ree port, under the Italian flag, and _ipso facto_ the
Austro-Hungarian navy ceases to exist, and with it all need for Italian
naval activity in the Adriatic. In other words, such a settlement would
lead to an almost idyllic reduction of naval armaments in the Adriatic,
since both Italy and the new Jugoslavia could afford to restrict
themselves to a minimum of coast defence. It is obvious, however, that the
dismantlement of Pola--to-day an almost impregnable fortress--would be an
essential condition to neighbourly relations between the two, the more so
since under such altered circumstances an Italian naval base at Pola could
only have one objective.
There is an unfortunate tendency in Italy to misread the whole situation
on the eastern Adriatic, to ignore the transformation which the revival
of Southern Slav consciousness has wrought in lands which once owned the
supremacy of Venice. A short-sighted distrust of the Slav blinds many
Italians to the double fact that he has come to stay, and that his
friendship is to be had for the asking. The commercial future of Dalmatia,
Bosnia, and Serbia is intimately bound up with Italy, and Italy herself
will be the chief loser if she closes her eyes to so patent a truth.
The fate of Trieste and Istria is a triangular issue between Teuton, Slav,
and Latin. The Italian, if his claims are too ambitious or exacting, may
succeed in preventing the Slav from obtaining his share of the spoils, but
only by leaving them all in the hands of a still more dangerous rival, in
other words, by a crude policy of dog-in-the-manger.
One thing is certain in all this interplay of forces--that it is too late
in the day to suppress Southern Slav national consciousness, and that there
can never be durable peace and contentment on the eastern Adriatic until
the unity of the race has been achieved. It would be premature to discuss
the exact forms which the new State would assume; but when the time
comes it will be found that the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dalmatia,
Croatia-Slavonia, Istria and Carniola, will acclaim their liberation at the
hands of free Serbia and Montenegro. Their watchword, however, will be not
conquest from without, but free and voluntary union from within--a union
which will preserve their existing political institutions and culture as a
worthy contribution to the common Southern Slav fund. The natural solution
is a federal union under which the sovereign would be crowned not onl
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