The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

The same economic changes would be operating among the inhabitants of the coastland. The Dalmatian ports in Italian occupation would lie idle and abandoned, as Italian commerce would never come through them, and the SerboCroatian commerce would shun them. Italy, far from increasing her own political and economic power, would only add a fresh difficulty to the existing economic and social problems, having to deal with a discontented and impoverished population, alien in thoughts and sentiments, which could be kept in obedience only by strong garrisons, representing a new burden for her national resources.

But her occupation of the islands and of Northern Dalmatia would inevitably create bitter antagonism between her and the Serbo-Croatian State and nation. The Serbo-Croatian ports in the Adriatic—Fiume (Rieka) and Split (Spalato) would be put under direct command of Italian guns. Both of them would be in Italian territorial waters. Everybody knows what terrible losses every belligerent nation has sustained, or will be sustaining, during the present crisis. The ruin and devastation all over Europe will be simply appalling. The Serbo-Croats, like all other nations in Europe, must hasten to make good the wastage and ruin caused by the war. The organisation of commercial ports will be their first national care. They will be in need of foreign capital and enterprise. But will

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