their occidental brethren.

The world may as well accept, as the principal issue of "the great
game" that centers about Constantinople, the fact that the war begun
twelve hundred years ago by the dusky Arabian camel-driver is still on.
This Turco-Italian scrape is only one little skirmish in it.

* * * * *

The outbreak of war between Italy and Turkey came as a surprize to the
great majority of the European public, and even in Italy until the last
moment few believed that the crisis would come to a head so soon. Those
who had closely followed the course of political opinion in the country
during the past year, however, saw that a change had come over the
public spirit of Italy, and that a new attitude toward questions of
foreign policy was being adopted. It may be of interest in the present
circumstances to examine the causes and the course of this development.

Since the completion of Italian unity with the fall of the Temporal
Power in 1870, the Italian people had devoted all its energies to
internal affairs, for everything had to be created--roads, railways,
ports, improved agriculture, industry, schools, scientific
institutions, the public services, were either totally lacking or quite
inadequate to the needs of a great modern nation. Above all, the
finances of the State, shattered by the wars of independence and by bad
administration, had to be placed on a sound footing. Consequently,
foreign affairs attracted but slight public interest. Such a state of
things was at that time inevitable owing to the precarious situation at
home, but it proved a most unfortunate necessity, as it was during this
very period that the great no-man's-lands of Asia and Africa were being
partitioned among the other nations, and vast uncultivated,
undeveloped, and thinly populated territories annexed by various
European Powers, and converted into important colonial empires offering
splendid outlets for trade and emigration. Italy had appeared last in
this field, when nearly all the best lands had been annexed and when
conquests could not be attempted, even in the still available regions,
without large, well-organized armed forces and a determined,
intelligent, and well-informed public opinion to back them up. In Italy
neither was to be found. The country was too poor to launch forth into
colonial and foreign politics with any chance of success, and the
people were too untraveled and too little acquainted w