The Italian Budget has nearly reached an equilibrium. S. Depretis,
in presenting on March 27 his estimate for 1877, stated that the income would be £55,880,000, and the total expenditure £55,400,000, leaving a surplus of £480,000. This surplus is not yet realised, but the policy of increasing the revenue and diminishing the expenditure has now been persisted in for ten years, and the present Ministry is pursuing it ener- getically, and hopes to begin withdrawing the paper-money this year, and to increase the revenue by a still more methodical and rigorous collection of existing taxes. These taxes are very severe, much too severe, but it should be noted that Italy even now pays only half the revenue of France, whereas, if the population were equally rich, it could pay three-fourths. It is not equally rich, but the Italians are as frugal as the French, have as fine a country, and are in some districts, notably Lombardy, heaping up money fast, a fact shown by the large proportion of the Debt held in Italy itself. The first economical necessity now is the reduction of the South, and especially of Sicily, to security and order. The island ought to be the richest province of the kingdom.
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