Land-Reclamation in Italy

Abstract

ONE of the achievements of which Fascism can unreservedly be proud is the reclamation of great areas of land in Italy that for centuries had added little or nothing to the national wealth, and indeed had frequently, like the Pontine Marshes, been dangerous to human beings owing to the widespread prevalence of malaria. Waste land can be found in all countries, even in our own, densely populated as it is; it escaped enclosure in the old days because it could not be cultivated by the methods then in use. Considerable areas are, however, amenable to modern methods of cultivation, though the cost of reclamation might be too high to permit an economical return on the money expended. For this reason land-reclamation is scarcely proceeding at all in England, though occasionally private individuals embark on the enterprise out of sheer love of the work. In Holland the great Zuyder Zee scheme is being financed by the Government, but it is regarded not as a financial but as a social investment, to provide land on to which the growing population may spread. In the western European countries the problem is complicated by the many private rights which, though long in abeyance, may burst into vitality as soon as there is any suggestion of the land being developed or taken over for public purposes. In countries ruled by a dictator as in Italy and Russia, such questions do not arise, and land-reclamation becomes simply a technical problem which can be carried out regardless of cost.

Land-Reclamation in Italy:

Rural Revival in the Building of a Nation. By Cesare Longobardi. Translated from the Italian by Olivia Rossetti Agresti. Pp. xii + 243 + 29 plates. (London: P. S. King and Son, Ltd., 1936.) 12s. 6d. net.