ITALY. 



319 



tons, colored and dyed, 1,394,605 lire; of bleached 

 cottons, 1,030,120 lire; of unbleached cotton, 443,- 

 (540 lire; of refined sugar, 203,79(5 lire. The ex- 

 ports of raw and thrown silk were 419,120,000 

 lire in value; of wine in casks, 0(5,993,141 lire; of 

 olive-oil, 55,738,380 lire; of eggs, 43,937,010 lire; 

 of sulfur, refined and unrefined, 43,461,876 lire; of 

 hemp and flax, 36,906,589 lire; of silk waste, 34,- 

 125,650 lire; of manufactured coral, 30,674,880 lire; 

 of skins, 22,188,928 lire; of marble, 18,482,948 lire; 

 of fresh and salted meat, 18,451,375 lire; of zinc 

 ore, 16,812,840 lire; of rice, 13,521,495 lire; of cat- 

 tle, 12,205,170 lire; of straw plaiting, 9,264,000 

 lire; of dyes and tan, 9,231,604 lire; of hogs, 5,380,- 

 850 lire; of grain, 4,561,105 lire; of cocoons, 3,336,- 

 820 lire; of cotton, 1,644,228 lire; of horses, 990,- 

 500 lire; of lead ore, 594,510 lire. The value of 

 reexports in 1899 was 32,922,000 lire; of the tran- 

 sit trade, 132,287,000 lire. 



The special trade in merchandise with the prin- 

 cipal foreign countries in 1899 is given in lire in 

 the following table: 



Navigation. The number of vessels that were 

 entered at Italian ports during 1899 was 105,824, 

 of 30,307,513 tons, of which 94,804, of 19,178,698 

 tons, were Italian and 11,020, of 11,128,815 tons, 

 foreign; the number cleared was 105,712, of 30,- 

 162,879 tons, of which 94,778, of 19,130,920 tons, 

 were Italian and 10,934, of 11,031,959 tons, foreign. 



The merchant navy on Jan. 1, 1899, comprised 

 5,764 sailing vessels, of 537,642 tons, and 384 

 steamers, of 277,520 tons. 



Railroads, Posts, and Telegraphs. The 

 length of the principal Italian railroads is 9,747 

 miles. The receipts in 1897 amounted to 279,810,- 

 833 lire, and expenses to 198,317,567 lire. The 

 number of passengers conveyed was 54,415,294; 

 tons of freight, 19,148,875 by slow and 1,280,834 

 by express trains. 



The post-office in the year ending June 30, 1898, 

 forwarded 252,292,942 letters and postal cards, 

 8,554,664 manuscripts, 277,002,844 newspapers, 

 etc., and 11,929,470 money orders, amounting to 

 846,915,330 lire. The length of telegraph-lines on 

 June 30, 1898, was 26,085 miles, with 101,198 

 miles of wire. The Government owned 23,937 

 miles of line, w r ith 77,718 miles of wire, and rail- 

 road companies 2,147 miles of line, with 23,477 

 miles of wire. The number of internal paid tele- 

 grams in 1898 was 7,555,564; of foreign tele- 

 grams. 1,111,896. The postal receipts in 1898 were 

 56,709,050 lire; telegraph receipts, 13,948,014 lire; 

 postal and telegraph expenses, 57,858,241 lire; net 

 revenue, 12,798,823 lire. 



Politics and Legislation. The perennial dif- 

 ficulties of Italian finance led to the resignation 

 of Signer Rubini from the Cabinet during the 

 holiday recess of the Chamber. Signer Chimirri 

 took temporary charge until Gaspare Finali was 

 appointed Minister of the Treasury on Jan. 7, 

 1901. The financial problem was to reconcile the 

 demands of the ministries with the promised alle- 

 viation of the crushing burden borne by. the 



poorer taxpayers. The.Saracco Cabinet, consti- 

 tuted as a Ministry of Affairs, had a precarious 

 tenure of oflice. When the Chambers met on Jan. 

 27 the Cabinet wan assailed from both sides of 

 the Senate for its action in dissolving UK: Social- 

 istic Chamber of Labor in Genoa and afterward 

 sanctioning its reconstitution when the workmen 

 of that city struck in sign of protest. 



Other statesmen were ambitious to cope with 

 the questions of financial and administrative re- 

 form and the renewal of the Triple Alliance expn- 

 ing in 1902. The question of the Genoa strike was 

 the pretext, not the cause, of the fall of the Cabi- 

 net, which could not save itself by bringing in a 

 new anti-Anarchist bill. Rudini, Giolitti, Crispi, 

 and Pelloux, who had been Prime Ministers at 

 different times since 1891, when in face of a com- 

 bination that compassed the downfall of their 

 Cabinets, resigned in every instance without wait- 

 ing for a hostile vote. Signer Saracco waited 

 for a vote of censure, and was beaten on Feb. 

 6 by the enormous majority of 318 to 102. The 

 King, after consulting the leaders of all the 

 parties, decided to entrust the task of forming 

 a new Cabinet to Signer Zanardelli, a leader of 

 the Liberals. The chiefs of the Extreme Left re- 

 fused to enter the Cabinet unless a drastic re- 

 duction in military expenditure was promised, 

 and on Feb. 14 a ministry containing 3 Zanardel- 

 lians, 3 Giolittians, 3 Conservatives, with the same 

 professional heads of the army and navy depart- 

 ments as in the retiring ministry, was formed as 

 follows : President of the Council, Giuseppe Zanar- 

 delli; Minister of the Interior, Giovanni Giolitti; 

 Minister of Foreign Affairs, Giulio Prinetti; Min- 

 ister of War, Count Ponza di San Martino; Min- 

 ister of Marine, Admiral Morin; Mininster of Fi- 

 nance, Leone Wollemborg; Minister of the Treas- 

 ury, Ernesto di Broglio; Minister of Justice, 

 Francesco Cocco-Ortu; Minister of Public Works, 

 Girolamo Giusso; Minister of Agriculture, Sil- 

 vestro Picardi; Minister of Public Instruction, 

 Nunzio Nasi; Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, 

 Tancredo Galimberti. The tax reforms promised 

 by the Zanardelli-Giolitti Cabinet were the aboli- 

 tion of the octroi on flour and bread and the 

 removal of octroi barriers in towns of less than 

 20,000 inhabitants, 274 in number, two-thirds of 

 them situated in the south, where the octrois 

 press the hardest. The opening of these closed 

 communes by doing away with gates and collec- 

 tors does not abolish all octrois, but the toll col- 

 lected on necessaries of life is much lighter, the 

 remission of taxation amounting to 40,000,000 

 lire, which the Government expected to regain by 

 a steeper rate of progression in the succession 

 duties. The new ministry had to confront an Op- 

 position majority at the outset of 187 to 160 Min- 

 isterialists including 80 Extreme Radicals and 

 Socialists. Hostile committees were chosen, and 

 the commission which examined the fiscal pro- 

 gram of the Government rejected all its provi- 

 sions. The municipalities it was intended to re- 

 lieve condemned this scheme for the partial aboli- 

 tion of the gate duty on breadstuff's. The Cabinet 

 had then no definite program. Yet it remained in 

 office, passing its bills with the help of the Op- 

 position and in spite of its supporters. The army 

 budget was fixed at 275,000,000 lire a year for a 

 sexennial period, including 35,000,000 lire for pen- 

 sions and a provision for gradually renewing the 

 7.5-centimeter guns of the field-artillery. The an- 

 nual naval estimates were in like manner limited 

 to 121,000,000 lire for six years. 



The new Minister of Foreign Affairs had made 

 himself chiefly conspicuous in that department of 

 politics in former days by attacking the Triple 



