Some ships of no fighting value are excluded.

The tables which follow of the Italian armour-clad fleet and first-class cruisers are arranged chronologically, after the manner of other similar tables in this book.

4 Italian ships have Belleville boilers, 3 Niclausse, and 1 Babcock and Wilcox.

The Duilio is an old turret ship of no present fighting value. Her sister Dandolo has been reconstructed and turned into a barbette ship. The Italia and Lepanto have long been obsolete, they have no side armour and are practically big protected cruisers. Their guns are still powerful. The Lauria type are improved Duilios. All these ships were designed for end-on fire with all four of their monster guns.

The Sicilia class are a development of the Lepanto idea, only the big guns are placed fore and aft, and thin side armour is given. In them, as in the Lepanto, speed was the chief desideratum for which armour was sacrificed.

The St. Bon type is practically a small Sicilia with plenty of armour. The Brin type abandons typical Italian design in favour of the British Canopus style, except that there is a better armament, and the 6-inch guns are in a battery instead of in casemates. In fighting value these ships are a little better than our Canopus. The Italian ideal of speed is preserved

in them.

The Vittorio Emanuele class, which were designed by Colonel Cuniberti, chief constructor, are among the most remarkable warships of the period. Their speed is designed to enable them easily to avoid any battle-ship, while their armour and armament is such that no cruiser in existence could meet them in action. They carry a single 12-inch gun at either extremity, and six pairs of 8-inch guns coupled in turrets, so arranged that six can fire on the broadside and eight ahead or astern. The coal supply is very large indeed-2,800 tons.

In cruisers the Marco Polo is merely the usual small cruiser with side armour employed. The Carlo Alberto and G. Garibaldi types are essentially Italian in conception. They are very nearly covered with 6-inch armour and extremely heavily armed for their size.

The protected cruisers demand no mention, all being on obsolete lines. The personnel consists of 1,799 officers (comprising 1 admiral, 21 viceand rear-admirals, 203 captains, 570 lieutenants and sub-lieutenants, 165 midshipmen, 92 engineer-constructors, 262 engineers, 508 sanitary and commissariat officers, 141 officers of the Corpo Reale Equipaggi); and 25,000 men (sailors, gunners, mechanicians, marines, &c.).

Production and Industry.

1. AGRICULTURE.

The systems of cultivation in Italy may be reduced to three:-1. The system of peasant proprietorship (coltivazione per economia o a mano propria); 2. That of partnership (colonia parziaria); 3. That of rent (affitto). Peasant proprietorship is most common in Piedmont and Liguria, but is found in many other parts of Italy. The system of partnership or colonia parziaria, more especially in the form of mezzadria, consists in a form of partnership between the proprietor and the cultivator. Profits and losses are equally divided, the families of the two partners subsisting, it may be, entirely on the common produce of the cultivation. This system is general in Tuscany, the Marches, and Umbria. It is almost unknown in the Basilicata, little practised in Apulia, Calabria, and Sardinia, and has been entirely abandoned in the two most advanced centres of cultivation in the south, viz:-Barese and the province of Naples. Various modifications of the system exist in

different parts of Italy. The system of rent (affitto) exists in Lombardy and Venetia.

Large farms (la grande coltura) exist in the neighbourhood of Vercelli, Pavia, Milan, Cremona, Chioggia, Ferrara, Grosseto, Rome, Caserta, and in Apulia, the Basilicata, Calabria, and at Girgenti and Trapani in Sicily. În Italy generally the land is much subdivided.

The area of Italy comprises 28,668,221 hectares (1 hectare = 2.47 acres). Of this area, 20,248,000 hectares (70.6 per cent.) is productive, 4,647,000 hectares (16.2 per cent.) unproductive, and 3,773,000 hectares (13.2 per cent.) produces little or nothing. Agriculture is generally in a primitive condition. The areas (1903) and produce of the various crops in 1901, 1902, and 1903, so far as officially ascertained, are shown in the following table: (1 hectolitre = 2.75 bushels, or, for liquids, 22 gallons) :

:

In 1903 Italy exported 53,365 and imported 16,150 cattle; exported 44,839 and imported 6,473 sheep; exported 1,533 and imported 3,525 goats; exported 28,651 and imported 4,231 swine.

Silk culture, though flourishing most extensively in Piedmont and Lombardy, is carried on all over Italy. The average annual production of silk cocoons in the five years, 1899-1903, is estimated at 53,000,000 kilogrammes, and of silk, at 5,000,000 kilogrammes.

The sugar industry makes rapid progress. In the year 1898-99 there were only 4 sugar factories, their total output amounting to 7,960 metric tons; in 1902-03 there were 33 sugar factories, the output for the year being 95,500 metric tons; in 1903-04 there were 34, their output being 131,000

tons.

In the census of February 10, 1901, there were 6,411,001 males and 3,200,002 females, of 9 years of age and upwards described as engaged in agriculture.

II. FORESTRY.

The forestry department is under the direction of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce, with a council (consiglio forestale) consisting of the Director of Agriculture, the higher forestry inspectors, and a legal adviser. The executive of the department consists of 250 inspectors and vice-inspectors of various classes and 251 guards with 34 (sub-officers) brigadieri.

The forest area (exclusive of chestnut plantations) is about 4,093, 000 hectares. The yield from the forests, including both those free from and those under the forest regulations (vincolo), is valued at about 88,000,000 lire, as follows:

The values of produce, agricultural, animal, and forest, are in round numbers-Cereals, fibres, wine, fruit, cocoons, tobacco, &c., 3,402,000,000 lire (average 1891-95, and partly 1899-1902; animals, wool, milk, &c., 1,420,000,000 lire (1890); forest yield, 88,000,000 lire (1886), total, 4,910,000,000 lire. The value of accessory agricultural produce, such as vegetables, fungi, poultry, eggs, &c., is not known, but the exports alone of such produce amount to about 150,000,000 lire annually.

III. MINES AND MINERALS.

1

The following table gives the production in metric tons (1 metric ton 2,204 lbs., or 1,016 metric tons = 1,000 English tons) of metallic ores and other minerals in 1903 :

The value of the mineral products was:-in 1888, 52,377,908; 1898, 71,804,071; 1902, 77,965,597; 1903, 85,593,615 lire. The quarries of Italy employed in 1903, 58,837 men, the output of building and decorative stone being valued at 26,100,000 lire (marble, 17,000,000 lire).

IV. FISHERIES.

On December 31, 1903, the number of vessels and boats employed in fishing was 23,886, with an aggregate tonnage of 68,416. These numbers include 151 boats of 1,634 tons engaged in coral fishing. At the same date there were 92,352 fishermen, of whom 5,900 were engaged in deep-sea or foreign fishing. In 1903 there went to the deep-sea fishing 1,332 boats of 14,846 tons. Of these, 119 of 1,504 tons were employed in coral-fishing, and 72 of 1,144 tons in fishing for sponges. The value of the fish caught in 1903 (excluding foreign fishing) was estimated at 13,481,930 lire, probably too low an estimate; the value obtained from tunny-fishing was 2,618,375 lire and from coral-fishing 2,276,400 lire, the quantity_being estimated at 252,105 kilogrammes.

Commerce.

The following table shows the total special imports and exports (excluding gold, coined silver, and goods in transit), and the imports and exports of the precious metals (excluding uncoined silver) in each of the last five years (25 lire = £1):—

The following table shows the value of the leading imports and exports in 1903 :