ITALY IN AFRICA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1939, Page 7

ITALY IN AFRICA

MASS COLONISATION PROJECT

AN EXPERIMENT IN LIYBA.

SUPER-ORGANISATION MADE.

This week the first of what is intended to be a series of experiments in mass-colonisation by Italy of her North African provice of Libya was begun, wrote a special correspondent in the "Glasgow Herald,” on November 4. The colonists —1800 families, making a total of 20,000 persons, have been distributed to their new homes. The whole experiment, conducted with super-organisation, bears an unfamiliar look to British eyes. Our own colonists have so often gone forth as need or the spirit of adventure impelled them, to play a lone hand with little encouragement except what their own hopes supplied, and having arrived in their new country they have had to fend for themselves amid circum'stances and dangers largely unknown. Not so the colonists of the new Italy. Carefully chosen, they have gone forth with a blare of trumpets, reviewed and inspired by the Duce in person, escorted overseas by units of the Italian fleet. Nothing has been left undone to show that they have an official blessing, a blessing not merely of words, but of very tangible benefits. At Tripoli the colonists will be met by lorries and taken to their various destinations. There they will find farms awaiting them, readystocked, houses built and furnished, even the fires laid ready for cooking their first meal. NECESSARIES PROVIDED. Supplies of all immediate necessaries have been provided; to each household a hundredweight of flour, stores of potatoes, macaroni, rice and fruit, wood for fires, lamps and matches to light them, even tins of condensed milk for the babies! Marshall Balbo, who has supervised the work of organisation, boasts he has overlooked nothing to make the venture a success. To the foreign observer there comes strangely across the centuries the voice of Virgil —“O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint agricolas.” This mass emigration marks the first stage of the completion of Italy’s work of reconstruction in North Africa, and calls attention to the methods she has employed and the success which has attended them. That her success has been striking it would be merely foolish at this time of day to deny. The facts speak for themselves in the account given by every visitor to the province.

When she took over the country after the Turko-Italian war of 1911-12, Italy acquired a tract of land which seemed derelict beyond hope. Almost harbourless and naturally arid, it had suffered from centuries of Turkish neglect. Outside the walls of Tripoli, the only town worthy of the name in the whole province, the land was desert and lawlessness reigned. Tripoli itself was squalid and dilapidated to a degree. Save for the immemorial caravan routes to the Sudan and the Saharan oases, roads did not exist. The ruins of Roman civilisation alone, and the record of a time when the coasts of Cyrene were a. granary of Rome inspired a slender hope of what the land might yet again be. That was the hope which Italy set out to realise, and today she appears to be in a fair way/to fulfil it. , RESTORATION OF ORDER. The first step, that of restoring order, begun effectively after the advent of the Fascist regime in 1922, was not without difficulty in a country where brigandage had been endemic for centuries and the various foci of resistance might be separated by hundreds of miles of waterless territory . The work was completed in 1932, with characteristic Fascist thoroughness. Today Libya is orderly and peaceful. The work of reconstruction and economic development took its impetus from the visit of Mussolini in 1926 while the pacification was still only partially, complete. It has proceeded along lines now familiar in the authoritarian countries, a certain programme being proposed for a certain period of time. Upon the work Italy has lavished vast sums and all the enthusiasm proper of this first born child of her colonial ambitions. The "Quarta Sponda,” or "Fourth Shore," is spoken of with loving pride. Under the success of able governors development has gone forward rapidly in all directions. Harbours have been built, notably the great new harbour of Benghazi serving Cyrenaica. The coast towns have been transformed out of recognition—Levantine squalor and beggar hordes have disappeared from their broad new streets.

BIG ROAD PROGRAMME. Motor roads have been constructed not only along the coast, but also penetrating to the scattered oases of the interior. Agriculture—and it is here that the main interest of Italy’s work lies —has been developed boldly and systematically by schemes that include the native inhabitants as well as Italian colonists. For agricultural purposes the prime essential was water. Although the country was arid, it has been found that water can be obtained in sufficient quantity at many points by boring artesian wells, and it is confidently predicted that when -irrigation schemes are complete conditions will not differ greatly from those obtaining in the dry lands of the United States under the lee of the Rockies. Already many wells are functioning, and the cultivation of wheat, millet, and dates is being practised successfully in areas which only a few years ago were desert. Considering the expense involved, however, the foreign observer must register a doubt whether the region can ever become a going concern without subsidy. For the moment such doubts are obscured in Italy by pride in initial achievement. PLANTING AS AN AID. Even where water is not present in sufficient flow for cultivation, it is hoped that by the planting of suitable shrubs much land may be reclaimed and become available for pasturage. The Bureau of Agricultural Research is conducting experiments, crossing indigenous sheep with Spanish merino and Central Asian strains to evolve

a type capable of flourishing under local conditions and of producing a goodgrade wool. Similar experiments are being carried out with cattle to evolve suitable types for draught and general market purposes, and it is claimed that Sardinian crossbreeds are establishing themselves well.

Beyond such work the bureau busies itself with determining the types of grain best suited to the province and with methods of cultivation. Seed grain is supplied (as also are cattle) Lo settlers, and instruction, which must be followed (the authorities see to that), is given as to culture and rotation. Arabs as well as Italian settlers are held in the net of organisation. If Italy succeeds in breaking them from their age-long shiftlessness, then she will have achieved a miracle. LAND TENURE SYSTEM. The most interesting feature of the agricultural programme is probably the system of land tenure on which it is based. So far as Italian settlers are concerned, the purpose as proclaimed by Signor Mussolini, is “to transform the immigrant into a colonist,” and the colonial system now emerging is rather reminiscent of the old Roman system of coloniae, as, indeed, it is intended to be. Settlers are expected not only to prosecute their agricultural pursuits, but to form nuclei of modern Italian political influence.

Settlements are grouped into rural centres with names of strong patriotic associations —Crispi, Gioda, Giordani, d’Annunzio. Each centre is equipped at Government expense with school, church, village hall, and Fascist meeting place, post offiice, telegraphic and medical services, and water for general and irrigation purposes. It is among such centres that the present band will be distributed. They will arrive not as lone settlers in an empty land, but as partners in a communal life already under way. The intention is to create ultimately a population of freeholders. To this end the farms are allotted, fully equipped, and the holder, till he establishes himself, is paid a salary. As he succeeds the salary diminishes, and a period of partnership between settler and State begins. THE FARM ASSESSED. An assessment is made of the value of the farm with allowance for improvements that are the fruit of the settler’s own energy and initiative. On the basis of this assessment repayments are calculated, increasing with the prosperity of the settler, and it is confidently expected that he will have re-; paid in full to the State within a fixed number of years. The system is in practice very fluid. Possibilities differ vastly in different areas. In some the settler is expected to have cleared his debt to the State within 10 years; in others as long as 30 years is allowed. The size of the farms also varies considerably, according as they are wholly arable, partly arable, or wholly pastoral. In general, however, the size is comparatively small, from 20 to 30 hectares. In fact, the system approximates to a fully worked out system of small holdings. That the experiment is full of possibilities is obvious, and the enthusiasm with which it is undertaken cannot but command respect and interest. Under the present scheme the aim is to increase the settler community by a further mass-emigration on the same scale as the present by 1940, and to proceed thereafter according to increasing capacity of the province as development gathers momentum.