THE NEAPOLITAN DIFFICULTY. T HERE was some reason after all in
Lord John Russell's short-sightedi preference for Italian dualism. Up to this date the annexation of the Neapolitan provinces has brought to Italy little besides a small fleet and innumerable vexations. The great army collected by the Bourbons dis- persed after their fall, and yielded neither officers nor soldiers to the Italian cause. The revenue, though available, is not united with that of the North, while the profligate system of government pursued by the Bourbons—which substituted peculation for salaries—has rooted in the people a dangerous impatience of direct taxation. The administra- tors who reigned under the old House were either too cor- rupt, too bigoted, or, like Liborio Romano, too intensely Neapolitan to be permanently employed. Even the fleet had to be remanned, refitted, and officered by Piedmontese. The volunteers, so far from being an assistance, have, by their importunate claims, almost created disunion in Northern Italy, while their great leader has only saved himself in the nick of time from becoming a centre of resistance to. Italian unity. The population in general, instead of adding to the strength of the new kingdom, has proved for six months its greatest difficulty, The peasantry, intensely ignorant and superstitious, are guided by some thirty thousand priests, two-thirds of whom are allied to the Papacy by the strong links Rome knows so well to forge. They obey every hint from Rome, and for the day the interest of the Vatican is to embarrass the Power which has terminated its territorial authority. The Bourbon is merely a tool. Any cause is favoured by the Camarilla, provided only it tends to riot, and the consequent diversion of Italian military strength. One such cause is furnished by an agrarian question which has from time to time roused the agricultural population of every Euro- pean country. The peasantry claim the commons, which the gentry for their part number among their own possessions. In France the difficulty was settled summarily in favour of the peasantry in 1789. In England the gentry won the land, though so late as 1838 rights of commonage caused riots it required the yeomanry to suppress. In Naples, owing to a series of circumstances, the dispute has been kept alive ; and Parini, when Governor of Naples, injudiciously attempted a peremptory settlement. He decided for the peasants, but upon terms which would have cost the Government the alle- giance of the proprietors. His proposition was annulled, and the peasants, who fancied themselves secure, sank back in a mood which prepared them for any inflammatory advice. The priests, of course, used their opportunity, and outrages, distinguished by t'e ferocity which always marks agrarian disputes, have continued at intervals throughout the spring. These rioters, though bloodthirsty in the extreme, have seldom combined for any general cause, but their numbers are swelled and their views enlarged by the disbanded soldiery, sixty thousand in number, who, after the defeat of the Volturno, retreated to their homes. Widely scattered, and occupying a strong though not impregnable country, for the most part without roads, these men are as troublesome to Cavour as the Highlanders were to Pitt. The force dis- posable for their subjection, though irresistible in conflict, is too small for the country to be covered, while its com- manders appear influenced by the military dislike to excessive diiipersion. The state of the' metropolitan districts does not tend to increase social order. The ruffians of the capital are not yet fairly subdued, and the Government, sensitive to the public opinion of Europe, has hitherto hesitated to resort to the energetic measures imperatively required. Southern nations, like good iron, require compression before their highest quali- ties are developed. It was the strong Government of the line of Savoy which gradually welded Piedmont into what we see— a mass of steel without a weak spot. The Neapolitans need a strong though just ruler, and they have at last been fairly taken in hand. Count Cavour pledged himself in Parliament to bring Naples into order ; and aristocrats who love freedom seldom quail before a mob. The new arrangements are already in progress. Fortunately—and this is the great distinction between Naples and Hungary—there is no national hatred to intensify the intesti ne disorder. The Neapolitan peasant has not a trace of dislike to Victor Emmanuel as King. He is perfectly willing to serve Italy, provided he is paid for so doing, and does not lose his commonage, and is left alone in his bizarre beliefs. The conscription, therefore, has been introduced, and thirty-six thousand youths, who unemployed would be the first in all disorders, are to be trained into soldiers to repress them. With hostages from every village in the army, political ferment loses much of its danger. In return, some thousand additional soldiers are under orders for Naples, thus raising the army in the South—we speak without regard to the statistics given to the world—to about forty thousand effective men. The " respectables" will be orga- nized as a National Guard, and both forces employed un- scrupulously to secure order once and for all. The Prince de Carignan, a pleasant, and popular royal lay figure, has been directed to return to easier duties in Turin, and Sig. Martino appointed Viceroy of the Province. This gentleman is not the Commendatore of the same name, the pliant officer of Francis the Second, but a Piedmontese of the efficient class, who controlled Genoa in 1849, and whose failure, if he fails, will not arise, from weakness. With a really vigorous Viceroy, an army too strong to permit overt resistance, and stern uprightness of administration, Naples must sink, or rise, into her true position as a wealthy and powerful pro- vince in the Italian kingdom.
The process will be much accelerated if Count Cavour can devise plans to secure two objects of immediate neces- sity. Naples wants roads, roads which, however rough, will admit the passage of artillery and news. The districts need to feel at once the presence of troops, and the influence of the bustling energetic life of the North. When villagers discuss something beyond their right of common and the wrongs of Mother Church, half the battle will have been gained. Education is a slow process, but excitement travels quickly in the South, and political excitement is the best anti- dote to village discontent. More important even than this is the management of the village cures. They are all fortu- nately Italians, and most of them, probably, decent people, though penetrated with the ideas of our own non-jurors, and full of enthusiasm for divine rights and the authority of the Church. It is hopeless to convince such men, difficult to remove them, impossible to destroy their authority in a few months. The only alternative is to content them, to make them feel that any change would be to the injury of their own interests. They are wretchedly poor, and the means for a just addition to their salaries have been provided by the confiscation of monastic wealth. The Christian doctrine of obedience to the powers that be is marvellously fortified when those powers are exerted on our own side, and the contented priest, though still praying for the Pope, would cease to harden prayer into intrigue.
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