ITALY. 



385 



dence under police surveillance for persons re- 

 puted dangerous to the public safety. A bill 

 for Government supervision of the manufacture, 

 storage, and sale of explosives had been passed 

 previously. The state of siege was continued in 

 Sicily till September, when the common law was 

 restored and the arms taken from the inhabit- 

 ants were returned to them. The prefects and 

 the police, however, were ordered to follow the 

 directions of the military authorities till the end 

 of the year. The prefect of Palermo resigned 

 on account of this decree. The arrests of sus- 

 pected anarchists and revolutionaries, of which 

 there had been 3,000 since May 1, were doubled 

 after the new laws went into effect, and 1,000 or 

 more persons left the country for the Argentine 

 Republic or other parts of America in order to 

 escape arrest- 

 Government Crisis. Baron Sonnino made 

 his financial statement as soon as the Chamber 

 met on Feb. 20, 1894. The Right, led by the 

 Marquis di Rudini and the Radicals, regarded 

 as futile the financial remedies offered by Son- 

 nino, and saw no way to economical regenera- 

 tion except renunciation of the triple alliance. 

 a rapprochement with France, and trenchant 

 reduction of military and naval expenditures. 

 Crispi, while declaring that a war with France 

 would be " a civil war, not as one between nation 

 and nation," and Russian and Italian interests 

 did not clash, upheld the triple alliance, with the 

 understanding with England regarding the Medi- 

 terranean as Italy's only safeguard, and refused 

 to allow any reduction in the army and navy 

 estimates. Some of the new taxes proposed in 

 the budget, as the taxes on salt and spirituous 

 liquors, had already been levied by royal decrees. 

 The Premier asked the Chamber in the begin- 

 ning to intrust the ministry with plenary pow- 

 ers, chiefly for the purpose of cutting down the 

 staff of civil employees. This proposal was de- 

 nied, and when he found that he could not ob- 

 tain the Chamber's consent to the proposed 

 scheme of new taxation, he suggested that a 

 committee of 18 should study other means of 

 producing a financial equilibrium. Obtaining a 

 majority of only 11 for his motion, he and his 

 colleagues resigned on June 5. Consultations 

 with Signor Zanardelli and the Marquis di Rudini 

 led to nothing, and on June 14 Signor Crispi took 

 up the task again with a reconstructed Cabinet 

 on the understanding that it was by greater re- 

 trenchment rather than by new taxation that the 

 budget should be balanced, if at all. Baron Son- 

 nino gave up the portfolio of Finance to Signor 

 Boselli, and himself became Minister of the 

 Treasury, while Signor A. Barazzuoli, a promi- 

 nent Deputy from Tuscany, entered the Cabinet 

 as Minister of Agriculture. The proposed addi- 

 tional land tax, a stamp duty on indorsements 

 on bills of exchange, and the income tax were 

 abandoned, whereas it was proposed to make the 

 tax on alcoholic drinks higher than had been 

 contemplated. The Premier promised 20,000,- 

 000 lire of additional economies. A committee 

 of generals found a way to save half of this sum 

 in the army budget. The financial measures of 

 the ministry were finally passed. It was found 

 later that 20,000,000 lire more would have to be 

 saved in expenditures, and 10,000,000 lire raised 

 by taxation. 



VOL. xxxiv. 25 A 



The Government yielded in a controversy with 

 the Vatican regarding the appointment of bish- 

 ops, and in September Signor Crispi expressed a 

 desire for a reconciliation of the monarchy and 

 the Church in a speech at Naples in which he 

 said : " Society is passing through a grave crisis, 

 and never more than to-day have we felt the 

 want of the two authorities, civil and religious, 

 marching side by side, to lead the people in the 

 way of justice and charity ; for from the dark- 

 est abysses has arisen an infamous sect which 

 writes upon its flag ' No God, no master,' and 

 to combat this monster we must advance in ser- 

 ried ranks under the banner inscribed on which 

 is the motto ' God, King, and Fatherland.' " 



The Bank Scandals. The trial of Bernardo 

 Tanlongo, the governor of the Banca Romana, 

 and Cesare Lazzaroni, the cashier, with Antonio 

 Monzilli, a Government official, and other accom- 

 plices, charged with having fraudulently over- 

 issued 72,000,000 lire of bank notes and dis- 

 counted 5,000,000 lire of fictitious commercial 

 notes, was begun on May 2. Tanlongo declared 

 that when he was placed at the head of the in- 

 stitution, in 1880, there was a deficit of 9,000,000 

 lire, and that he was induced by Depretis to use 

 the funds of the bank to bull Italian rentes ; also 

 that heavy losses were incurred in the clearance 

 of bank notes between the different banks. It 

 was proved that prominent politicians had ob- 

 tained advances from the bank, and that the 

 press was heavily subsidized. A Parliamentary 

 committee in its report inculpated the former 

 Minister of Commerce, Pietro Lacava, and Depu- 

 ties Count Michele Amedei, Pietro Delvecchio, 

 Filippo Cavallini, Duke Genaro di San Donato, 

 Augusto Fila, Baron Giovanni Nicotera, Bruno 

 Chimirri, and others. It came out during the 

 trial that documents that were seized by the po- 

 lice after the arrest of the governor and cashier 

 were taken to the Ministry of the Interior and 

 there sifted. It was intimated that the then 

 Premier, Giolitti, was anxious to shield from 

 scandal the reputation of the late King and 

 other members of the royal family ; but it was 

 suspected that evidence compromising his polit- 

 ical friends was also suppressed. Even Crispi 

 was accused in the recriminations that were ban- 

 died about of having received a small share of 

 the plunder. The public was shocked at the un- 

 concealed suppression of evidence, and the jury 

 looked upon the prisoners as the mere tools of 

 persons high in office and in power, and acquitted 

 them after a trial lasting three months. 



The Radicals in the Chamber demanded a 

 thorough ventilation of the scandals and the 

 punishment of the members of the Senate and 

 Chamber and others who were guilty of corrup- 

 tion. Giolitti, who had been accused by Tan- 

 longo of receiving 40,000 lire of the stolen funds 

 of the bank, threatened disclosures that would 

 involve Crispi and others of the Government 

 party. Prosecutions were begun against himself 

 and his colleagues in the late Cabinet, and to 

 stop these he made the threat to publish the 

 documents that he had secreted. This he dared 

 not do lest he should be punished for revealing 

 state secrets, and finally he handed over a packet 

 of documents to the President of the Chamber. 

 The Chamber ordered them to be examined by 

 a committee, which included the Radical leader 



