been evident to every Italian. The hotels, the factories, the shops all
testify patently to the presence of the stranger within the gates looking
after his own interests, breeding his money on Italian soil.

But why not? the dispassionate internationalist may ask. Why should not
the Italian hotels be in the hands of Austrians, Germans, and Swiss; the
new electrical developments be installed and run by Germans; the shops
for tourists and Italians be owned by foreigners? There we cross the
unconscious instinct of nationality, which cannot be ignored. Assuming
that there is something precious, to be guarded as a chief treasure in
the instinct of nationality, as I assume, there are grave dangers in too
much friendly commercial "infiltration" from the outside. The indirect
influences of commercial exploitation with foreign capital are the
insidious, the dangerous ones. The dislike of the foreign trader, the
foreign creditor, may voice itself crudely as mere envy, know-nothingism,
but it has a healthy root in national self-preservation. For an Italian
the German article should be undesirable, especially if its possession
means accepting the German and his way of life along with his goods. The
small merchant and the peasant express their resentments of foreign
competition rawly, no doubt. Consciously it is half envy of the more
efficient stranger. Unconsciously they are voicing the deep traditions
of their ancestors, vindicating their race ideals, cherishing what is
most enduring in themselves. They would not see their country given over
to the stranger, whose life is not their life.

One unpleasant aspect of the commercial invasion of Italy by the Teuton
was his liking to live there, and consequently the amount of real estate
which he was collecting on the Latin peninsula--so much that the lovely
environs of Naples were fast becoming a German principality! These
invaders were not traders, nor workers, but capitalists and exploiters.