ITALY 



3079 



ITALY 



self-supporting, and the home government must 

 contribute each year large sums from its over- 

 burdened treasuries. 



Transportation and Commerce. Italy has in 

 operation slightly over 11,000 miles of railway 

 less than any other large country of Europe ; 

 but this is in part accounted for by the fact 

 that few trunk lines connecting with other 

 countries are necessary, so admirable are the 

 water facilities. One railway system operates 

 on the east, one on the west of the Apennines, 

 and the government controls over three-fourths 

 of the total mileage. 



The merchant marine is large, as befits a 

 nation with a long maritime history, but it has 

 no longer the dominating place among the 

 merchant marines of Europe which it possessed 

 for centuries. Italian commerce increased rap- 

 idly during the early part of the twentieth cen- 

 tury, and now it amounts in a year to almost 

 a billion and a quarter dollars. The imports, 

 of which the most important are coal, cotton, 

 cereals, machinery and timber, amount to more 

 than the exports, which include silk, fruit, wines 

 and art objects. Before the War of the Na- 

 tions, which began in 1914, Germany held first 

 place for years in both the import and the ex- 

 port trade of Italy, the United States and 

 Great Britain ranking next. The total trade 

 with the United States amounts in a year to 

 more than SI 30,600,000. 



Government. The kingdom of Italy, as such, 

 has never had a constitution drawn up for its 



guidance, but it adopted bodily that of Sar- 

 dinia, which was the nucleus of the united 

 nation. There is much in the government 

 like that of England ; that is, Italy is a heredi- 

 tary constitutional monarchy, with a responsi- 

 ble ministry and a legislature of two houses. 

 In theory the king has many powers; in prac- 

 tice, he exercises very few of them save in 

 relation to foreign affairs, never even assuming 

 the right to veto parliamentary bills. The 

 real executive power lies with the Cabinet of 

 eleven members, which plays an even larger part 

 in governmental affairs than does the English 

 Cabinet. It is usually chosen from members 

 of the lower house, though not necessarily so, 

 and being responsible to Parliament, must re- 

 sign when any of its important measures are 

 defeated. 



The upper house of the legislature, the Sen- 

 ate, is made up of an indefinite number of 

 prominent men appointed for life by the king. 

 At present there are almost 400 Senators. The 

 lower house, in which most of the legislation 

 originates, has 508 members, chosen by popular 

 vote for a term of five years. Since 1912 there 

 has been practically universal male suffrage; 

 all citizens between the ages of twenty-one and 

 thirty are allowed to vote if they can read 

 and write, and all above the latter age have 

 the same privilege without that qualification. 



The judiciary of Italy, as well as the system 

 of local government, is patterned largely upon 

 that of France. 



The Land and Its Resources 



Coast and Surface. Italy proper has a coast 

 line of about 2,270 miles, which the islands 

 bring up to 4,160; and the slenderness of the 

 long peninsula means that no place is more 

 than about sixty miles from the sea. The 

 most beautiful section of the coast is the west- 

 ern, which is high and rocky, save in the occa- 

 sional places where marshes run down to the 

 sea, and which possesses a number of excellent 

 harbors. The southern coast, too, is bold and 

 picturesque, but on the east there are great 

 stretches of sand, and fine harbors are few. 

 Because it is a country with a famous mari- 

 time history, Italy has massed a considerable 

 proportion of its population near the coasts. 



The mountains of the mainland fall into two 

 groups, the Alps, to the north, and the Apen- 

 nines, the "backbone," which run the entire 

 length of the peninsula. The highest summits 

 of the Alps do not lie in Italy, but the Italian 



Alps present some exquisite scenery, with the 

 snow-crowned peaks, sheer drops to the plains 

 of the Po, and beautiful blue lakes. The 

 Apennines are not one of the world's great 

 mountain systems as regards height, nowhere 

 attaining a greater altitude than 9,580 feet ; but 

 their ruggedness gives them a peculiar strength 

 and dignity, and much of the same appeal pos- 

 sessed by far more lofty ranges (see APEN- 

 NINES). With their various systems they di- 

 vide Italy into an eastern and a western slope, 

 nowhere having plains of any considerable ex- 

 tent between their borders and the sea. 



Since the islands of Italy, too, are moun- 

 tainous, the only large plain is that of the Po, 

 in Lombardy. This is shut in by a great curve 

 of the Alps, and has an extent of about 37,000 

 square miles. It is here, chiefly, that agri- 

 culture and other industries flourish, and here 

 that the population is densest. 



