THE PERIL IN ITALY. T HE stars in their courses seem
to be fighting against; the Latin peoples. We see what is happening to the Spaniards, the French will feel terribly the reflex- effect of the Spanish losses, and now the long-simmering discontent of the Italians has burst into a flame. The sudden rise in the price of food consequent on the. universal " shortage " in the production of cereals, and the effect of the war upon business imaginations, has. doubtless given the disaffection a keener edge, but it. existed long before, and is fostered by deeply seated political, economic' and even religious causes. For yearn- past the Italians have felt that the cost of their country assuming a position as a Great Power has pressed upon their individual happiness much too sharply. They have,. it is true, a fertile as well as a lovely country ; but their manulactures are not extensive, and they cannot bring themselves to practise the steady industry and persistent taking of trouble which would extort from their rich crops and magnificent herds their fullest commercial value. Italy could be flooded with its own wine, but nothing will induce the majority of growers to make it, as French and Spanish wines are made, attractive to the whole world, or even fit for exportation. There are no cattle like the grey cattle of Lombardy ; but Europe knows little of Italian cheese, and imports dried milk in masses from Switzer- land rather than from the great plain of irrigated meadows. The wonderful natural attractiveness of Naples and Sicily, which would, if wisely employed, make those great provinces the pleasure-gardens of Europe and America, is economically destroyed by social disorder ; and the peasantry, so industrious in England, Argentina, and the United States, are at home doubtful if industry will bring them any adequate reward. Men have, too, throughout Italy, if they prosper in the cities, a trick of " retiring " on small accumulations, which guts the smaller commerce of necessary capital, and produces a perpetual series of " beginnings" in life.
Italy, therefore, remains poor, and the burden of supporting a great modern Administration, with all the costly prepara- tions demanded by high alliances and internal "improve- merits," falls upon the body of the people with crushing weight. That weight is increased by the pressure of what in England we call "rates," the municipal taxes, which, heavy even here, are in Italy greatly increased by the lingering influence of particularism, by unscientific methods of collection through transit duties, and by a grievance of most ancient standing, the desperate efforts of the well-to-do to escape the local imposts by the corruption of the collectors. We are unable to believe that the total burden is equal to 12s. in the pound upon all that th people possess or earn—though the late James Wilson, first of authorities, assured the writer that in 1816 every Englishman paid to the State a clear third of his income—but the amount is undoubtedly sufficient to sweep away the surplus needed for content or tranquillity. Naturally under such circumstances discontent is most bitter, and the Socialist propagandists find a field ready prepared for their denunciations of landowners, of the tax-gatherers, and above all, of the octrois. The people, whose hopes, we should notice, were sorely wounded by the result of the war with Menelek, are therefore ready for any opportunity of armed demonstration, and recently their leaders have used the excuse of the rise in bread to urge their followers into open rioting. These riots have been of the most formidable character, the rioters facing not only the police, but even the military, in a way to which modern States have become unaccustomed. In Milan they even threw up thirteen barricades, and compelled the officers in command to employ artillery, with its consequence, a great destruction of life. It is said that nearly a thousand citizens fell in one day, and yet the riots were next day renewed, while English travellers tell us that railway- stations were held like fortresses, that locomotion was completely interrupted, and—a curiously significant sign —that even the postcarts could not enter Milan without escorts of cavalry. The rioters were aided by the peasantry, who marched in from all directions, and were only driven back by fierce bayonet charges. In Turin, of all places, the people exhibited the same temper, though they did not actually attack the troops ; and in Naples, Florence, and Novara, and many other cities, it has been necessary to proclaim a state of siege ; and many lives were lost, how many is not known, the censorship preventing all com- munication by telegraph. Rome is quiet, but in Southern Italy the agitation is almost universal ; and the people exhibit a hostility to the upper classes which recalls the events of 1789-92 in Southern France. The peninsula, in fact, is in the early throes of a revolution.
We presume the movement will for the present be put down. Though King Humbert is not his father, he is a brave and determined man, it is a tradition of his house to make no terms with rebels, and it is evident that he has authorised the most resolute, not to say unsparing, repression. He has apparently no doubt of the Army, for he has summoned sixty thousand Reservists to the colours, and the state of siege proclaimed in Milan is of the most rigorous kind. So long as the Army obeys and is used with unfaltering purpose, it is, of course, impossible that insurgents, however excited by their grievances, can over- throw a modern Government. They never have, or can have, cartridges enough, they possess no artillery, and their tinge of military training not only induces them to act in masses—which is not the wisest insurrectionary way—but gives them a full appreciation, and therefore much fear, of the action of disciplined troops. The sub- stantial equality which formerly displayed itself between musketeers and musket-bearers has finally ceased to exist. There is, therefore, little doubt that external order will be restored ; but the outbreak cannot pass away without serious effects upon the internal position of Italy. Elec- tors who are loyal because their relatives have been shot are not safe supporters of any system. The dynasty may remain, must remain, for there is no alternative to it except a system which would imperil the unity of Italy ; but the present Administration, which is obviously in- competent, must pass away, and to replace it by an efficient one will be excessively difficult. Soldiers, who must be prominent in any repressive regime, are rarely original statesmen, and it is statesmen with originality that Italy now requires. She wants a Dictator-Premier of the type which the Latin races do not seem in the present moment of their historical career able to produce. She needs a Peel who is also a great diplomatist, who could, that is, readjust expenditure and taxation till they ceased to oppress the people, and could at the same time preserve to the country not only its independence but also its sense of security from external foes. Italy, to be happy, requires reductions to the extent of ten millions sterling a year, and at the same time the Swiss organisation, so that with a standing army of one hundred thousand men and a million of soldiers in black coats or blouses, she should be exempt from the smallest dread of foreign invasion. The new Minister, moreover, must be a man not only capable of putting down corruption such as now impedes every department of the Treasury service, but of facing the deadly enmity which would be incurred in Italy by a merciless " disinheritance " of thousands of useless or partly useless fee-seeking officials. It is hard to find such a man ; and though Signor Sonnino, the last Chancellor of the Exchequer, is said to be one, his reforms as yet have been principally on paper. It must be remembered, too, that a strict Chancellor of the Exchequer has in Italy to deal with a very doubtful Chamber, in which Deputies would approve reforms, but would greatly prefer to be able to plead in their own districts that they were made in their own despite. On the whole, in the present condition of the public mind, the hope of finding a great Premier, who shall combine Cavour and the " Iron Baron" Ricasoli, is not strong.
We remain lialianissimi, as we were in the sixties, but we confess Italy has greatly disappointed us. We expected more nerve, both in her statesmen and in the house of Savoy. We do not understand why the latter has borne with all the corruption which the Palace must well know to exist, or why the former have made so little attempt to remedy the permanent evils of Italy. The old Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ought to have been civilised twenty years ago, by the drastic reforms in the tenure which would have terminated at once brigandage and the poverty of the people, who will never until they own the soil either work as they can work, or put the Mafia down. Ever since the first group of statesmen who, being annealed by suffering, liberated and " made" Italy, passed away, their successors have been flaccid people intent on opportunist contrivances, eager to avoid defeat in Parlia- ment, and fully persuaded that if the Budget seemed to be balanced, economic evils might be trusted to disperse of themselves. No doubt they have been terribly hampered by the external position of Italy, by the tradition of easy-going administration, and by the factiousness of successive Parliaments. Still, the Italians are a sensible people, they have no dislike to being strongly governed., and they understand better than any race in the world that for a Government to be strong its Treasury must be solvent. The mere fact that they have borne cruel taxation for thirty years is proof of their reasonableness, and proof too that they can postpone individual interests to the good of the community. They may throw up the right man yet, as they did thirty-seven years ago, and allow him a free hand ; but for the present the prospect is for all who, like ourselves, are sincere friends of their greatness and prosperity, most dispiriting.
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