you meet nothing but
Slovenes. The prosperity of Gorica was mostly based on the export of
fruit and vegetables from the Slovene countryside. In 1898 the Slovenes
awakened, formed societies, started in business on a large scale and
boycotted the Italian merchants, who found themselves obliged to learn
the Slovene language. Suppose that, for the sake of meeting the wishes
of the Italian Nationalists, one half of the town were given to Italy,
then that portion would be faced with ruin. It would, therefore, be
advisable that the whole town should remain with its hinterland, and
that Italy and Yugoslavia should be divided from each other by the
Isonzo. But if this solution is impossible, then a large district east
of the Isonzo should be entirely and permanently neutralized, which
would not endanger the security of either State. Very different in
character is the line Triglav-Idria-Sneznik, which the Italians hold
ostensibly as a means of defence, but which is an offensive line against
Yugoslavia, and primarily against Ljubljana and Karlovac.

No doubt as the Italians in the eastern Adriatic have obtained a regular
position by the Treaty of Rapallo they will henceforth do their best to
win the love of their new subjects. They will disavow such officers as
that one on the sandy isle of Unie who accused the Slav priest of
propaganda, and in fact, as we have mentioned elsewhere, expelled him
for the reason that inside his church, where they had been for many
years, stood monuments of the two Slav apostles, SS. Cyril and Methodus.
St. Methodus was the wise administrator of these two--but even if he
takes the rulers of the eastern Adriatic under his particular protection
one must be prepared for them to fail in smothering, by their
enlightened rule, the discontent which in the last three years has grown
among the Yugoslavs to such acute proportions. It began, as we have
noted, under the aegis of Baron Sonnino; the old neighbour,
Austria-Hungary, had been Italy's hereditary foe, and the Baron's school
could not bring itself to regard the new neighbours in a friendly light,
although their house was so much less populated than that of their
predecessors, not to mention that of the Italians themselves.

There have been times during the last three years when a war between
Italy and Yugoslavia seemed scarcely avoidable--the natives of the
districts most concerned were looking forward to it with eagerness. At a
Yugoslav assembly held