398 



ITALY. 



acts of the Government with different eyes when 

 agriculture was profitable and industry develop- 

 ing and nourishing than they were in the pre- 

 vious year, when dear bread and lack of em- 

 ployment caused distress and despair among the 

 working classes everywhere. Parliament has 

 come to be regarded as the arena of personal 

 ambitions, and the people regarded the mistakes 

 of the bluff and honest soldier at the head of 

 the Government more leniently than they did the 

 artifices and evasions of the subtler politicians. 

 The vigorous crusade against abuses that have 

 been the canker of Italian political life and the 

 disgrace of former administrations won the se- 

 cret approval of the Premier's bitterest opponents. 

 The shielding of lawbreakers and criminal asso- 

 ciations, the suspicion of corruption and bribery 

 and the participation in dishonest speculations, 

 the prostitution of the powers of the Govern- 

 ment to purposes of private gain, and especially 

 connivance in lawlessness and crime for the sake 

 of votes, are charges that have been brought 

 against Deputies and ministers, and they have 

 not been able to clear themselves. Gen. Pelloux 

 let the prefects and local officials understand 

 that they were expected to discharge their duties 

 without fear or favor and without interference 

 from the Deputy of the district or regard to elec- 

 toral consequences. In Sardinia, where black- 

 mailing brigands have long subverted the law 

 and filled the public offices with their accom- 

 plices, Gen. Pelloux, after first accompanying the 

 King on a visit to the island, set the public forces 

 in motion, and by a single well-planned and 

 rapidly executed stroke crushed the criminal or- 

 ganization. Besides leaders and members of the 

 bands, the mayors of six communes and several 

 noblemen and landowners were among the 300 

 persons arrested, all in the night of May 14 in 

 20 communes of the province of Sassari. Some 

 w r ere charged with being members of illegal associ- 

 ations, others with being accomplices and harbor- 

 ers of criminals. Several commercial associations 

 in league with the criminals were dissolved. The 

 bandit chiefs and assassins who at first escaped 

 were caught with the aid of the honest people 

 whom they had terrorized, and were brought to 

 justice for their crimes. In proceeding against 

 the Mafia in Sicily the Minister of the Interior 

 had a more intricate and difficult task. The 

 more flagrant excesses" of Sicilian lawlessness had 

 been abated by other premiers, Sicilians them- 

 selves, who had risen to power by means of the 

 personal ascendency that the conditions of the 

 island enable a skillful leader to gain over the 

 mass of the people. When Crispi was Premier, 

 and before the bank scandals were revealed to the 

 public, the director of the Bank of Sicily, Signer 

 Notarbartolo, made a report accusing officials of 

 the bank and Palizzolo, Deputy for Palermo, of 

 dishonest use of the bank funds. This confiden- 

 tial report disappeared from the ministry and 

 was transmitted to the persons implicated. Upon 

 discovering this Notarbartolo resigned, and was 

 succeeded by the Duke della Verdura, a friend of 

 Crispi and of Palizzolo. The mismanagement of 

 the new director occasioned an outcry, and when 

 a demand arose for the reinstatement of Notar- 

 bartolo the latter was murdered. One Fontana 

 was arrested for the murder; but police, wit- 

 nesses, and the judicial authorities showed such 

 anxiety to free him and to screen Palizzolo, the 

 supposed instigator of the crime, that Gen. Mirri, 

 who was then commander of the Sicilian army 

 corps, believed that they were all guilty or afraid. 

 When the Marchese di Rudini, another Sicilian, 

 succeeded Crispi as Premier and Minister of the 



Interior, the case was not allowed to come to 

 trial. Gen. Pelloux ordered the investigation to 

 be resumed, in consequence of which Fontana 

 was rearrested and railroad officials suspected 

 of abetting him were arrested also. Palizzolo, 

 whom the previous Government had decorated, 

 was denounced and taken into custody on the 

 charges of instigating murder and receiving stolen 

 funds of the bank, 15 Sicilian witnesses at the 

 former police inquiry were charged with perjury, 

 and all were removed and brought to trial in 

 Milan, remote from the influence and terrorism 

 of the Sicilian Mafia. 



When Parliament reassembled on Nov. 14 

 Signer Boselli was able to present the most satis- 

 factory statement of the finances of the Gov- 

 ernment that had ever been made. The cost of 

 the Government of Italy as a first-class power 

 has been such a crushing burden as to make the 

 people sometimes almost regret unification. In 

 spite of grinding taxation, the national debt has 

 grown by the accretion of annual deficits. Baron 

 Sonnino, who became Minister of the Treasury in 

 1893, was able to maintain a financial equilibri- 

 um for two years, and his successors for two 

 years longer. Minister Vachelli in 1898 gave 

 up the struggle, and for 1899 predicted a deficit 

 of 15,000,000 lire, to be followed in 1900 by one 

 of double that amount. Signer Boselli's econo- 

 mies and the improvement of trade altered the 

 situation. The closed accounts for 1899 showed 

 that the revenue had exceeded the estimates by 

 42,000,000 lire and the receipts of the preceding 

 year by 30,000,000 lire, so that, notwithstanding 

 26,000,000 lire of unforeseen expenditure, there 

 was a surplus of 15,000,000 lire on June 30, 1899. 

 Receipts in subsequent months reduced the esti- 

 mated deficit for 1900 by one half, and promised, 

 if the same rate of increase should be maintained, 

 to turn it into a surplus of 12,000,000 lire. The 

 improved receipts were of the most gratifying 

 kind, coming from railroad traffic, posts and tele- 

 graphs, stamps, salt, and tobacco, showing in- 

 creased activity of business and greater spending 

 power among the masses of the people. War- 

 rants were issued for the arrest of the Socialist 

 Deputies who had overturned and carried off 

 the urns on the last day of the spring session. 

 They were liable to penal servitude for interfer- 

 ing with the legislative proceedings by force, but 

 just as they were about to be tried the decree 

 summoning Parliament was published, restoring 

 their parliamentary immunity and quashing the 

 proceedings. The King's speech at the opening 

 of Parliament, promising a bill for the allevia- 

 tion of taxes weighing on the poor, was a shrewd 

 and stirring appeal to all parties to restore the 

 normal working of representative government in 

 the face of dangers on which all were agreed and 

 in furtherance of prosperity in which the whole 

 people participated. 



Colonies. The colony of Eritrea, on the Red 

 Sea coast of Africa, has an area of about 88,500 

 square miles and 450,000 inhabitants. It is ad-, 

 ministered by a civil governor under -instruc- 

 tions from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The 

 expenditures for 1898 were estimated at 18,130,000 

 lire, of which 2,630,000 lire were raised by cus- 

 toms duties and local taxation and 15,500,000 

 lire were contributed from the Italian treasury. 

 The total expenditure of the Italian Government 

 on its African possessions from the occupation 

 of Massowah in 1882 to the end of 1897 was 352,- 

 353,786 lire. The nomadic tribes raise camels, 

 cattle, sheep, and goats, and supply meat, but- 

 ter, and hides for export. Pearls and pearl shells 

 of the value of more than 1,000,000 lire a year 



