SOCIALISM IN ITALY. T HE latest news from Italy, the surrender
of the Liberal Government to the demands of the railway- men, seems to us very ominous as to the future of the industrial movement throughout Southern Europe. It is a victory for Collectivism of the most decided It'ind.
The railway servants in Italy, as our readers are aw are, have for some time past been in a state of dangerous ,dis- content, and recently they formulated. their demands.
They wanted. shorter hours, better pay, and a rearran; ged "hierarchical system," or as Englishmen would put it, a more regular and somewhat quicker flow of • promoti on.
The question of hours was apparently compromised, and acceptable pledges were given as to promotion, but on the rise of pay the companies returned. a determined li on possunm. They could not afford it. The changes de- manded were equivalent to a total addition of X1,680,000 to their capital outlay, and whatever the consequences .of refusal, they must face them rather than give way. The men retorted by threatening a general strike, that is, a stoppage of railway communication throughout Italy, and managed to convince their employers that they could. and.
would carry out the threat. As usual on the Continent,,. the companies appealed to the Government, which: guarantees most of them, and. the Government, alarmed: for their revenue as well as for civilisation, took a. decided step. They called. out the Reserves, and as: certain classes of railwaymen are Reservists, large numbers of those implicated passed at once under military law. They obeyed. the summons, of course, and it was thought for a moment that the diffi- culty was at an end ; but the measure, decided as it was, ; did not cover the whole ground. Only a fourth of the i railwaymen were liable to serve, and the remainder, after I a pause of dismay, finding that they could still lock the wheels of the great machine, sent in an ultimatum fixing a date on which railway communication throughout Italy would stop. Then the Zanardelli Oovernment sur- rendered.. After many hours of negotiation, in which the leaders of the men are said to have shown themselves fairly moderate, the Treasury agreed to make the State contribute three-fourths of the whole expenditure de- manded (X1,320,000), and drew up a Bill authorising this unexpected outlay from the Treasury. The men agreed to await the vote, and as the Conservatives are not prepared to incur the odium of forcing on a strike which would stop all business, and even the supply of the cities with food, the Bill will in all human probability pass, and the strike may therefore be considered averted.
There are plenty of excuses, or rather palliatives, to be offered for this surrender. No Government, not even our 1,______ own, could regard a total suspension of railway com- munications even for a fortnight without a sensation of dismay. Neither rivers nor roads could take their place, and the community would not only feel, but be, para- lysed. It is much more difficult in Italy than it would be here to find substitutes for the skilled hands, and much more certain that in protecting the " blacklegs " the Government would have to employ lead and steel Continental strikers if- defied always try violence, even if they do not persist in it. Then the Zanardelli Cabinet is supported by the Socialists, whom the poverty of Italy has made both numerous and deter- mined, and the Socialist Members were known to be decidedly in favour of the men. And it is perfectly clear from the language used by Ministers on several occasions that they think the men have a case, though they push it in an unpatriotic manner, that they are underpaid, and that the system of promotion is radically bad. It is also true that in Italy, as in France, the State, as reversionary heir, or in some instances guarantor, of the railways, is much more closely connected with them than in England, and much more tempted to consider their employs as in some degree and some sense servants of the Govern- ment. Still, for the Treasury to grant, under menace, and out of receipts from taxpayers, a large sum for the benefit of a particular group of workmen will strike most states- men as an almost ruinous precedent. The power of the railwaymen is no argument, for in that case the soldiers or the police might strike and settle their own pay. Nor is the justice of the claim to be pleaded, for the claim, in the first instance at least, is against the shareholders. not the State, which might as well give an extra 5 fr. a week to every gasmaker, or hospital attendant, or repairer of drains, or digger of salt, or any other worker whose service is indispensable to the community. It is, in fact, a grant-in-aid from public funds to a useful trade because it is not prosperous, and would justify a demand that all shipbuilders, or butchers, or bakers, or doctors should, when pressed by circum- stances or a fall in prices, be kept by the State from bank- ruptcy. Every municipality threatened by a bread riot will plead this example of the Central Government as an excuse for a dole from the rates, and every trade in which work is slack will look to the Treasury for aid, and. ask why its employs should not be treated as those of the railways have been. They all think themselves indis- pensable, and a few millions carefully distributed among them would make for a time all the difference between penury and comfort. Why should they not have it, at least until the Treasury is empty, and can borrow no more?
There is one trade in particular which, unless human nature in Italy differs from human nature everywhere else, will be greatly moved. The peasantry are in Southern Europe the foundation of the State, and are, in their own eyes at - least, as much distressed and underpaid as any class of the community. Yet they not only receive no doles,. but they are taxed to pay the doles to their urban rivals. From the nature of their occupation they cannot combine for a general strike, they do not believe in Socialism, and therefore they are treated in Parliament as quantities whom it is comparatively see to neglect. Their only weapon against the Government is insurrection ; but if they rise they are easily shot down, and matters proceed exactly as before. They are a long-enduring race with a, traditional bias towards loyalty and order ; but it is impos- sible that they should f_..A irritated by their inferior position in the eyes alike of the bureaucracy and of Parliament. They are overtaxed ; they have difficulties.
• owing to the want of good local roads, in disposing of their produce ; and the tendency of their landlords, who are themselves pressed by the great State expenditure, is to obtain the last penny that can be shown by account- books to be due. They are nowhere content, and in the old kingdom of the Two Sicilies they suffer more than the industrials of the towns. They will revolt at last in some disastrous year, and then indeed the situation in Italy will be a dangerous one, for they will demand the land, and larobably the local Governments under which, though there s sae no liberty, or progress, or education, there was, for wasants at least, freedom from harassing anxieties. The economic situation is bad enough in Spain: but in Italy it isi in some respects even worse, and, it certainly will not be n lade better because the Government shows that it is ready to help with heavy grants of money any trade which is numerous enough and organised enough to employ serious menaces.
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