As far back as we can trace it, the population of Fiume seems always to have been a mixed one--in part Croatian, in part Italian. It could hardly be otherwise with a city whose hinterland was solidly Croatian, but whose commercial relations were mainly with Italy. Hence it appears that the lower classes of the population were always chiefly Croats, constantly replenished from the country districts, while the upper classes were partly of the one race, partly of the other. But Italian was the language of society, of business, and of government, and to it the citizens were much attached. During the struggles of the period between 1848 and 1867, when annexation to Croatia was always staring them in the face, the municipal authorities again and again petitioned the Emperor not to permit the violation of “the sacred rights of the Italian language,” “the tongue that has been spoken here ever since Fiume existed.” “It would be superfluous,” they declare, “to demonstrate what is universally known, that in Fiume the Italian idiom has for centuries been the language of the school, of the forum, of commerce, of every public and private meeting; in short, it is the language of the community, and one of the chief sources to which it owes its grade of culture and of commercial and industrial progress.” Two races living together in harmony, untouched by any national feeling, swayed only by love of their city-state, devotion to its time-honored customs, including the use of the Italian language, and zeal for the connection with Hungary, on which their economic prosperity depended--these conditions began to break down after 1867. The great development of the port carried out by the Hungarian government brought in a flood of new citizens--mainly Italians, since the Magyars favored that element. It was at this time that the Italians seem to have gained the numerical preponderance in the city. Then, in the last few decades, the importation of Magyars set in, at such a rate that the Italian ruling class in alarm concluded that the government at Budapest was bent on Magyarizing the city and that their connection with Hungary was not so comfortable after all. Hence there arose a new Italo-Magyar conflict to complicate the struggle that had already broken out between the Italians and the Yugo-Slavs. Now at last the Italian-speaking population began to turn their eyes across the Adriatic for liberators, and the Croat-speaking citizens began to sigh for the Yugo-Slav fatherland. In the Fiume problem, as it presents itself today, the respective rôles of the Italians and the Yugo-Slavs are just the opposite of what they are in Dalmatia. In the case of Fiume, the Italian argument rests solely on the rights of nationality and the alleged wishes of the population.