of possible achievement, the Italians, as a nation, allow the dream to carry them too far. They are eminently a practical people; and the vision of Italy's future rôle on the world-stage, if its indulgence threatens to lead beyond the bounds of reason, is quickly corrected and checked by the homely Venetian phrase, massa roba, 'o'er much,' and the warning of their own proverb 'chi troppo abbraccia nulla stringe.'

But the dream is there, nevertheless. If one hears the words usque ad fines' used to indicate the scope of the war, it is not difficult to guess what 'fines' are at the back of the speaker's mind; and the latest map of the war-zone marks the watershed of the Alps as the Vetta d'Italia, the crest of Italy. Nor has the name of Venice a less potent, it has indeed a more practical, inspiration and content, the lure of the sea. No one who was present at the early performances of 'La Nave' will ever forget the thrill that ran through the house, and thence through the country, at such lines of inspired challenge as

There was the hope of the future, boundless as the ocean, based on the achievement of the past. Massa roba, perhaps, but who has ever achieved much that did not dream of more? And then the draw to East and South, felt and expressed by d'Annunzio and Benelli :

with their implication of claim to the Venetian inheritance in the Adriatic, the Mediterranean and the Levant.

The dream of the Adriatic as an Italian mare clausum is born of the ancient Venetian doctrine of the Golfo, as the Republic called it; the vital necessity that Venice should be dominant in those waters as the great sea

* From the 'Laudi,' the Altare,' and the Nave,' respectively.

avenue which leads towards the East, whence she drew her commercial wealth and strength. The attitude of mind and the policy it implies are strikingly like our own towards the Narrow Seas. The English point of view found passionate expression in the 'Libellus de politia conservativa maris' or Tractate on the Conservative policy of the sea, a poem published in the early years of the 16th century, with its urgent refrain That we be masters of the Narrow Sea.' Venice felt the same necessity; and the effort to realise her aim led her to engage the Normans who had threatened to close the mouth of the Gulf,' and to seize Durazzo, as Italy now, and on the same grounds, has occupied Valona.

The endeavour to make good her position in the Adriatic exposed Venice to endless exhausting wars, which, in part at least, contributed to her decline. But both Venice and Italy have rightly recognised the supreme importance of superiority in the Narrow Sea. For a time, which coincides with the gradual eclipse of the Republic, the value of the Adriatic was diminished by the discovery of the Cape route to India, which drew the main trade between East and West out of the Adriatic into the Atlantic. But the opening of the Suez Canal is tending to restore the importance of the Adriatic as the water-way leading furthest into the heart of Europe; and with the revival of the Adriatic the position of Venice at the head of it resumes its significance and cannot fail to affect profoundly the future of Italy, raising the hopes and the dreams that centre round that lovely city. The whole question is one of great delicacy, and will give pause to practical Italian statesmen. There is much to be urged against a too material interpretation and realisation of the desire for a mare clausum in the Adriatic, against a land-frontier difficult to organise and hold; the danger of an inverted irredenta in Slav lands is obvious; but Italy cannot ignore the vital importance to herself of her position in the Adriatic, and there is evidence that her leaders are handling the question with caution and skill.

The war, however, has evoked another order of thought, aspirations of a vaguer and less material, though, possibly, profounder and more enduring influence. The ideal of Italy remains the same, and the appeal to

the past, which is so vital a factor in that ideal, loses none of its force, but the trend of aspiration is different. D'Annunzio, with the material glories of his dream, with his excessive emphasis and his exaggerated appeal to history, is the poet of the one order; Sem Benelli, with his intense sympathy for the actual human beings of the hour, his spiritual rather than material outlook, is the poet of the other. If d'Annunzio seems to us to overstrain the historical and material rôle, Benelli, perhaps, lays too much stress on the spiritual and mystic; but we must bear in mind that the Latin races have their own heightened way of saying things, and that, in any case, ideals are apt to carry us beyond the bounds of common fact. Benelli's rugged altar on the Carso, then, is to be the shrine of a new democracy, whereat shall meet

'i nuovi figli d'Italia . .

in accordo perfetto

con tutto l'amore

della più nobile famiglia
del mondo.'

It is a people's war, to win a people's prize, the fraternity of the race in the unity of its home; a war with the popolo as the hero, inspired, no less than the medieval heroes of d'Annunzio, by a passionate devotion to their ideal Italy, but issuing from the people and the people's dwellings,

'Salgono alle trincee e sempre nominano
le loro madri due: la mamma e te.'

That is profoundly true of the Italian soldier now in the trenches; the cry of his heart is for his two mothers, mamma mia and Italia, and, if his religion be still alive, for yet a third mother, Maria Vergine, in heaven. Benelli's vision and aspiration is a 'Democratic Vista,' recalling the hopes and forecasts of Walt Whitman for these States'; but Italy has a richer historical past to draw upon, and even in her democratic mood, la spada dei tuoi vecchi eroi' is invoked to inspire the warriors of the new idea. Italy is always conscious of her past.

And how does the poet envisage the festival commemorative of the sacrifice which has given birth to the New Italy? It will be a gathering of all the arts, of all

the sciences, of all the crafts, of all the industries, of all who are engaged in activities that ennoble man :

'i sommì di tutte le arti,

i nuovi di tutte le scienze,

i coltivatori di tutte

le prime virtù,'

welded in one vast brotherhood by the sacrifices of this war, which is to complete the unity of Italy in body and soul, and to edify it by the mystic knowledge, now acquired, that gain can only come by suffering:

'Nulla dà il bene,

anche se par un sogno,

se non è con dolore edificato.'

The processional hymn will be the chaunt of Italian brotherhood.' Now at last has the word been found which shall bring consolation to all hearts; the song of Italy, for the first time full and complete in perfect diapason, rises on high from the throats of a people united at length in their material home and in their spiritual aspirations :

This is, of course, the language of the visionary, of the poet. It is only Piron the poet' who is speaking, not the guns on the Piave, the Alpini on the Tonale, not the men in the Galleria at Milan, or at the Aragno' in the Corso, not the men of Montecitorio; and yet it is the poets who express their race and are speaking for all.

HORATIO F. BROWN.

Art. 9.-THE FOOD PROBLEM 1914-1916.

1. Departmental Committee appointed by the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to consider the Production of Food in England and Wales. Interim and Final Reports [Cd 8048, 8095]. H.M. Stat. Office, 1915.

2. Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Trade to investigate the principal causes which have led to the increase of Prices of Commodities since the beginning of the War. Interim, Second and Third Reports [Cd 8358, 8483]. H.M. Stat. Office, 1916, 1917. 3. Royal Commission on the Sugar Supply. First (interim) Report, showing the operations of the Commission from date of appointment to the beginning of December, 1916 [Cd 8728]. H.M. Stat. Office, 1917.

ONE of the last acts of Mr Asquith's Government was the institution of the office of Food Controller, though no candidate could be found bold enough to fill it. One of the first acts of Mr Lloyd George's Government was the institution of the Ministry of Food on Dec. 22, 1916, with Lord Devonport at its head. After some fifteen months' experience of increasing State control over our food supplies and their distribution, it is a matter of considerable interest to review the causes which little by little forced a reluctant Government to suspend the easy flow of voluntary action' and to resort more and more to State interference in regard to food as in almost all other departments of our national life. From the official reports quoted at the head of this article, supplemented by other evidence, it is now possible to get a fairly clear idea of our Government's activities from the outbreak of the war until Mr Asquith's resignation on Dec. 5, 1916-a period throughout which, though there was some reshuffling of the cards in May 1915, Mr Asquith continued to be Prime Minister and Mr Runciman President of the Board of Trade, the Department then most directly concerned with our food supplies. The scope of this article is limited to this period; the intimate history of later happenings is yet to be disclosed.

At the outbreak of the War the United Kingdom was a Free Trade country under a strongly Free Trade Vol. 230.-No. 456.

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