally, it is said, annoys him as a kind of insolence, and evidence that Italy has not forgiven his House—is raised only by a faction, and not by a party which may be speedily in power. The bond between Germany and Italy will be drawn much closer, German politicians despising instability in a Govern- ment even more than weakness ; while the watchful friendship which has grown up between Rome and Vienna will be changed into a genuine amity certain to last until it is finally tested, as it may one day be tested, by events within the Balkan. The interests of Italy and Austria are not in harmony there, but, the Irredentist cry once silenced, they need not come into collision until the great war is over, or until, the great war being averted by compromise, the Hapsburgs make their final effort to advance to Salonica. A cordial alliance of that kind is a very different thing from an alliance of mere interest, and will be felt, and felt deeply, in every inter- national question, and especially in action upon those subjects which are not covered by any agreement, either tacit or recorded. Diplomatists stand by their master's friends as they do not stand by mere allies, and Kings resent affronts to those whom they wish to be great, much more than affronts to those to whom they are bound only by a promise of common action, in contingent emergencies. We shall see Italy take up a more decided position than ever, and probably a still more friendly one towards Great Britain. Her interests are our interests in the Mediterranean, in Constantinople, and in Africa ; but she has been checked in acknowledging that fact by un- willingness to irritate France, who might, if her own Radicals grew strong, be her necessary alternative ally. That fear is over for the time, and Signor Crispi may venture, if he pleases, even to parade his desire that Italy and England should be recognised all over the world as friends, bound together by a certain necessity for each other's help. People in London recognise that in the event of danger, only Great Britain could guarantee the maritime cities of the long and narrow peninsula ; but they forget that our weakness in Eastern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa is our want of an army numerically strong, and that our legal claim in Egypt is an international vote, which Italy, if so disposed, could make a hostile one. There are a score of questions on which, if Great Britain and Italy are allied, there will be no difficulty in the path of either, while, if they are divided, neither of them can move without risks which it is not worth while to encounter. No one recognises that truth more cordially than Signor Crispi, and his victory at the polls will allow him much more freely to show his hand without fear of that party which is always telling him, as it recently told him about Kassala, that when England is concerned, he fails both in energy and peremptoriness. On the other hand, we can hardly doubt that the vote will tend. to draw Paris and St. Petersburg much more closely together. The French irritation with Signor Crispi approaches very nearly to malignity, and induced them, it is said, to exert their whole influence, always considerable, and recently strengthened by the hopes held out of com- mercial concessions, to promote his overthrow. Frenchmen, it is said, though we can hardly believe it, have even sub- scribed money freely to help Opposition candidates ; and the Italian Premier himself was so aware of the effect of French influence, that it was to disarm them he made his excessively conciliatory and somewhat unscrupulous statements to the agent of the Figaro. Their total defeat, and the great triumph of their antagonist, will check French designs on the south side of the Mediterranean, will render them almost powerless in Egypt, and will bring home to them more bitterly than ever that galling sense of isolation which is to Frenchmen, in spite of all the magnificent strength of France, a source at once of humiliation and of terror. The French people hate to stand alone, as much, we fancy, out of vanity as out of shrewdness ; and they are alone in Europe. They are certain, therefore, to cultivate Russia with even more assiduity, and they must in the end meet with a warmer response. The Czar, it is true, does not mind loneliness for itself, holding that "the ideas of the West" only corrupt his people ; but there is no real loneliness possible to any State, however remote or however separate in its institutions. The Czar must go to Paris for money, if for nothing else ; nor will it help his popularity with his subjects to let it be seen, whenever he has determined upon a course, that all Europe is on the other side. He must have some strong supporter in all questions that are international, and as France is the only one attainable, alliance with France, whether formal or informal, is almost a necessity. His Ministers hoped, it is said, that the necessity might be averted by an electoral explosion in Italy ; but that hope is now at an end, and with it any chance of permanently avoiding the French alliance. The Czar may remain as adverse as ever, and may continue to think that Russia can be and must be self-dependent ; but the self-dependence can only last while he remains at peace or engaged in his work of pre- paration. The moment he moves, no matter in what direction, isolation will be as inconvenient to Russia as to any other Power. She wants no men for any purpose whatever, even if it be war with the League of Peace ; but she wants ships, money, and an absence of the feeling that Europe as a whole is inimical to her designs. The strength of States, when engaged in an adventure, does not depend on opinion, but their confidence often does.
Previous page
