ITALY. 



449 



leaders of the dominant party, but the bill 

 which was finally brought in during the ses- 

 sion of 1881, and carried after a long discus- 

 sion, still retains important limitations. An- 

 other favorite project of the party has been 

 the revision of the penal code, with the object 

 of mitigating the harsher penalties and ulti- 

 mately abolishing the death-sentence. 



The fiscal system of Italy, national and local, 

 is full of anomalies. The antiquated and vicious 

 methods of taxation retard material progress, 

 and bear with crushing force upon the half- 

 starved tillers of the most fertile valleys in Eu- 

 rope. But the mischievous taxes are not re- 

 moved, though new ones are added, because 

 the maintenance of overgrown armaments, 

 which are not yet considered sufficient for the 

 defense of Italy, and the proper assertion of 

 her position as one of the six great powers, 

 will not allow any source of revenue to be dis- 

 turbed. The octroi duties, or taxes on produce 

 brought into the towns, are still in full force. 

 The house-tax in some of the towns, as in half- 

 deserted Florence, amounts to nearly fifty per 

 cent of the rental. The legacy duty is collected 

 not only from the immediate heirs and legatees 

 upon their succession, but is exacted for rever- 

 sionary interests which fall due in the indefi- 

 nite future. The tobacco-tax presses heavily 

 on an article of universal consumption, and 

 falls with special severity upon the poorer 

 classes. The salt monopoly is a still more in- 

 defensible source of revenue. The public lot- 

 tery is an immoral mode of taxation, and its 

 influence unquestionably pernicious. The cus- 

 toms duties are excessively high, and revenue 

 considerations prevent their being adjusted so 

 as to judiciously protect home industries with- 

 out unnecessarily hampering foreign trade. The 

 port charges and navigation laws are a further 

 discouragement to commerce, and have had the 

 effect of diminishing navigation and reducing 

 the Italian commercial marine. 



Two popular financial measures were pro- 

 posed by the Government party when in oppo- 

 sition. These were the abolition of the ob- 

 noxious grist-tax and the return to specie pay- 

 ments. Favored by abundant harvests and 

 improving prosperity, both of the promised 

 reforms have at length, though tardily, been 

 initiated. The act for the removal of the grist- 

 tax was passed in the session of 1880. The 

 opponents of the measure prophesied that the 

 public finances would be seriously crippled, but 

 the revenue of 1881 was larger than the most 

 sanguine supporters of the bill anticipated. 



As soon as the Cabinet crisis was composed, 

 the Legislature entered on the discussion of the 

 electoral reform act. Under the old law suf- 

 frage was limited to those who paid at least 

 forty francs direct taxes annually and to mem- 

 bers of the learned professions. Universal suf- 

 frage has found many advocates in Italy ; yet 

 when an amendment in that sense was pro- 

 posed, only 39 votes were given for it to 314 

 against, and Crispi's proposal to allow all to 

 VOL. xxi. 29 A 



vote who could write the names of their can- 

 didates, was lost by a heavy majority. The 

 property limitation of the new law is the pay- 

 ment of nineteen francs eighty centimes of an- 

 nual taxes. The bill passed the Chamber June 

 29th, and was still pending before the Legis- 

 lature at the end of the year. It passed the 

 Senate, much altered by amendments, Decem- 

 ber 20th. The substitution of the scrutin de 

 liste* or collective tickets, for the method of 

 voting by separate districts for the representa- 

 tives in the Legislature, was one of the elective 

 reforms proposed by the Government. It was 

 presented in a separate bill, and, though pressed 

 by the ministry, the Chamber postponed the 

 measure, and it could not be brought to a vote 

 before the adjournment in July. Notwith- 

 standing the dissensions among the majority, 

 the two Cabinet crises, and the difficulties of 

 the situation at home and abroad, the session 

 was an unusually fruitful one. Besides the 

 election reform bill, and the bill for the retire- 

 ment of the forced currency, an important re- 

 form in the organization of the army, and a 

 municipal aid law for Rome and Naples, were 

 valuable measures among an unusual number 

 of minor enactments. 



The French advance into Tunis occurred at 

 a time when the Left in Parliament was more 

 disorganized and discordant than usual. The 

 French preparations for landing troops on the 

 Tunisian coast were the occasion for an onset 

 against the weak and struggling ministry. The 

 news stirred the political life of Italy deeply. 

 The firm belief was that France intended to 

 retain a supremacy of some description in Tu- 

 nis,.and the general feeling was that Italy must 

 prevent it if by any means she could. It 

 was a tradition of Italian politics that a mili- 

 tary power should never be suffered to install 

 itself upon that coast, from which Carthage 

 menaced ancient Rome. Italy had also large 

 and growing mercantile interests in Tunis, and 

 regarded with complacency this point of ingress 

 into the African trade as having been gained, 

 and as likely to be retained, by the enterprise of 

 her men of business. Hence arose the demand 

 for a strong ministry which could command a 

 firm majority in the Chamber of Deputies, and 

 could with confidence take the decided steps 

 which the juncture might render necessary. 

 Massari, De Rudini, andDamiani addressed the 

 formal interrogations to the ministry. Cairoli, 

 the Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign 

 Affairs, replied that France had made categor- 

 ical declarations to both Italy and England that 

 the expedition was designed simply to punish 

 the Kroumirs, and that the status quo would not 

 be altered. The assurances that furnished the 

 grounds on which the Government defended its 

 inactivity were not relied upon as implicitly by 

 the deputies of the Right, and the dissentient 

 fractions of the ruling party. The ministry 

 were left in the minority on a vote of censure, 

 April 7th, and handed in their portfolios. The 



* >tT SCUI'TIN I)K L.ISTK. 



