For some time the Government continued to appear impervious to the Nationalist spirit and professed to regard the movement as a schoolboy’s game.  But it could not long remain indifferent to so wide-spread a feeling.  Italy’s relations with Turkey were rapidly approaching a crisis.  The new Ottoman regime, while it was proving no better than the old in the matter of corruption, inefficiency, and persecution of the subject-races, had one new feature—­an outburst of rabid chauvinism and of hatred for all foreigners, but especially for Italians, whom the Young Turks regarded as the weakest of nations.  Never had Italian prestige fallen so low in the Levant as at this period, and the Italian Government did nothing to retrieve the situation.  In Tripoli, above all, where Italy’s reversionary interest had been sanctioned by agreements with England and France, the position of Italian citizens and firms was rendered well-nigh intolerable.  Turkish persecution reached such a point that two Italians, the monk, Father Giustino, and the merchant, Gastone Terreni, were assassinated at the instigation and with the complicity of the authorities, without any redress being obtained.

The Nationalists since the beginning of their propaganda had agitated for a firmer attitude toward Turkey, insisting on the opening up of Tripoli to Italian enterprise.  Italy was being hemmed in on all sides by France in Algeria and Tunisia, and by England in Egypt; Tripolitaine alone remained as a possible outlet for her eventual expansion.  The Turkish Government did nothing for the development of that province, but it was determined that no one else should do anything for it, and thwarted the efforts of every Italian enterprise, the Banco di Roma alone succeeding by ceaseless activity and untiring patience in creating important undertakings in the African vilayet.

Had events pursued their normal course Italy would probably have been content to develop her commercial interests in Tripolitaine to the advantage of its inhabitants as well as of her own, waiting for the time when in due course the country should fall to her share.  But the persistent hostility of the Turkish authorities was bringing matters to a head, and while the Italian Government apparently refused to regard the state of affairs as serious, the Nationalists continued to demand the assertion of Italy’s interests in Tripoli.  The Press gradually adopted their point of view, the Idea Nazionale published Corradini’s vivid letters from Tripoli, and even Ministerial organs like the Tribuna of Rome and the Stampa of Turin, following the lead of their correspondents who visited Tripolitaine during the past spring and summer and wrote of its resources and possibilities with enthusiasm, were soon converted.  If any nation has a right to colonies it is Italy with her rapidly increasing population, her small territory, and her streams of emigrants.  Still the Government, from fear of international complications