THE ITALIAN BUDGET.
Revenue. Expenditure. Northern Italy . . . £14,400,000 £25,000,000 Southern Italy . . . . 5,240,000 5,000,000 THE Italian people have still to face the most irksome of constitutional problems—a taxation, self-imposed yet adequate to the needs of civilization. Their old Govern- ments were as cheap as inferior articles generally are. A judge who takes bribes need not receive much pay; an in- solvent police subsists comfortably if allowed the profits of extortion; a soldiery in arrears is content with impunity in plundering its friends. Even the monarch is sometimes cheap in a despotism, for the man who can order an execution will never lack courtiers, and an absolute master has no need of the bulwark to his dignity supplied by a costly cere- monial. The new Government, besides being from its nature more costly in appearance, has to contend at once with a temporary state of war and an exceptional condition of anarchy. In Sicily, government seems only to exist for expenditure. :Half Naples is traversed by reactionary bands. Italy, as a whole, is arming to resist a first-class power, and the process, always costly, is even more expensive than in older States. They have only to increase their armaments ; she has to create them. It has long been foreseen that the exertions of the North and the anarchy prevailing in the South would result in financial embarrassment, and the budget just presented to the Italian Parliament confirms the most sinister anticipations. The deficit is certainly more than twelve, and may exceed twenty millions sterling. The nominal budget, exclusive apparently of the Roman States, amounts to £19,640,000 £30,000,000 Leaving a deficiency of 10,360,0007., which, however, does not represent the whole truth. The expenses in Sicily will exceed the estimates, and the total deficit is certain to reach twelve millions, and not unlikely to exceed even that enormous figure. There is no prospect, moreover, of a speedy amelioration. The civil expenditure of Naples and Sicily may be pronounced absurd, the revolutionary Government having created places till the administrative staff of Naples is larger than that of France ; but reduc- tions are, for the moment, difficult and dangerous. Every placeman dismissed is a possible opponent, and it will be wiser not to fill vacancies than to increase by sweeping dismissals the resources of conspiracy. The army, it is, of course, impossible to touch. It is not over- paid, and its numbers should be increased rather than diminished. The navy- has still to be reorganized, a mea- sure involving new building, iron steam-ships, rifled marine artillery, new dockyards, and all the huge cesspools of ex- pense with which the British Admiralty is so familiar. For at least three years to come Italy must exert herself as a first- class Power, and, willing or unwilling, endure the burdens incidental to that new rank.
It is possible, perhaps, to endure them without having recourse to direct taxation. The new commerce and enter- prise freedom will develop, may raise the resources of Italy rapidly enough to meet the interest on the necessary loans. Sixty millions is not an enormous sum for a modern State of twenty-five millions, to pay for its freedom and indepen- dence. The House of Savoy has found little difficulty in raising loans at home, and in the worst event the separate guarantee of the Northern provinces will always be accepted by the capitalists of Europe. The money may be raised, and perhaps without serious risk of ultimate distress. There is capacity in. Italy for almost boundless trade, and the rise in the customs revenue alone might be expected in time of peace to provide for all the burdens war is certain to leave behind. Every month, moreover, will add to that wealth by which, and not by numbers, the weight of taxation must in justice be appraised But, notwithstanding all these contingencies, the wisdom of providing for the Italian struggle by loans alone is open to serious objections. Every penny now raised must be borrowed at exorbitant rates, and increase the debt which, more even than war, impedes the realization of cheap government. The habit of borrowing, moreover, accustoms the people to those light imposts which eventually they are sure to find insuffi- cient for the national wants. It is easier to tax now while the necessity is patent, and all men are feeling the relief from long compression, than it will be when the crave for personal ease is once more in the ascendant. The whole cost cannot be borne by this generation, nor is it desirable that it should. The lawsuit which saves an estate may justify a mortgage for its costs; but the Italians will be wise if, while pledging their credit, they accept their own share of the permanent burden. The sum required, great as it may appear, cannot be much in excess of the taxation a just and courageous financier would impose. It is not necessary to adduce the example of France, where Government levies out of the wealth pro- duced by peace, taxes introduced by the Convention to encounter war. The taxation of France now amounts to fifty shillings a head, a rate which in Italy would yield fifty- five millions sterling, nearly double her actual requirements. The people of Italy, with a finer soil, ten times as many cities as France, and far more frequent access to the sea, would probably denounce that rate as intolerably oppressive. But they can surely bear, for three years, the taxation Piedmont bore in 1850. Sardinia, with its wretched soil and small external trade, then yielded a revenue of ninety millions of lire, or about 31s. a head. The same taxation extended unrelentingly over the whole kingdom would raise the revenue to 33,000,0001. and extinguish the deficit al- together, before the task of reduction had been commenced. Even this rate may be too high, and we only indicate it as proof positive of the resources of Italy. But an equalization of the taxes, intended, so far as may be safe, to anticipate the necessity for loans, is, we are convinced, the first necessity for the Italian people. They have shown in the recent struggle the highest capacity for war and administration, all those active qualities in which they were supposed to be de- ficient. It remains to be proved if they possess the passive qualities, self-denial, honesty, and thrift, which are the foun- dation of prosperous states, and in which they were ad- mitted to excel. When Italians will bear to be taxed like Englishmen and Frenchmen, then, and hot till then, will their political education be complete.
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