Slovene University for 1,400,000 Slovenes and Croats in Carniola and Istria. Of course this policy made the Italians aggressive, and they continued to extend their sphere of interest until it actually included the Quarnero Islands, although these islands do not possess one single Italian inhabitant, and _these very islands are the most sacred possession of the Southern Slavs_. THEY ARE THE ONLY SPOT IN SLAV TERRITORY WHERE THE OLD SLAV TONGUE IS STILL SPOKEN BY THE PEOPLE. This fact is amply borne out by publications of the Southern Slav Academy, and also of the Russian Academy, which sends its scholars year by year to these islands to study the language. In the province of Dalmatia the populace have themselves dismissed the Italian question from the order of the day, and the local government of Zadar (Zara) is the only possession—and a very problematical one at that—which the Italians might claim, and that only because of the truly mediæval election laws. For, as soon as vote by ballot for the Parliamentary elections was introduced in the Austrian Crown lands, the Croatian candidate was returned by a majority of 7,000 votes over his Italian colleague. The pro-Italian attitude of Austria was and is as insincere as the rest of her policy. It is simply dictated by the “_divide-et-impera_” principle, because an alliance between Slavs and Italians would have been fatal to the Government. One nationality was played off against the other, and the Italians proved willing tools in the hands of Austria. The influence of Italian culture, which has for centuries been received with love and admiration by the Southern Slavs, has created an Italian-speaking zone of culture in the coast-lands of the Adriatic; and the Italians, assisted by the Austrian Government, have made the most of this zone until they have actually had the audacity to include it in their sphere of _national_ aspirations. Thus Austria created an enemy both for herself and the Slav peoples, an enemy with whom the Southern Slavs have never before had any real quarrel. Antagonism led to bitter conflicts, and if the Slav population in Dalmatia and Istria have begun to detest the Italian zone of culture it has been purely in self-defence and for fear of having to pay with their national existence for the amity and admiration of centuries. Nowadays, the Italians themselves admit that Dalmatia and Istria are indigenously pure Slav countries. Probably the present struggle has also revealed to them the true value of Austria’s favours.