No. 295.
Mr. Marsh
to Mr. Evarts.
Rome, July 23, 1878. (Received August 14.)
Sir: Count Corti has not returned to the capital since the conclusion of the congress of Berlin. He is in attendance upon the King and Queen, who are making a tour through Northern Italy, and it is rumored that the expression of popular dissatisfaction with his course at the congress, in omitting to demand for Italy an extension of territory corresponding to that acquired by Austria through the action of the congress, has induced him to offer his resignation. I have little reason to believe this rumor to be well founded, nor did I infer from the language of Mr. Cairoli, with whom I had an interview at the foreign office yesterday, that he expected the minister of foreign affairs to take this step. Count Corti’s action at the congress is not only approved by the ministry, but was in conformity with his instructions and with the settled policy of the present administration. Indeed it is certain that any movement on the part of the Italian plenipotentiaries at Berlin, looking to a claim of additional territory as a set-off to the occupation of Bosnia by Austria, would have met with no support from the congress, but would have been resented by Austria in a manner that would infallibly have led to grave results, if not to immediate hostilities between that country and Italy.
It is true that there has been a certain amount of popular agitation on this subject, but the public excitement in reference to it has been greatly misrepresented in character and exaggerated in amount by the European press. There are doubtless individuals who look to the ultimate possession of the eastern shores of the Adriatic by the kingdom of Italy as a desirable and probable event, but few persons of intelligence [Page 476] believe that this can be accomplished within any calculable period, or that in the present social condition of those provinces and of Italy their acquisition would be other than a burden and a calamity to the latter. In fact, until the administration of criminal justice in Italy is so far reformed and assimilated to that of the other countries of civilized Europe as to afford a reasonable measure of security of life and property to her present population, the addition of hundreds of thousands of violent, sanguinary, and ungovernable semi-barbarians to her citizens would much aggravate the deplorable evils under which the central and southern provinces especially, and in a somewhat smaller degree all Italy, now suffer from the lawlessness of a large class of their people.
I do not think, then, that a desire for the possession of Albania or of any Turkish territory can fairly be treated as an element in the present political dissatisfaction of the Italians with the results of the congress, nor is that dissatisfaction by any means so deep or so pervading as it is represented by the British and French press. The meetings in behalf of what is called L’Italia irredenta have not been largely attended, and but few politically influential persons have taken part in them. Their apparent numbers have been swelled by curious spectators, by international agitators, and at Rome by adherents, if not emissaries, of the Vatican, in fact, by malcontents of every shade, and they furnish no evidence of the existence of such a public sentiment as has been hastily assumed abroad.
There is, however, a strong and general feeling that the northeastern limits of the kingdom of Italy ought to be extended so as to embrace all the territory geographically or ethnologically belonging to it, and though the agitation of the question at present is inopportune, the claim will not be abandoned or cease to be a frequent source of agitation until the aspirations of Italy are at least partially satisfied. To determine precisely the line between the two countries which the configuration of surface, the nationality of the populations, and the material interests of both would indicate as the proper boundary is by no means an easy matter, nor is there any certainty as to the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants along the frontier on this point. There is indeed no doubt that what is somewhat vaguely called the Trentino, embracing the territory drained by affluents of the Lago di Garda and by the Adige, is geographically, ethnologically, and historically as thoroughly Italian as any portion of the basin of the Po, and that its possession is essential to the reasonable military security of the kingdom. This entire district was upon the point of falling into the hands of the Italian troops in 1866, and but for the equivocal friendship and ill-timed intervention of Napoleon III would doubtless have been permanently secured to Italy by the peace with Austria.
The claim to Trieste and Istria rests on very different grounds. Trieste and its dependencies have been for five centuries Austrian possessions. They indeed formed a part of the Roman Empire, yet it may fairly be urged that since the breaking up of that empire they have never in any sense formed a part of Italy, though a portion of Istria belonged to Venice at a period when Venice herself was rather an Oriental than an Italian state. The indigenous population of those provinces is Slavic, and though their commercial towns are to a considerable extent Italian in language and aspect, yet the mass of the citizens is not Italianized, nor is there satisfactory evidence that a majority of them desire a change of sovereignty. Austria might not improbably have been induced to surrender the Trentino to Italy if the question had not been embarrassed by what she considers an unfounded and vexatious claim; but it must be long before she will listen to proposals for a cession of her important [Page 477] maritime possessions on the Adriatic, and the subject can never be approached without exciting great irritation in the Austrian people and its rulers.
It is very fortunate for the peace of this country and of Europe that at this crisis the administration of affairs in Italy is in the hands of statesmen of the left, and that the president of the council and others of the ministry are not only well known for their political liberalism, but for their ardent patriotism, and at the same time for an elevation of character which exempts them from all suspicion of unworthy motives or of timidity or vacillation of purpose. The great heats of summer and the threatening tokens of endemic disease had, without a formal adjournment, dispersed the Chamber of Deputies before the conclusion of the Congress, and therefore there has been no room for an authoritative expression of national opinion; but all the organs of the ministry have been decided in their disapproval of every popular movement on the subject. The cabinet could not without a departure from its avowed principles prohibit the calling of meetings to discuss political questions, but its opinions and wishes are known to be utterly opposed to any action in any quarter tending to disturb settled arrangements between Italy and conterminous states. The ministry has been censured for permitting these meetings, but I think it has acted wisely, and that these assemblies have served rather to show the weakness of the party of agitation than to fan the excitement, and I have no doubt that public opinion will sustain the government.
General Garibaldi, who has gone to great lengths in encouraging the movement, publicly warns his friends against attacks upon the ministry; and I trust that a continuance of a mild and firm course of action on the part of the government will calm all agitation and that the present able and patriotic cabinet may look forward to a long term of political power and usefulness.
I have, &c.,