ITALIAN AMBITIONS.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17977, 24 March 1930, Page 7

ITALIAN AMBITIONS.

GREAT AFRICAN EMPIRE. SIGNIFICANT STATEMENTS. FIERCE STRUGGLE PREDICTED. United Press Assn. —Elec. Tel. —Copyright. LONDON, March 22. The Rome correspondent of the Times says the seriousness of the Italian ambitions in Africa was emphasised in a debate in the Chamber of Deputies on the Colonial estimates. Signor Pace insisted that the Italian occupation of Fezzan had not been pushed to the limit of territorial rights. He said: “Italy cannot accept a boundary which docs not leave Barcllai and Aingalakka far to the northward, and docs not. give her conrtol of the important Fezzan-Cliad and Kufrallndai caravan routes.” Signor Fcra said the African Continent would eventually be dominated by the Power which most rapidly attacked it from the Mediterranean. Therefore, It, would be a struggle between Britain. France and Italy. Britain, with her great lines of communication and tinpossession of the former German colonies, had a formidable base. France, bv the trans-Saharan railway, and the existing roads, could tap the fertile Chad and Congo regions. But Italy, through Libya, had the shortest communications to Equatorial Africa by the Mediterranean, and Tripoli was destined to be one of the master lines of the world’s commerce. Signor Fcra added: “ The star of the world's greatest colonial Empire is declining because it lacks ideas. The light that once came from Rome is now again burning in Signor Mussolini's enunciation of the principles of authority, order and justice.” Signor Bono, the Colonial .Minister, made an optimistic speech, but be corrected certain exuberances in Signor Fera's speech.