108 ITALY 



that seems to be afforded to them of a pre- 

 sumptive national wealth. Still more averse is 

 the " Italian system " to the sending of money 

 out of the country for investment in foreign 

 securities or speculations. Even the smallest of 

 savings should, it is argued, in a country like 

 Italy, whose available capital can be derived 

 from savings only, be paid into banks which will 

 represent the natural intermediary between town 

 and country, and respond to the needs of agricul- 

 ture in irrigating the rural districts with channels 

 of financial credit which will facilitate the opera- 

 tions of even the most modest of cultivators. 

 All this, it has been proved to demonstration, 

 can be done without danger to thrift, and the 

 thrift itself is, as it were, " twice bless'd." 



In the various developments to which the 

 application of this principle has given rise is to 

 be found the open secret of the revival of Italian 

 agriculture. The peasants of Italy were, per- 

 haps, even worse fitted than those of most of 

 the other countries of Western Europe to meet 

 the crisis that arose when the markets to which 

 they had sent their products began to be flooded 

 with supplies from the virgin soils of the New 

 World. Italy had then not long attained her 

 national unity, and with it she had inherited 

 a burden of public debts that, poor as she was, 



