The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-13
ROME AND ALSACE.

From the Pail Mall Gazette.
BY the occupation of the territory COM
posing the Roman State the political consoli-
dation of Italy is completed. 1t would be
idle to assert that all the steps by which this
great achievement has been carried through
have been in harmony with morality as un-
derstood between Government and Govern
ment; yet the self-respect of the Italian peo-
pie has been preserved by their strong sense
of higher right emitting those who have
acted in their name to do all they have done.
The consciousness of unity in the Italian
people has produced a conviction of their
moral right to form one political aggre-
gate, and to give to it such constitutional
forms as the MAJ ority of Italians should prefer.
No inquiry can be more important for various
reasons at this moment than an inquiry
into the source of this overpowering
consciousness of unity. 1t has assuredly not
grown out of common political history, for,
not to speak of modern times, there never
was period at which Italy was country with
Rome for her capital, for Rome was always
the capital either of less or OF more than
Italy. Nor has this remarkable feeling arisen
from unity of race. Nothing is more certain
than that the Italians are not of the same
race. Many of them are doubtless descended
from races akin to the citizens of the city
which conquered the world, but vast numbers
could only trace their pedigree to the great
gangs of slaves, swept together from the
corners of the earth, who filled the households
or titled the gigantic estates of the wealthy
Romans The population of the North of
Italy is mainly Celtic, that of the extreme
south has in it Greek, Arabian, and Norman
ingredients; and everywhere at the top there
must be thick stratum of German origin.
The true unity of Italy is the result of the
unity of language; it is comparatively modern,
and consists in a common mental history.
italian learning, italian science, Italian
poetry, Italian painting italian music, and
Italian architecture, have been practically
common for many centuries to all the coun-
tries now forming the kingdom, and out of
these has been shaped the unity of the Italian
people.
1t is worth taking the real origin of italian
unity into consideration when we are asked
to assent to that German claim to Alsace
and Lorraine which is perhaps at this mo-
ment being settled in one sense or the other.
That, too, is a claim alleged to be morally
founded on unity. The unity is not of Ian
guage, which is allowed to have degenerated
into patois in these provinces; it is unity
of race, supposed to be shown by a former
common tongue. What is really meant by
unity of race beyond certain community of
language is not the less indistinctly under
stood because the words are nowadays COM
most emphasis about races and nationalities
would probably hesitate to lay down that all
whom they include under a particular name
have sprung from the loins of the same
savage patriarch. What really is important is
the question whether unity of race
or language has produced community
of mental history. Now, it is certain that
Alsace and Lorraine have had no part or share
in the intellectual development of Germany.
The Reformation was the great intellectual
achievement of Germany, but Alsace and
Lorraine have long been fervently Catholic.
Germon literature only came into existence
when they were French, and not long before
the events occurred which made them in
tensely and fanatically proud of being French.
The mental history of these provinces is in
fact French, and it is now too late to make it
otherwise. They have already given several
great names to French art and literature. and
their admiration is commanded exclusively
by French models. AS for the political his
tory of the population, it is of even later
origin than their intellectual history, for it
| began in 1889. Their power of speaking a
broken German does not produce sympathy
with single German idea.
Considering what the exploits of Germ an
generals. have been, it would be highly pre-
sumptuous to question their opinion that the
them a nearly impregnable military frontier;
and we are not satisfied that NJ Renan is
right In asserting that France, if she retained
Alsace and Lorraine, would easily reconcile
herself to Germany, while she would never
forgive their loss, But there is one aspect of
the subject on which English authority is
better than any other. Englishmen may
claim to be heard by Germans when they say