ADRIATIC QUESTION

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 144, 14 March 1921, Page 9

ADRIATIC QUESTION

AMICABLE SETTLEMENT DALMATIA MADE PART OF JUGO-SLAVIA

The Adriatic question, which .lias, perplexed politicians, diplomatists and journalists ever since tho publication of the secret treaty of London of April 26, 1915, has at last been settled by direct. ,negotiations' between the Italian and the Jugo-Slav delegates in the beautiful Villa Spinola, .the property of a rich Dalmatian, at that charming spot the Genoese coast, Santa Margherita Ligure, says the "Christian Science Monitor.” After all the ink that has been shed over this question, after the vehement polemics to which it has given rise in the Press, after the vast propaganda on either side, it is an intense relief to realise, that at last the frontier between Italy and Jugo-Slavia has been fixed. When it (had been finally realised that Signor Scialoja’s ingenious theory that Italy could retain all of Northern Dalniatia by virtue of the Treaty oi London, and also obtain Fiume (which Baron Sonnino had in that treaty assigned to Croatia) despite the treaty m virtue of self-determination, was impossible, then the ground was at last cleared for negotiation. Count Sforza and Signor Bonomi, the Italian Ministers of Foreign Affairs and War, who were the, leading Italian delegates at the Ligurian Confere.nce, started with the recognition of Fiume as an independent free State, and did not claim its annexation to Italy. The Strategic Frontier. Their main thesis, unlike that of their predecessors, was the necessity for Italy of a sound and safe land frontier on the east, and this frontier they have obtained in the Julian Alps by receiving the acceptance M. Verniteh, Dr. Trumbitch and Kosta Stoyanaich, the Jugo-Slav Premier and Ministers of Foreign -Affairs and Commerce, who represented Jugo-Slavia at Santa Marghqrita Ligure, of the Schneeberg (or Monte Nevoso, as the Italians translate it) as their boundary. Although the Jugo-Slavs obtained two modifications of this strategic frontier, one near Longatico in the north, the other at Castua in the south, this frontier involved a considerable ethnographic sacrifice upon their part; for, as Count Sforza himself stated, there will now be nearly half a million Slavs within the Italian borders, which embrace the whole of Isfria, and the classic land of Liburnia, nt the head of the Quarnero, so well known to readers of Horace for its swift brigantines. Within the new Italian military frontier falls the district of Volosca, with a large Slav population. But the JugoSlav delegates rightly felt that the time hnd come to make an agreement in the mutual interest of all parties concerned. It is unfortunate that this sacrifice inevitably falls upon one, and that the smallest section, of the triune kingdom, the Slovenes. But that was inevitable and had long been foreseen by their friends.

The second point gained by the Italian delegates was the territorial contiguity between their new frontier and that of the independent state of Fiume. To this the Jugo-Slavs at first objected, partly because they feared that territorial contact might produce Italian intrigues, and still more because of the dangers of contraband. The Italians argued that tho Jugo-Slavs touched Fiume on the other side at Susak, and that, therefore, if it were really to be a buffer State, it must be in contact with Italian territory on the other. This question, really, in .point of distance an affair of only a few kilometers, was settled in favour of the Italians, who also received the islands of Cher so and Lussin, near the Istrian coast, and to the south the small Dalmatian island of Lagosta. The Italians claimed but have not obtained the much better known island of Lissa, which has found a double entry in modern history by two naval battles fought there between the British and the French in 1811, and the Austrians and the Italians in 1886, and which during the Napoleonic wars, from 1812 to 1815, was the British naval base in the Adriatic.

But Lissa, as a British -naval expert tokL the writer in the course of the recent war, has ceased to have strategic importance under modem conditions. Besides, its population of several thousands is practically wholly Slav, and for that reason Signor Scialoja considered it to be unsuitable for an Italian naval base, for dockyards should be near a friendly population. Lagosta, on the other hand, has only some 1200 inhabitants, and oonrquently the idea of nationality will be less infringed there than would have been the case at Lissa, had that island become an Italian naval station. The cessation of Lagosta was. infact, recommended in the memorandum of M. Clemenceau to Mr. Lloyd George of January 9. The Future of Dalmatia

The third part of the Santa Margherita agreement regards Dalmatia. On the Dalmatian mainland (the islands have already been dealt with), Italy obtains Zara alone; Sebenico and the rest of that province goes to Jugo-Slavia. The Jugo-Slavs at Santa Margherita were prepared to recognise the autonomy of Zara; the Italian delegates obtained its annexation to Italy. Zara is admittedly a preponderantly Italian town — indeed, the only city in all Dalmatia in which the Italian element is in the majority. It was, therefore, natural upon ethnographic grounds that it should form part of Italy. The only real difficulty involved in this solution is economic Zara has, except its manufacture of maraschino, practically no trade. Under tho Austrian rule, as the capital of Dalmatia, it was the seat of the provincial Government. and consequently the residence of practically all the civil service of Dalmatia. Now, a mere handful of officials will suffice for the government of what will henceforth lie one of many small Italian provincial towns; and a Tarutino in the Genoese newspaper, "Caffaro.” calculates that 620 families of Zara, or about 3100 persons, that is, about 25 per cent, of the population, will eventually emigrate. Not only so. but Zara is on a very small scale what Kaul is on a large one—-a city which consumes but does not produce, the reverse, in fact, of Spalato on a small scale in Dalmatia and Milan on a large one in Italy. • Zara has only one important manufacture, which gives work to the workmen of seven firms, the two principal of which are Italian. Consequently, unless Zara comes to terms economically with the Jugo-Slavs and enters the Jugo-Slav Customs Union, her practically sole industry—for her net and rope manufactory, her small flour mill, and her manufactory of wax have little value and employ few hands —will be at the mercy of the Jugo-Slav tariff. Not only so, but during all the long Austrian occupation of Dalmatia, which began in 1797 and lasted (with the brief interval of the Fre*nch occupation, which ended in 1814) down to the recent neaco. Zara, its capital, was never connected with its "Hinterland" hy a railwav. or even united with the other Dalmatian coast towns by any means of rapid communication except that by sea, or. in very modern times, by motor. Thus, Zara, which for sentimental reasons ’ wished to become Italian—economically she was certainly better off under Austria as the provincial capital and seat of the provincial diet—will have to be supported by ttnlv as an isolated transmarine colony, much as .Boulogne or ualais or Dunkerque, were by England, when those

stations on the French'const belonged to tne .bngiisti crown.

Settlements Left in Jugo-Slavia,

The treaty between the two States provides also guarantees for the Italian settlements left in the remaining coast towns of JJaimatia, which now belong to Jugo-Biavia —jueoemco, Iran, spaiaco, Kagusa, and Cattaro. The number of these —tor the bulk of the Italian Dalmatians were in Zara—is far inferior to that of the Jugo-Slavs left within tho Italian frontier, especially in Istria and Liburnia; and consequently Italy possesses from that fact a powerful guarantee for the good treatment by the JugoSlavs of her lost children. Hut she proposes to found scholarships for them at the University of Padua, just ns tho Venetian Republic did for the lonian Islanders during her long occupation of those seven islands down to 1797. They may also avail themselves of Italian citizenship. But one may trust that, when once those municipal jealousies, diabolically fostered by Austria between tho Italians and Slavs of Dalmatia upon the basis of “Divide et impera," have disappeared, and the long agitation of tho last five years has ceased, the Dalmatian people, (Jugo-Slavs and Italians alike, will let bygones be bygones, and live and let live. Before the war. and even under Austria, except at election times, they got on well together. Dalmatia has now become by the agreement of Santa Margherita Ligure a part ot Jugo-Slavia, except Zara nnd two or three strategic islands, and public opinion in Italy, with the exception of the little band of Nationalists, has already loyally ann sensibly accepted this accomplished rnct.