THE SITUATION IN ITALY, , I T is reported that at
length arrangements have been come to between Italy and the Emperor Menelek as to the demarcation of frontier as proposed by the latter. italy has had no choice but to accept in the main the terms proposed. It is understood that Erythrea remains Italian, but that it is to be a commercial, not a military, settlement, and that the Italian authorities there will cultivate friendly relations with Abyssinia. It is to be hoped that this settlement of the problem may prove effectual, and that a rash and badly organised expedition may be forgotten in a peaceful issue. Not altogether un- connected with this matter of Italian enterprise in Africa is the piece of news that a band of peasants in the Albano district, near Rome, descended on one of the large estates there and demanded its division among themselves, so that they could cultivate the soil and live on its pro- ceeds. It goes without saying that the peasants were dispersed, but no traveller who has visited that district and noted the large number of beggars of all ages and both sexes who follow him persistently for relief from poverty, can doubt that it would be a good thing if some of the latifundia still so numerous in Central and Southern Italy could be partly broken up and cultivated by a people naturally industrious, but de- moralised by long years of bad government, enforced idleness, and an ecclesiastical " cult " of poverty. The connection between this incident and the Italian expedi. tion into Abyssinia is that public money which might have gone to effect a large system of State purchase somewhat analogous to that set up in Ireland has been expended on a foreign policy from which the Italians have reaped only mortification and loss. Signor Crispi recently said that it was not enough for a nation to adopt Voltaire's advice and cultivate its garden, that it must have a wider outlook, must initiate an external policy, or else submit to degeneration and to those processes which convert a great into a minor Power. No doubt there is a real truth in this, and there can be no question that Mazzini and Garibaldi intended that Italy should loom large in the world, and not sink into the sordid utilitarianism of successful shopkeeping and market- gardening. But there are two considerations which must limit the scope of this doctrine. The foreign policy must be wise, practicable, and well directed ; that is to say, it must be all that the Abyssinian ex- pedition was not. The Italian Government knew little or nothing of its adversary or of his country, its expedi- tion was badly equipped and. led, the end in view was never clearly perceived, and the enterprise was thoroughly unpopular at home. In the second place, the doctrine must be modified by a consideration of the ability of the country to undertake such a policy. If money is urgently needed for home improvements, it seems idle folly to waste it over a doubtful foreign expedition ; and that this was and is the case in Italy few persons will be found to deny. The absolute annihilation of Signor Crispi's party showed, at any rate, what Italians thought of the matter.
The two problems immediately before Italy are economic and political,—the problem of taxation and the problem of the actual methods of government. In one sense Italy is a poor country, for she has few mineral resources, and there- fore cannot, except in some special districts, be a great industrial nation ; she has not the basis of coal and iron, though with the development of electric motor power in industry she may look forward even in this department to a considerable future. But in another sense she strikes the observer as rich. When the tourist wanders through the maize and rice fields, the vine- yards and orchards of Lombardy or Tuscany, he marvels at the wealth of production all around him. Liguria is one long garden as fertile as it is fair, and even in the Campagna one sees many signs that waste and unhealthy districts are being reclaimed. The sea-coast near Rome, now a region of malarious marshes, offered in the later Re- publican times a noted health resort, and may do so again. With a large and wise expenditure Italy might be a very prosperous country. Her population is fairly large and prolific—thirty millions over a territory a little less than that of the United Kingdom—but the surplus is carried off to the United States and the Argentine. Under proper conditions, therefore, it cannot be said that there is a population question in Italy. Yet, in spite of the general wealth, there is such individual poverty over wide areas as is not known in England, much less in France. There are two explanations of this,—the big, ill-managed estates, and the very high taxation, both general and • local. Italy and Spain both need such a system of widely diffused peasant property as the Revolution confirined to, if it did not confer upon, France. The Italians are not naturally a thriftless or idle people. On the ccintrary, when they get a chance, as in the so-called " truck-farms " and market-gardens in New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts, they toil hard, thrive, and ire Ale to make an occasional trip to see their friends in their native land. The Italian nature is generally energetic and well balanced, and it is environ- ment and bad government that are so largely responsible for the beggary and poverty associated with Italy. It is when we glance at the tariff, when we contemplate the immense army of Customs officials, when we see the men in uniform searching women's baskets at the octroi stations in hundreds of towns throughout the peninsula, that we begin to see why Italy is so poor. The Govern- ment taxes the people beyond the point which present economic conditions justify. It is not that the ultimate limit of taxation is reached, but the bcirden rests on the poor, and they cannot, by the utmost industry, become richer. The Government establishment is also costly beyond the ability of the country to sustain. The numerous palaces, the huge offices, the splendidly deco- 'rated officials, all strike foreign observers. It may be doubted whether taxes are collected with impar- tial justice ; it is certain that indireot taxation always hits the poor hardest. What seems needed is the breaking up of big estates, a great Government work of purchase, settlement, and reclamation, and a complete readjustment of taxation with a view to some approximation of justice in public burdens. The best Italian Liberals have been stalwart Free-traders. This was Cavour's policy, and it was the policy of not a few among the statesmen of the generation which saw the accomplishment of Italian unity. It would seem as if no country needed free exchange more than Italy, for she has a large domestic product needed and welcomed in every land, while she must necessarily import the products of industrial countries, notably coal and iron and steel goods. No country thus suffers more from indirect taxation, grown to huge proportions, than does Italy. It is evident, therefore, that the solution of Italy's economic problem involves, first, such freedom of trade and such access to land by the peasantry as shall better distribute the large total product; and, second, such a, development by reclamation and improvement, undertaken by the Government, as shall actually increase that total product, large as it already is.
But how is this great programme of internal reform to be carried out with the present inefficient political methods ? Two points not properly understood by English observers should never be lost sight of. First, the unifi- cation of Italy is not yet a fully accomplished fact, in spite of all that the Government has done to combat the spirit of particularism. Piedmont and Sicily do not yet feel that they are fraternal partners in a common under- taking ; the old sore of Italy, that of division, is not yet fully healed. Second, Parliamentary government exists in Italy more in name than in reality. With the fall of the Minghetti Ministry fell anything like a genuine division of the Chamber into Government and Opposition parties, organised on the lines of something like con- tending principles. An era of fusion set in under Depretis, and this fusion led inevitably to that " group " system which is evident in every Continental Parlia- ment, but which has perhaps risen to larger proportions in Italy than in any other country in Western Europe. The Austrian groups are more numerous, it may be, but they are the expressions of the diverse nationalities of that polyglot and multi-racial Empire. In Italy the grouping seems to be largely the expression in politics of that old Italian tendency to free fighting under different chieftains. Italian politicians have too much the aspect of contending political condoitieri. Crispi, Rudini, Zanardelli, Son nini, Cavalotti, Imbriani,— each seems to have his group, who will stand by him if he decides to break with colleagues, and in a moment will help him to make some new combination. The terms Right and Left have no longer any significance. What one sees is knots of men keenly alive to the advantages of office. Who shall define the exact political tint of the Rudini Ministry and the majority on which it rests ? Beyond saying that it is very moderately Conservative, one cannot " place " it as one places a British Cabinet. While it is true that much useful legislation (some of which was not urgently demanded by the people) has been carried out since the unification of Italy, it also remains true that the Chamber of Deputies as at present constituted is not likely to legislate in the direction we have indicated as necessary. Every one is busily engaged in looking after his political interests, every one has an "axe to grind." Hence the Ministry is too constantly exerting its wits to prevent itself from being tripped up for serious, carefully devised reforms to be carried into law. Under Victor Emmanuel Italy had the advantage of a popular and strong Monarch with an initiative ; at present that advantage is absent, and the Ministry, with a Chamber divided into cliques led by ambitious individuals, does not and cannot supply the deficiency. If Parliamentary government is to be a reality in Italy, it must not suffice merely to set up an English form without the spirit which in England has created and sustained that form ; and this is precisely what has been done in Italy. The authority of Parliament is also heavily weighted by the activity and power of the official class, which is relatively more numerous in Italy than in any other European country. It is weighted also by the indifference to polities (only 45 per cent, of the voters recorded their votes at the last elections), and by the fact that genuine freedom of speech not yet having been conceded, Parliamentary elections have not that autho- rity which they have with us. Italy needs, in a, word, greater freedom ; free speech, free land, free-trade.
We must not, however, convey a too gloomy impression of the situation in Italy. The schools are doing a great work, intelligence is spreading, cities like Milan, Florence, Genoa, Turin, show solid gains of real wealth and culture, and a rapid improvement in the arts of civilised life. Hygiene, prison reform, better municipal administration, good roads and streets, lighting and drainage,—these are the chief problems on which the modern Italian mind is bent. Milan boasts the best- made and best-drained and best-lighted street of any city in the world. One can trace, year by year, substantial improvements in most of the leading Italian towns. There is such energy, such excellent feeling, such balanced judgment in the people, that the observer can but believe that these qualities must soon be brought to bear on the two great problems of Italy's economic condition and her method and spirit of government. One may feel gloomy about Italy, but there is something in her people which forbids anything like despair.
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