FINANCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL OUTLOOK OF ITALY 57
many, France, and the United States do not employ more than from three to four million horse-power in all their industries, it becomes apparent that a great future is open to Italy by the substitution of electricity for steam as a source of energy for manufacturing purposes.
Iron has shared with coal the privilege of being a great fac- tor in modern industry, but aluminium is rapidly coming to the front as a possible substitute for it. Light as glass, resistant as iron, aluminium has all the requisites to insure its final tri- umph. Since aluminium is almost exclusively obtained elec- trolytically from alumina, the establishment of a vast system of hydro-electric plants in the way suggested by Nitti would greatly facilitate the production of the new metal. Thus, another cause of industrial inferiority lack of iron would be eliminated.
In conclusion, the vital issue for Italy is her transformation into a great industrial power. The work already accomplished in this direction gives evidence of the untiring energy and the complex aptitudes of the race. If only the efforts of both government and nation were strenuously bent toward the prac- tical solution of the technical problems involved in the proposed substitution of electricity for coal, Italy, with her immense reser- voir of water power, with her ever-increasing population, with her healthy current of emigration destined to open up new mar- kets and outlets for her production, would soon be in a position to become a prominent factor in the industrial movement of the world. The twentieth century would thus see the most strik- ing instance yet witnessed of Latin vitality.
DR. GUSTAVO TOSTI,
Royal Vice- Consul of Italy. NEW YORK.
