212 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



a centre of trade and business — has since a considerable time been 

 the hearth and hatching place of forward ideas — co-operative, 

 warming into Socialist and, occasionally, degenerating into anarchist. 

 By the side of Mori there were Garibotti, Bissolati (now also in 

 Parliament), a medical man named Rossi, who subsequently tried 

 unsuccessfully to form socialist, and eventually anarchist, settle- 

 ments in Brazil, and others, including Antonio Mam of Milan and 

 Amirotti, to hatch co-operative schemes, not affecting agriculture 

 alone. Nearly all the little societies of suolini, scarpellini, biroc- 

 cianti, ghiaiacuoli, barcajuoli, carrettieri and so on, which figure in 

 the lists of Italian labour societies, managing to better their lot by 

 corporate action as self-employers, which have planed the way for 

 that extensive labour co-operation which we now see flourishing 

 in Italy, smiled upon by the authorities because it raises the tone 

 of labour and tends to production,* may be said to have had their 

 birth in the city of the " bean-eaters " (mangia-faggiuoli). That is 

 the nickname that the Cremonese have borne since some centuries. 

 Like Ralahine, its Italian counterpart, the Colonia Agricola di 

 Cittadella, situated in the " Stagno Lombardo," had only a brief 

 life — but for very different reasons than those which brought the 

 Ralahine experiment to a premature end. Dr. Rossi, the member 

 entrusted with the executive leadership, tried to turn the concern 

 into an anarchist settlement. Over the disagreement resulting the 

 institution came to an end. However, the idea was not allowed to 

 slumber long. In 1887 a fresh undertaking was taken in hand at 

 Calvanzano, near Bergamo, which distinctly succeeded. For that 

 settlement is still in existence and prospers fairly, marked as it 

 is by peculiar characteristic features, which still make it one of the 

 advanced posts in the movement for the improvement of the condi- 

 tion of agricultural labour. 



Although at the present time, owing to the caprice of writers on 

 the subject, we hear more about the movement in Emilia and 

 Sicily, where it is flourishing greatly — the Cremonese still stand 

 well to the front, forming one qffittanza after another — about half 

 a dozen in the first half of 1920, all of which seem to work well. 

 There are now in that district about 30,000 acres in the hands of 

 such affittanze, and the area is being steadily enlarged. 



The cessation of the large construction of railways and other 



* An official report says : " The bad habits so common among 

 working-folk, such as the indulgence in card-playing and excessive 

 consumption of intoxicating liquors, quarrels and fights, have grown 

 less." 



