the time of making the change from sailing vessels to steamships, the industrial production of Italy was so limited that she was obliged to have recourse to foreign industry, and to France in particular, both for the building of ships and for the manufacture of armor. But a few years of active work were sufficient for. the shipwrights to transform themselves into the best kind of iron workers, and the government arsenals obviated the need of recourse to foreign manufacture, and they were able to build and equip through their own efforts the present day armored men-of-war. Flourishing private dockyards were established to compete with the government manufacture and Italy has been able to sell to foreign coun tries a considerable number of armored vessels, and to take orders for others.
Steel Government production is for obvious reasons more costly than private production, and in order to expedite Italian emancipation from foreign industries, also in armored vessels, the Italian government made provisions favoring the establishment and de velopment of the large steel plant in Terni, which attained such a condition of efficiency as to produce on a large scale the highest grade of armor. Unfortunately, this private concern sought to• raise its prices to the highest mark. This determined the government to give its orders for armorplate to foreign shipbuilders, and to establish government steel works to check private avarice.
Present Conditions of the Italian Navy. — About 35 years ago the Italian navy held the third rank as a naval power among the principal nations of the world, but heavy finan cial responsibilities had diminished the ex chequer considerably just at a time when the other continental nations were awakening to the necessity of increasing their maritime power and directing all their efforts to the develop ment of the navy. And thus it happened that
in the course of a few years the Italian navy retrograded to the seventh rank. But the mar velous progress in industrial commercial ac tivity gave hope that before long there would be an improvement in this respect and before the European War she had risen to sixth place, superseding Austria-Hungary.
The period of economy in the War Depart ment added to a policy of retrenchment on the part of the government have not failed to bear fruit, for the national budget shows a period of increased prosperity and the naval estimates for the fiscal year ending 30 June 1916 were, in amount, $54,481,415. It is true nevertheless that with this annual expenditure Italy might hope for a greater condition of efficiency m the navy than exists at present; but the dis proportion which exists in Italy between ex penditure and naval force and from which Austria and other states do not suffer-is partly owing to the enormous number of government arsenals existing in Italy, the products of which are very costly, and which for territorial rea sons it has been impossible hitherto to dose.
The Italian navy in 1916 consisted of the following vessels (completed at the end of that year or at an earlier period) : six dreadnoughts, seven predreadnoughts, eight armored cruisers, 16 protected cruisers, 10 torpedo gunboats, etc., 48 destroyers, 71 torpedo boats and 19 sub marines. Rest assured, Italy will not spare attention and sacrifices in order to attain a naval efficiency, which shall be equal to the exigencies and thejust political and commer cial aspirations of the nation.
Consult Tamaro, A., —golfo d' Italia) (Milan 1915).