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Show ITALIAN CRISIS j DUE TOPOVERTY Conditions Go From Bad to Worse Since Signing of Armistice Bj KUI itKRlCK St. KERB'S Staff Correspondent. WASHINGTON, Bopt it The po-1 po-1 1 1 ica.) anil economic crteli In Ital) la du- to One Oauae -the natural poverty; of Italv Behind the ftCtlOh of the metal workers who have seized the factories In northern Italy; behind the atrufKle of four factious of the Socialist party in itah, out of which emerged oon-trol oon-trol by the extreme radicals; behind the election of 1 ""i SoclnliKt deputies, at the elections In the fall of 1915. and behind the seeming paralyali of; tnc Italian government and Its ah-Mention ah-Mention from the use of force against the revolutionists lies one fact Italy's) poverty. Revolutions come when men warn bread to eat and cannot get It. The j metal manufacturing Industries partl-i partl-i ularly, and In less degree all othci i heavy manufacturing In Italy today, as before the war. rests on a fal&e foundation. Italy has praetlcnlly no natural resources of raw materials on which to baae Industry, she mual import coal, iron and vast quantities of other material In order to run hen factories. I K M II D TO OR81 Since the armistice, conditions hav( gone from had to worse Italian fab tory owners simple cannot Compete with foreign manufacturers In their own lines. Consequent ly. they cannoi afford to continue to produce. But Italian workers must eat. And the Italian lire, depreciated enormously l the war, left Italian workers on the very verge of starvation, P&ced with demands of more wages, nwtnl in. lory owners decided on a lockout - i were forced t decide upon It The Kelzure of factories by the workers followed, fol-lowed, The Italian revolution. If it comes, 14 j therefore, purely the result of uuturai, economic causes. Hastened and direct-: ed It may le by radicals in the Social- i 1st party who have long predicted It I and prepared for it. Iut Its cominc will result from the way nature made ltalv nml not because Serratl, read) i of the .Maximalists has been able to commit Italian Socialism to Russian Bolshevism and adherence lo the Third Internationale. And the fact that the revolution, ifj It comes, eunmt help ihe Italian people, peo-ple, but run OnlJ plUngC them still fur- ther in misery and suffering (booaua a blockade of Italy would have much more tragic results than the blockade j of Russiat. can have no effects l" halting the revolution. Serrstl ami his follower know that Italv cannot feed herself, but th- y fall back on the Leninist do trine that "world revolution" revolu-tion" will come to the aid of the Italian, anil prevent an allied block- '. ade. Here arc the inescapable facts of the itahan situation: Italy Is one of the most densely pop-ulated pop-ulated countries in the world. , Her population por square mile is more than 50 per cent greater than wealth: France, somewhat preater than Jor-many. Jor-many. und almost as great as that of tho Unfced Klngdi ONLY LI XI RY PRODUC E I With such a population, Italy muni i depend principally upon ugrlculture I for her w ealth production. And Itah : possesses a totally Insufficient proportion propor-tion of agricultural hind to food her people Moreover, the Italian climate does not fuvor staple crops like wheat and OhOT grains. The country suffers suf-fers from drought. The Italians have done wonders to overcome these difficulties, diffi-culties, but the agriculturists, though they work harder than any people In the world, are able to produce largely only luxury produce grapes, olives, lemons, oranges, rigs, almonds ami peaches. The waters about Italy are peculiarly peculiar-ly barren of fish. The British Isles fisheries produce it times as much v.enlth as do the Italian. In both agri- ulturs and flidilng the maximum of labor yields onl a minimum of profit. WORSE in d M i vt i hum. Bui lu manufacturing things "arc even worse. The United Kingdom pro- I duces more coal in a single day than Italy produces in a year. Italy has no ore to speak of. In order to supply her railroads ships, factories and gas works with absolutely necessary coal and Iron Itah must Import all of It. Conditions since the armistice have Intensified this situation. 1 The value of the lire has sunk to Hinder 0 cents ai i ompared with a prewar pre-war nominal value of 19 3 cents ItalVs public debt is LG billion dollars, or per cent of her entire estimated national wealth. In 1H19 the first Near after the war. Italy was forccl to Import jcouds f the value of ij billion lira compared with Imports in 19n of 3 billion lira At the same time her exports In 1 9 1 9 were valued at 6 billion lira, compared with ex-I'orts ex-I'orts mi 2l2 billion lira in 1 9 1 ,1 Italian Ital-ian agriculture fisheries, manufacturing manufactur-ing and commerce slmplj cannot pav '.for what Italian workers must have I lo eat and els The crisis was bound to ome sooner soon-er or later The Italian workers In the metal Industries precipitated i; w he; i Ihe; (h-ni.i inif,; ., n 1 1 , , r 11: Wages of 7 lire per'dav. or about 30 cents measured in the present depre- la ed urrency. The masters refused th( demand because th could not Bl i it and decided on a lockout The seizure of the factories followed |