n8 ITALY 



tender mercies of the professional usurer ; the 

 agricultural syndicate ensures the profitable 

 expenditure of the money ; and the travelling 

 professor, following in the footsteps of agricul- 

 tural credit, takes to the very door of the poorest 

 peasant the latest discoveries of agricultural 

 science, and fulfils generally so useful a purpose 

 that M. le Comte de Rocquigny says in a report 

 prepared by himself, M. Leopold Mabilleau, and 

 M. Charles Rayneri, for the Musee Social, on 

 " La Prevoyance Sociale en Italie " : — " Dans le 

 plan de cet harmonieux ensemble c'est la chaire 

 ambulante qui eclaire et vivifie le systeme tout 

 entier, en regie le bon fonctionnement, et en 

 ecarte les perils." It is, in fact, the travelling 

 professor who completes a general plan of 

 campaign which, even without him, had attained 

 a unity of action not to be surpassed elsewhere. 



To this outline of the Italian system as a 

 whole there are some supplementary details 

 which must be added. The part, for instance, 

 which the Roman Catholic Church has played 

 more especially in the promotion of Village 

 Banks in Italy must not be ignored. So far 

 back as 1892 there was passed at the tenth Italian 

 Catholic Congress, held at Genoa, a resolution 

 which affirmed that " all Catholic rural associa- 

 tions shall proceed with the formation of strong 



