Signor Luzzati, Italian Minister of Finance, brought in his Budget
on Tuesday. He declared that, with the reductions the Government had made, the deficit of 1891-92 would be only £40,000, and in 1892-93 there would be a surplus of £360,000, after paying for all expenditure, including pensions and the outlay on railway construction. He pledged his Government to issue no more Rentes, and to propose no ex- penditure without providing also means to meet it. The speech was exceedingly well received, and Italian Funds have risen ; but there is a weak place in modern Italian finance. It is by no means certain that Parliament will endorse all the economies Signor Luzzati asks for. Some of them will arrest public works, and each district, while devoted to economy in the abstract, thinks its own public works ought to go on. Dismissals, too, are excessively difficult, the Deputies pitying the dismissed as if they were subjected to a sort of torture.
Previous page
