was but a drop in the ocean of widespread poverty
and backwardness. Despite the undoubted pro-
gress, the gap between the north and south con-
tinued to widen. Little would be achieved until
after the Second World War, but even at the
beginning of the twenty-first century the problem
of the south persists.
Italian industrialisation was handicapped by the
lack of those indigenous resources on which the
industrialisation of Britain, France and Germany
was based: the amount of coal in Italy was negli-
gible and there was little iron ore. But helped by
protection (since 1887), Italian industry devel-
oped in the north. The first decade of the twenti-
eth century was (apart from the brief depression of
1907 to 1908) a period of exceptionally fast
growth, overcoming the depression of the 1890s.
Textile production, led by silk, rapidly expanded
in Piedmont and Lombardy and dominated
exports. Large quantities of coal had to be
imported but as a source of energy coal was sup-
plemented by the exploitation of hydroelectrical
power, in which large sums were invested. Italy
also entered into the ‘steel age’, building up its
steel production to close on a million metric tons
by the eve of the First World War, a quantity five
times as large as in the 1890s. A start was made,
too, in promising new twentieth-century indus-
tries in typewriters (Olivetti), cars (Fiat), bicycles
and motorcycles. A chemical industry producing
fertilisers rapidly developed. State aid, in the form
of special legislation aiding shipbuilding or by
stimulating demand through railway construction
and through tariff protection, contributed to this
spurt of industrialisation in the early twentieth
century. The banks provided investment funds;
the help of tourist income and the money sent
back by Italians abroad enabled a greater invest-
ment to be made than was earned by the industrial
and agricultural production of the country.
But a weakness of Italy’s industrialisation was
its concentration in three north-western regions,
Piedmont (Turin), Lombardy (Milan) and Liguria
(Genoa), thus widening further the gap between
administrative political unification and industrial
economic unification.
The growth of industry in the north led, as
elsewhere in Europe, to new social tensions as
factory workers sought to better their lot or
simply to protest at conditions in the new indus-
trial centres. During the depression of 1897 and
1898, riots spread throughout Italy, culminating
in violence and strikes in Milan. They were met
by fierce government repression. But the year
1900 saw a new start, a much more promising
trend towards conciliation. The Socialist Party
was prepared to collaborate with the Liberal par-
liamentarians and accept the monarchy and con-
stitution in order to achieve some measure of
practical reform. This was the lesson they learnt
1
HEREDITARY FOES AND UNCERTAIN ALLIES 29
Italian production (annual averages)
Italy France
Raw-cotton consumption (thousand metric tons) 1895–1904 125.7 174.0
1905–13 186.0 231.0
Raw-silk output (thousand metric tons) 1895–1904 53.6 7.9
1905–13 43.5 6.8
Pig-iron output (thousand metric tons) 1904 47.0 2,665.0
1910–13 366.0 4,664.0
Steel output (million metric tons) 1900–4 0.15 1.7
1910–13 0.83 4.09
Electric-energy output (million kilowatt hours) 1901 220.0 340.0
1913 2,200.0 1,800.0
Population (millions)
1900 1910
Italy 32.4 34.7
France 38.4 39.2
