Walker - 1967 - A geography of Italy

PART i : SOME GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
countryside. Unemployment, and in those areas o f seasonal work, underemployment,
gave rise to widespread unrest. Industry had attracted many, not
necessarily those in the poorest circumstances, but the absorptive capacity of
Italian industry at the turn o f the centiny was still very Umited. The state’s main
Fig. 8, Estimated population growth of Italy (present area) and England and Wales
1770 to 1950
contribution was to provide jobs in the civil service and semi-military organizations
with the result that petty bureaucracy has become recognized as a necessary
evil. Given these conditions there is litde wonder that a major emigration movement
developed towards the end o f the century, reaching its peak in the years
before and after the 1915-18 war and dwindling in the ‘twenties’ as the receiving
coimtries closed their doors.