aspirations in New Guinea towards which, among other regions of the earth's surface, Italian imperialism had momentarily cast its gaze.
This restless hunt for overseas territory on the part of a Government whose subjects left its shores by tens and hundreds of thousands, was next directed to the independent African State of Abyssinia. Reviving a questionable claim to Assab Bay on the Somali Coast, the Italian Government successively extended its occupation to a long stretch of littoral which formed the seaboard outlet for Abyssinia. This brought it into immediate and disastrous conflict with the Abyssinians. Later, the internal affairs of Abyssinia becoming complicated, the Italian Government made a Treaty with the new ruler Menelik. Subsequently on the strength of a vaguely-worded clause about "mutual protection," it declared Abyssinia to be an Italian Protectorate. The final clash with the Abyssinians came in 1895 when an army, partly composed of Italian regulars, partly of native levies, was sanguinarily defeated by Menelik 's warriors, and Italy was compelled by Treaty to recognise Abyssinian independence. The Abyssinian adventure was to have constituted in the view of the then Italian Premier: "An indemnification, a reparation as it were, for the disappointments Italy had suffered in the Mediterranean." If from the hecatombs of dead in the Great War there should arise a new International Order and the practice of slaughtering masses of innocent men, women and children to serve the nationalistic and imperial ambitions entertained by statesmen and by a relatively minute section of the community, should become obsolete; one can imagine the kind of judgment which will be passed by a generation from whom the threat of war is removed, upon the proceedings of their forbears who sought "reparation" for wounded vanity by assaulting communities who were absolute strangers to the cause of the wound!
Abandoning its attempt upon the independence of the sturdy Abyssinians, Italian imperialism thenceforth concentrated upon Tripoli, for whose absorption it had long prepared. Very instructive and typical of the immoralities of secret diplomacy is the history of the diplomatic steps taken by Italy to effect her objects. The first accessible document which illustrates them is an
