414 



ITALY. 



The criminal court on June 13 found Cuciniel- 

 Io guilty of embezzling 2,450,000 lire from the 

 Bank of Naples with the connivance of D'Ales- 

 sandro, the cashier, and sentenced the one to 

 ten, the other to six years of imprisonment. On 

 July 15 the examining judge discharged all except 

 eleven of the persons arrested for fraud and cor- 

 ruption in connection with the Banca Romana, 

 and of these, 4 were discharged for lack of evi- 

 dence by the Court of Appeal on Sept. 21. This 

 latter decision, by which Pietro Tanlongo and 

 Michele Lazzaroni escaped trial, was regarded as 

 disgraceful by the public, and such was the in- 

 dignation at the supposed bargain to purchase 

 the silence of the older prisoners that the dis- 

 trict attorney took an appeal, which was denied 

 by the Supreme Court. Bernardo Tanlongo, Ce- 

 sare Lazzaroni, Antonio Monzilli, the Govern- 

 ment supervisor of banks, Lorenzo Zammarano, 

 Gaetano Belluci-Sessa, a lawyer who had acted 

 as agent in Tanlongo's briberies, and two em- 

 ployees of the bank named Agazzi and Tocca- 

 fundi were held for trial. 



An investigating committee of 7 Deputies of 

 unimpeachable honesty and patriotism selected 

 from all parties concluded its work during the 

 vacation. When the new session opened, on 

 Nov. 30, the reading of the report was demanded 

 as soon as the house was called to order. Among 

 the men censured were Minister Grimaldi, Un- 

 der-Secretary Count Michele Amadei, Augus- 

 to Elia, Baron Nicotera, Alessandro Narduc- 

 ci, Luigi Niceli, Duke Gennaro di San Donato, 

 Pietro Delvecchio, Pilippo Cavallini, Francesco 

 Montagna, Luigi Simonetti, and Bruno Chimirri. 

 The committee recorded its disapproval of Pre- 

 mier Giolitti, who knew of the bank's irregular- 

 ities as early as 1889 ; of ex-Premier Crispi, of 

 Micele, and of Prof. Luigi Luzzatti, formerly 

 Minister of Finance, who were all cognizant of 

 the condition of the bank. Urbano Ratazzi, 

 Minister of the Royal Household, was found to 

 have borrowed largely from the bank, and con- 

 sequently he had already been dismissed. Pietro 

 Lacava, the Minister of Commerce, was reproved 

 severely for not having made a thorough inspec- 

 tion and for keeping from the Legislature the 

 facts that he knew. 



Change of Ministry. The reading of the 

 report produced a tumult that compelled the 

 President, Giuseppe Zanardelli, to suspend the 

 sitting amid the volley of furious invectives and 

 insults that were hurled at the ministers. Gio- 

 letti and his colleagues, who had commanded a 

 large majority when the Chamber was adjourned, 

 were forced into an unprecedented act by the 

 novel situation. They at once presented their 

 resignation to the King, and when the Cham- 

 b?r met on the following morning declared 

 that they would meet their assailants as mem- 

 bers of Parliament, not as ministers discredited 

 before the country by suspicions of malfeasance 

 and dishonesty. The Radicals charged them 

 with seeking to evade impeachment, and amid 

 general disorder the session was again sus- 

 pended. There was no leader of a majority on 

 whom the King could call because the ministry 

 had retired without being regularly assailed, 

 and so the King asked Giuseppe Zanardelli, 

 President of the Chamber, to form a ministry. 

 Zanardelli tried to effect a combination on a 



broad nonpartisan basis that would include 

 Sonnino, the leader of the Center, and Fortis, 

 the Radical leader, and when this failed he al- 

 most succeeded in getting together a Cabinet 

 drawn entirely from the Left, but was finally 

 compelled to confess his failure to the King, 

 who on Dec. 5 sent for Crispi. On Dec. 14 

 the Cabinet was constituted as follows : Fran- 

 cesco Crispi, Premier and Minister of the In- 

 terior ; Baron Blanc, Minister of Foreign Af- 

 fairs ; Baron Giorgio Sonnino, Minister of Fi- 

 nance and Minister of the Treasury ad interim ; 

 Giuseppe Sarrocco, Minister of Public Works; 

 Andrea Calenda di Tavani, Minister of Justice ; 

 Gen. Stanislao Mocenni, Minister of War ; Ad- 

 miral Constantino Morin, Minister of Marine ; 

 Augusto Bacelli, Minister of Education ; Paolo 

 Boselli, Minister of Agriculture ; Count Luigi 

 Ferraris, Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. 



Monetary Difficulty. The year 1893 was 

 marked by financial and monetary disturbances 

 resulting from a complication of causes to which 

 the bank exposures were only contributory. The 

 financial position of the Government was really 

 better than ever, inasmuch as the deficit was 

 nearly, if not quite extinguished, the budget for 

 1893 showing on its face an actual surplus of 

 7,000,000 lire. The Government was thus re- 

 lieved of the necessity of placing bonds abroad ; 

 but to strengthen its position it had been obliged 

 to reduce the expenditure on new railroads from 

 266,000,000 to 29,000,000 lire and expenditure in 

 other departments also, which contributed to 

 the general dullness of trade. An excess of im- 

 ports over exports depleted the gold reserves, 

 leaving the Government no stock to draw on for 

 payment of the interest on the debt held abroad. 

 At the same time the French were unloading 

 their large holdings of Italian rentes in order 

 to invest in Russian Government bonds at a 

 faster rate than they could be absorbed in Italy 

 in the existing state of the money market. The 

 fall in rentes resulting from this injured public 

 and private credit had made it more difficult for 

 individuals to buy back the securities, and for 

 the Government to obtain 120,000,000 to 150,- 

 000,000 lire in foreign money to meet its obliga- 

 tions abroad. About 600,000,000 lire of the 

 Italian stock held in France were repurchased by 

 Italians. These operations were rendered more 

 difficult and costly when, as a natural result of 

 the monetary situation, gold rose to a premium 

 of 5, then 10 or 12, and finally 20 per cent. The 

 premium was only partly due to the illegal exces- 

 sive issue of bank notes, because these notes were 

 all guaranteed by the Government. In the spring 

 silver also rose to a premium and speculators 

 made a profit by exporting the fractional cur- 

 rency which was legal tender in any country of 

 the Latin Union. In a short time silver van- 

 ished from circulation, and then even bronze 

 coins were bought up and held for a premium. 

 Ordinary business was paralyzed for want of 

 small change. Some firms struck token coins; 

 others accepted halves and quarters of the 5- and 

 10-lira notes of the Government, which also com- 

 manded a premium ; and others issued their 

 printed notes of the value of a lira, against which 

 they deposited sums in banking institutions. 

 The efforts of the Government to stop the ex- 

 portation of silver by making it a misdemeanor 



