THE POSITION OF ITALY.
THE interest of S. Magliani's Budget for us consists in the fact that the Italians, during their twenty-one years of freedom, have shown precisely those qualities which were denied to exist in Italy. When, after Cavour's great struggle, the plebiscite sanctioned the constitution of the kingdom, most Englishmen expected great things of Italy in many diverse directions. A new free State, they thought,
possessed of such a territory, and filled with such a people— the most beautiful territory in the world, and a people among whom genius is endemic—must exercise a conspicuous influ- ence over both European thought and European politics. The Italian mind, released from its long preoccupation with the foreigner, was expected to flower, to produce great works in literature and art, possibly to rival or expel the influence of France. Italian politicians, after their long
confinement to petty arenas, would, it was expected, aspire to European fame, to shine in international diplomacy, i n European intrigue,—even, perhaps, in Continental war. Italy would be a State full, perhaps, of disorder, and certainly of unrest ; but full also of life and motion, a new and a great factor in the Mediterranean, a fresh leader in all directions for the Latin races. She might even, in her hatred of the Papacy and dis- taste for Protestantism, develope a new creed, and excite all the interest which accrues to a State plunging resolutely into the unknown. The only doubt felt about her was whether she would be governable, whether her vigorous life might not become anarchical, whether her people were prepared to bear the strenuous labour, the heavy taxes, the monotonous order required by modern civilisation. She might, as the late Lord Derby sincerely believed she would, break into "Regions" as hostile as the nations of a continent. So deep was this doubt even in Italy, that for years the credit of the new State was wretched, that much money was raised at 10 per cent., and that for fifteen years her bonds were, interest for interest, hardly more valued than those of Spain after her partial repudiation. Twenty-one years have passed, and the admirers and enemies of Italy alike have been disappointed. The enfranchised generation has done nothing for art, and produced next to nothing in literature. It has made abso- lutely no mark upon general human thought, has not pro- duced a book, or a poem, or a picture, or a building, or a political suggestion which has had any decided influence on Europe, or even upon itself. It has yielded no first-class author, or painter, or sculptor—for Vela, though great, is not original—or architect. What it has done, and that, though great, has been is only one direction, has been in engineering, and one or two branches of science. Italians have devised and completed tunnels which sweep away mountain barriers sup-. posed to be impassable, and have perfected some improve- ments in the electric telegraph. Nor have the politicians done anything very admirable or very startling. They have acquired a province and Rome, but Charles Albert's Con- stitution is still in force, the Government is still a miti- gated monarchy, and Italy has assumed no attitude in foreign affairs either specially beneficial or specially alarming. She did not help France in the German war, she did not help
Europe in the Eastern Question, and on the southern side of the Mediterranean she is scarcely more felt than of old. On the other hand, she has entirely escaped all anticipated in- ternal dangers. She has submitted herself to second-rate, though competent, Ministers, and a narrow, though able, middle-class, with a patience and capacity for daily business such as we habitually anticipate only in the North. In spite of a strong Republican party, of agitation in the towns, of social difficulties in the south akin to those of Ireland, and of the hostility of the Papacy, the middle-class of Italy have maintained complete external order, have built a very powerful Navy, have established, provided, and disciplined a very great Army, and have sacrificed their own popularity, and some, we fear, of the happiness of the people, to a persistent and pitiless resolve to keep the Treasury full. We doubt if there is another country in the world, except possibly the United States, where a Government dependent on elec- tion dare have established and rigorously enforced either the Income-tax, as recently levied in the north, or that cruel Grist Tax, now at last disappearing. Without any new states- men of the first class, and without much help from the wonder- ful elder group who came to the front in 1860, the Italians have governed themselves, in the humdrum, slow-moving, businesslike, English way, till they are beyond any probable attack, till order is as secure as in France, till their Treasury shows a distinct surplus, till the taxes yield more and more, and trade increases, and forced currency is unneeded, and the Government can venture on large expenditures on objects needful to progress rather than self-preservation. That is very remarkable progress in an unexpected direction. It seems to show that emancipation developed in Italy, first of all, practical sense ; that the modern Italians are nearer to the Romans, who were, besides being warriors, engineers and lawyers, than they are to their own forefathers of the Middle-Ages, who lived such magnificent and such lawless lives. They give forth no literature, but they establish a good Code. They carve no wonder of the world, but they possess the greatest ironclads. They build no Milan Cathe- dral, but they bore Mont Cenis and the St. Gothard, and cover Italy with railways.
We do not say that all their work is as yet solid, for it is not. The middle-class, which has done so much, has, in the judgment of the ablest Italians, worn out its governing power, ceases to furnish an efficient Parliament, and is about to be super- seded by a constituency in many respects unknown. Moreover, like our own governing class down to 1842, it has shown itself much abler to tax than to tax wisely. The land tax is heavy to oppressiveness. The municipalities have overspent them- selves, without finding new resources. The dangerous pro- blem of the tenure in the South has not been faced, and Naples is as ill at ease as Ireland. No social order has been established in Sicily, which ought to be the Paradise of the Mediterranean, and the endless resources of the beautiful island, where the orange and the apple will grow side by side, and tobacco can be cultivated among vines, are nearly useless, alike to Italy and the world. The danger of Italy for generations, the horrible economic condition of a fifth of her population, which, in that land of wheat and chestnuts, dies of diseases unknown in the rest of Europe, due solely to chronic want, has been in no way removed. The quarrel with the Church is not over, or perhaps, as the new elections may possibly show, as yet fairly begun. It is not certain that the searching and severe taxation, so creditable to the public morality of the country, does not press somewhat too heavily upon the springs of industry and wealth. It is certain that education, with all its advantages, has not removed that industrial carelessness which, rather than lazi- ness, is the economic curse of Italy,—deprives her, for ex- ample, of more than half the benefit of her wonderful produc- tion of wine. Her lawgivers, amid many successes, have not suppressed either assassination, or the Camorra, or some forms of brigandage. Her diplomatists, though able and influential, have suffered a dangerous antipathy to arise between Italy and France, an antipathy not fully compensated by the confidence either of Germany or of the world. Her Royal House has not rooted itself deeper into the affection of the people. The possibility of a great Revolution which might suspend progress for a generation, though remote, is not entirely removed. Above all, the tone of the people, relieved of the oppression which, while it debased their lives, yet elevated their aspirations, has not grown better,—has, on many questions, like foreign politics and religion, become more tainted with that thirst for licence and that craving for
Imaterial acquisitions, territory, subjects, and markets, which are at the present moment the mental diseases of these Southern races ; and are, perhaps, like the German thirst for money and the Jew hunger for social distinction, the result of aspirations too long and too forcibly repressed. The secular unalterableness of the Roman Church, the long poverty of the people, may have produced these symptoms, but they exist. Nevertheless, Italy has done much, very much, since 1861, and Europe ought to acknowledge that her upper middle-class, which is now surrendering power, has proved itself in the department of governing singularly and unexpectedly efficient. The new class will be stronger, and will face greater problems, but still it will lack the strength which in England comes from household, and in France from universal, suffrage, and may possibly be without that iron self-- control which the long foreign domination forced on every Italian in public life. We shall see what they do, and whither they reach ; but whereier it may be, their leaders will have little reason to despise their predecessors of 1861 to 1882, who failed in many things, but who built up, bit by bit, out of separate and jealous provinces, a united, thoroughly armed, and financially prosperous State. Think only that every man in Italy under forty and above eighteen has now been passed in safety through the military mill, with the education which, in Italy, that implies.
Previous page
