During the Lybian war Italy seized two French steamers, the _Manuba_ and the _Carthage_, for alleged contravention of international law, and sent them to Cagliari. France protested, and M. Poincaré took up such a decided position in the matter and gave it such vehement expression that all Italy was unanimous in holding him as the destroyer of the good relations laboriously established by M. Barère and the Consulta. And the affront has not yet been forgotten. The next grievance had its source in the action of the British Government, which confided to France the protection of her Mediterranean interests, and encouraged the Republic to keep the bulk of its warships in that sea. This preponderance of the French fleet in Italy’s own sea was regarded by the Government of the Peninsula as an unfriendly act, owing to its special bearings on their relative naval strength there. And the author of this obnoxious innovation was believed to be the Republic, which had induced Great Britain to acquiesce. Lately Italy asked for an economic opening in Asia Minor, into which every Great Power of Europe was penetrating. That the demand was not unreasonable is shown by the fact that it has since been complied with. In view of that contingency, therefore, it would have been well to examine it without bias, instead of opposing it with vehemence. For Great Britain is no longer the most puissant State in the Midland Sea, and circumstances may one day arise in which she will be in want of an ally there. And Italy is her most natural partner. The circumstances that she is a member of the Triple Alliance is no bar to this prospective co-operation. For the Triple Alliance is a defensive combination. It provides for a certain well-defined eventuality, but outside that sphere Italy is untrammelled. The pith of the matter, then, is that British and French publicists are wont to lay undue stress on Italy’s alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary. That engagement is but a single facet of her activity. There are others more enduring. She is obliged to protect her special interests and is also free to cultivate her special friendships. Paramount among those interests is the maintenance of peace, and chief of those friendships is that with Great Britain and France. Even the Triple Alliance was founded as an association for the prevention of war, and hitherto it has not drifted into aggression. Italy’s influence in that concern is growing, and together with it her facilities for upholding the pacific policy with which she has uniformly identified herself. And the more steadily her economic well-being and her political prestige develop, the greater will be the weight which as second member of the Alliance she can throw into the scale of peace.[16]