ITALY. 



351 



railroad conventions will expire, and while the 

 men aimed to strengthen their position before 

 their renewal, the Government hesitated to bring 

 pressure upon the companies lest any concessions 

 gained from them now would be advanced as a 

 ground for more lenient conditions to be given 

 in the new contracts. The Government urged the 

 companies to make concessions to the men. The 

 companies offered to present a scheme of bu- 

 reaucratic organization provided the Government 

 would withdraw its suit. This the Government 

 would not do. Besides the militarization of rail- 

 road employees, the Government called out the 

 reserves of the class of 1878, some 55,000 men. 

 On Feb. 23, on receiving a report that a strike 

 was to be proclaimed immediately, the Govern- 

 ment seized the telegraph-lines and for a day 

 and a half let no private messages go over the 

 wires, so that no strike orders could be sent. 

 War-ships were sent to Naples, Leghorn, and 

 Genoa to have marines present to aid the police. 

 The railroad strike was settled by an agree- 

 ment to pay the men 42,000,000 lire in increased 

 wages, of which the Government contributes 33,- 

 000,000 lire and the companies 9,000,000 lire, in 

 the next three years, after which the railroad con- 

 ventions will be renewed and the men will formu- 

 late their demands for the future. When Parlia- 

 ment reassembled on March 10 the Opposition 

 voted for the Government candidate for president, 

 Signor Biancheri, who received 350 votes, while 

 Signor Costa, the Socialist candidate, received 24. 

 Thousands of peasants belonging to the agricul- 

 tural Socialist leagues in the north of Italy, 

 struck work, and Signor Giolitti, when charged 

 by the Conservatives with permitting the growth 

 of a subversive Socialistic movement, said that 

 before social peace could be restored the wealthy 

 classes would need to make more sacrifices to 

 the just demands of the proletariat. On the ques- 

 tion of confidence in the policy of the Govern- 

 ment, a section of the Extreme Left once more 

 voted with the ministerial party and 45 others 

 abstained from voting, giving the Cabinet a ma- 

 jority of 250 to 158. The portfolio of Public 

 Works was given on March 27 to Nicola Balen- 

 zano, a southerner, like Count Giusso. The 

 reservists of 1878, who were called to arms for 

 three months, became restive after the railroad 

 troubles were settled, and in Piacenza, Milan, and 

 other places they made public demonstrations in 

 favor of immediate discharge. The Minister of 

 War issued a circular ordering the prevention of 

 further insubordination, and in the Senate en- 

 deaVored to minimize the incidents, and said that 

 discipline was restored. His own military pres- 

 tige could not be restored, and on April 28 he 

 resigned. Admiral Morin took charge of the de- 

 partment until a successor was found on May 14 

 in Gen. Giuseppi Ottolenghi. The immediate oc- 

 casion of Gen. Ponza's retirement was an alterca- 

 tion between Signor Giolitti and Gen. Pelloux 

 by which the latter, a corps commander, de- 

 served either a reprimand or justification. Gen. 

 Pelloux, who had obtained a bill of indemnity 

 for the militarization of railroad men by order 

 of his predecessor, the Marquis di Rudini, argued 

 that the present ministry ought to legalize their 

 action in the same way. The Minister of the 

 Interior was indignant that the legality of the 

 proceeding should be called in question and ac- 

 cused the ex-minister of seeking to undermine dis- 

 cipline in the army. Agrarian strikes, which 

 generally failed in the north, broke out in 

 Apulia, where there was more misery, and the 

 strikers became disorderly and were quelled by 

 carabineers. The Chamber authorized the ex- 



penditure for an aqueduct from the Apennines 

 through the province of Apulia to cost 200,000,- 

 000 lire, of which the state and provincial au- 

 thorities contribute 125,000,000 lire and 75,000,000 

 lire will be furnished by a company which has 

 the concession for ninety-nine years. This is the 

 most important work yet undertaken in Italy, and 

 another project for the development of the South 

 is the improvement of communications between 

 Rome and Naples. A score of bills were passed 

 in haste just before adjournment on July 1. 

 Early in the year, at the close of the previous ses- 

 sion, Parliament sanctioned the gradual reduc- 

 tion of octroi duties on bread and flour, together 

 with measures for compensating the consequent 

 loss of revenue. The economical distress pre- 

 vailing in the southern provinces, aggravated by 

 these local duties and other fiscal burdens and 

 by a temporary financial crisis resulting from 

 easy credit at usurious interest, was caused by 

 the destruction of forests, the injury wrought 

 by the phylloxera among the vineyards, and de- 

 preciation of the olive-crop. 



The trial of Raffaele Palizzolo, an ex-Deputy 

 and man of wealth and influence in Sicily, which 

 lasted eight months and resulted in his convic- 

 tion and that of his agents in crime, and sentences- 

 of thirty years' imprisonment for each on July 

 30, was a victory of the Italian Government over 

 the Mafia. Emanuele Notobartolo at the time 

 of the bank frauds in 1893 was appointed by 

 Premier Crispi president of the Bank of Sicily. 

 Palizzolo, who was a director and one of the 

 chief looters of the bank, procured his removal 

 before he had completely unearthed the rascal- 

 ities and fastened them on their authors. Public 

 opinion compelled the Government to reappoint 

 him, but on the journey to Palermo he was shot 

 dead through the window of a railroad-carriage. 

 The trainmen and all who might know, and even 

 the police, as is usual when crimes against life 

 occur in Sicily, helped to cover the tracks of the 

 criminals. Lieut. Notobartolo hunted the mur- 

 derer of his father for years, obtained proofs that 

 Palizzolo had procured this murder and that of 

 Francesco Miceli, steward of an estate that Paliz- 

 zolo sought to acquire by fraud, and denounced 

 him and his accomplices who committed the mur- 

 ders in 1899. The Sicilian judges pretended to in- 

 vestigate the case, and after several fruitless ex- 

 aminations the venue was changed to Bologna r 

 where a jury found the three guilty. In Naples 

 and Calabria the Camorra is as powerful as the 

 Mafia in Sicily. A bandit named Musolini, who 

 had combined robbery with private vengeance 

 and pursued a career of blood for many years 

 with the connivance of all the people in his dis- 

 trict, was caught at last, and after a trial at 

 Lucca was sentenced to imprisonment for life. 



The laws and local government suited to Lom- 

 bardy and Piedmont when extended to the old 

 kingdom of Naples proved too complex and cost- 

 ly. The land tax has reached 39 per cent, of 

 the valuation. Baron Sonnino proposed to reduce 

 this one-half, and also the 3^-per-cent. interest of 

 mortgages held by the state banks, amount- 

 ing to 100,000,000 lire. Premier Zanardelli's pro- 

 posal is to reduce the land tax on small farms, 

 new buildings, and lands which have been reaf- 

 forested, and to exempt from income tax new 

 farm buildings, grazing land, and workmen's 

 wages throughout Italy, and to reduce the salt 

 tax. In strike riots at Candela soldiers were 

 stoned and at Giarratana some of them were 

 killed. They fired and killed many peasants, and 

 the ministers who defended their action were as- 

 sailed by the Socialists. But the Extreme Left 



