f Venice, to say nothing of Triest, and should
not be exploited by other States to the injury of the Italian Adriatic
ports. Their point of view is not at all obscure. And all disguise is
thrown to the winds in a book which has had a great success among the
Italian imperialists: _L'Adriatico et il Mediterraneo_, by Mario Alberti
(Milan, 1915--third edition). The author says that Italy, having annexed
Triest and Rieka, will be "assured for ever"; her "economic penetration"
of the Balkans "will no longer be threatened" by the projected
Galatz-Scutari (Danube-Adriatic) railway; Italian agriculture which, he
says, is already in peril, "will be rescued"; the Italian fisherman will
no longer have the ports of Triest and Rieka closed (for exportation to
Germany and Austria); the national wealth will be augmented by "several
milliards"; new fields will be open to Italian industry; her economic
(and military) domination over the Adriatic will be absolute. There
will, he continues, be no more "disturbing" competition on the part of
any foreign mercantile marine; the Adriatic will be the sole property of
Italy, and so on. It would be worth while, as a study of expressions, to
photograph a few Rieka Italianists in the act of reading these rapturous
pages.... But lest it be imagined that I have searched for the most
feeble pro-Italian arguments in order to have no difficulty in knocking
them down, I will add that their strongest argument, taken as it is from
the official report of the French Consul in 1909, appears to be that the
commerce of Croatia amounted then to only 7 per cent. of the total trade
of the port of Rieka. I am told by those who ought to know that wood
alone, which comes almost exclusively from Croatia, Slavonia, etc.,
represents 16 per cent. If other products, such as flour, wine, etc.,
are considered, 50 per cent. of the total trade must be ascribed to
Croatia, Slavonia, etc. And that does not take into account the western
Banat and other Yugoslav territories. Serbia, too, would now take her
part, so that there is no need to fear for the position of a Yugoslav
Rieka based solely--omitting Hungary and the Ukraine altogether--on her
Yugoslav hinterland. Rieka without Yugoslavia would be ruined and would
degenerate into a fishing village, with a great past and a miserable
future. This could very well be seen during the spring of 1919 when the
communications were interrupted between Rieka and Yugoslavia. At Rieka
during