Chapter XIII: Part I: £402,216,795 (7)

Custozza and Lissa were not Italy's only misfortunes in 1866. There had been considerable discontent in Sicily, where the government had made itself unpopular. The priesthood and the remnants of the Bourbon party fomented an agitation, which in September culminated in an attack on Palermo by 3000 armed insurgents, and in similar outbreaks elsewhere. The revolt was put down owing to the energy of the mayor of Palermo, Marquis A. Di Rudini, and the arrival of reinforcements. The Ricasoli cabinet fell over the law against the religious houses, and was succeeded by that of Rattazzi, who with the support of the Left was apparently more fortunate. The French regular troops were withdrawn from Rome in December 1866; but the pontifical forces were largely recruited in France and commanded by officers of the imperial army, and service under the pope was considered by the French war office as equivalent to service in France. This was a violation of the letter as well as of the spirit of the September convention, and a stronger and more straightforward statesman than Rattazzi would have declared Italy absolved from its provisions. Mazzini now wanted to promote an insurrection in Roman territory, whereas Garibaldi advocated an invasion from without. He delivered a series of violent speeches against the papacy, and made open preparations for a raid, which were not interfered with by the government; but on the 23rd of September 1867 Rattazzi had him suddenly arrested and confined to Caprera. In spite of the vigilance of the warships he escaped on the 14th of October and landed in Tuscany. Armed bands had already entered papal territory, but achieved nothing in particular. Their presence, however, was a sufficient excuse for Napoleon, under pressure of the clerical party, to send another expedition to Rome (26th of October). Rattazzi, after ordering a body of troops to enter papal territory with no definite object, now resigned, and was succeeded by Menabrea. Garibaldi joined the bands on the 23rd, but his ill-armed and ill-disciplined force was very inferior to his volunteers of '49, '60 and '66. On the 24th he captured Monte Rotondo, but did not enter Rome as the expected insurrection had not broken out. On the 29th a French force, under de Failly, arrived, and on the 3rd of November a battle took place at Mentana between 4000 or 5000 red-shirts and a somewhat superior force of French and pontificals. The Garibaldians, mowed down by the new French _chassepôt_ rifles, fought until their last cartridges were exhausted, and retreated the next day towards the Italian frontier, leaving 800 prisoners.

Lanza Ministry.

The affair of Mentana caused considerable excitement throughout Europe, and the Roman question entered on an acute stage. Napoleon suggested his favourite expedient of a congress but the proposal broke down owing to Great Britain's refusal to participate; and Rouher, the French premier, declared in the Chamber (5th of December 1867) that France could never permit the Italians to occupy Rome. The attitude of France strengthened that anti-French feeling in Italy which had begun with Villafranca; and Bismarck was not slow to make use of this hostility, with a view to preventing Italy from taking sides with France against Germany in the struggle between the two powers which he saw to be inevitable. At the same time Napoleon was making overtures both to Austria and to Italy, overtures which were favourably received. Victor Emmanuel was sincerely anxious to assist Napoleon, for in spite of Nice and Savoy and Mentana he felt a chivalrous desire to help the man who had fought for Italy. But with the French at Civitavecchia (they had left Rome very soon after Mentana) a war for France was not to be thought of, and Napoleon would not promise more than the literal observance of the September convention. Austria would not join France unless Italy did the same, and she realized that that was impossible unless Napoleon gave way about Rome. Consequently the negotiations were suspended. A scandal concerning the tobacco monopoly led to the fall of Menabrea, who was succeeded in December 1869 by Giovanni Lanza, with Visconti-Venosta at the foreign office and Q. Sella as finance minister. The latter introduced a sounder financial policy, which was maintained until the fall of the Right in 1876. Mazzini, now openly hostile to the monarchy, was seized with a perfect monomania for insurrections, and promoted various small risings, the only effect of which was to show how completely his influence was gone.

Italian occupation of Rome.

In December 1869 the XXI. oecumenical council began its sittings in Rome, and on the 18th of July 1870 proclaimed the infallibility of the pope (see VATICAN COUNCIL). Two days previously Napoleon had declared war on Prussia, and immediately afterwards he withdrew his troops from Civitavecchia; but he persuaded Lanza to promise to abide by the September convention, and it was not until after Worth and Gravelotte that he offered to give Italy a free hand to occupy Rome. Then it was too late; Victor Emmanuel asked Thiers if he could give his word of honour that with 100,000 Italian troops France could be saved, but Thiers remained silent. Austria replied like Italy: "It is too late." On the 9th of August Italy made a declaration of neutrality, and three weeks later Visconti-Venosta informed the powers that Italy was about to occupy Rome. On the 3rd of September the news of Sédan reached Florence, and with the fall of Napoleon's empire the September convention ceased to have any value. The powers having engaged to abstain from intervention in Italian affairs, Victor Emmanuel addressed a letter to Pius IX. asking him in the name of religion and peace to accept Italian protection instead of the temporal power, to which the pope replied that he would only yield to force. On the 11th of September General Cadorna at the head of 60,000 men entered papal territory. The garrison of Civitavecchia surrendered to Bixio, but the 10,000 men in Rome, mostly French, Belgians, Swiss and Bavarians, under Kanzler, were ready to fight. Cardinal Antonelli would have come to terms, but the pope decided on making a sufficient show of resistance to prove that he was yielding to force. On the 20th the Italians began the attack, and General Mazé de la Roche's division having effected a breach in the Porta Pia, the pope ordered the garrison to cease fire and the Italians poured into the Eternal City followed by thousands of Roman exiles. By noon the whole city on the left of the Tiber was occupied and the garrison laid down their arms; the next day, at the pope's request, the Leonine City on the right bank was also occupied. It had been intended to leave that part of Rome to the pope, but by the earnest desire of the inhabitants it too was included in the Italian kingdom. At the plebiscite there were 133,681 votes for union and 1507 against it. In July 1872 King Victor Emmanuel made his solemn entry into Rome, which was then declared the capital of Italy. Thus, after a struggle of more than half a century, in spite of apparently insuperable obstacles, the liberation and the unity of Italy were accomplished.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A vast amount of material on the Risorgimento has been
published both in Italy and abroad as well as numerous works of a
literary and critical nature. The most detailed Italian history of the
period is Carlo Tivaroni's _Storia critica del Risorgimento Italiano_
in 9 vols. (Turin, 1888-1897), based on a diligent study of the
original authorities and containing a large amount of information; the
author is a Mazzinian, which fact should be taken into account, but
he generally quotes the opinions of those who disagree with him as
well. Another voluminous but less valuable work is F. Bertolini's
_Storia d'Italia dal 1814 al 1878_, in 2 parts (Milan, 1880-1881.) L.
Chiala's _Lettere del Conte di Cavour_ (7 vols., Turin, 1883-1887) and
D. Zanichelli's _Scritti del Conte di Cavour_ (Bologna, 1892) are very
important, and so are Prince Metternich's _Mémoires_ (7 vols., Paris,
1881). P. Orsi's _L'Italia moderna_ (Milan, 1901) should also be
mentioned. N. Bianchi's _Storia della diplomazia europea in Italia_ (8
vols., Turin, 1865) is an invaluable and thoroughly reliable work. See
also Zini's _Storia d' Italia_ (4 vols., Milan, 1875); Gualterio's
_Gli ultimi rivolgimenti italiani_ (4 vols., Florence, 1850) is
important for the period from 1831 to 1847, and so also is L. Farina's
_Storia d' Italia dal 1815 al 1849_ (5 vols., Turin, 1851); W. R.
Thayer's _Dawn of Italian Independence_ (Boston, 1893) is gushing and
not always accurate; C. Cantù's _Dell' indipendenza italiana
cronistoria_ (Naples, 1872-1877) is reactionary and often unreliable;
V. Bersezio, _Il Regno di Vittorio Emanuele II_ (8 vols., Turin, 1889,
&c.). For English readers Countess E. Martinengo Cesaresco's
_Liberation of Italy_ (London, 1895) is to be strongly recommended,
and is indeed, for accuracy, fairness and synthesis, as well as for
charm of style, one of the very best books on the subject in any
language; Bolton King's _History of Italian Unity_ (2 vols., London,
1899) is bulkier and less satisfactory, but contains a useful
bibliography. A succinct account of the chief events of the period
will be found in Sir Spencer Walpole's _History of Twenty-Five Years_
(London, 1904). See also the _Cambridge Modern History_, vols. x. and
xi. (Cambridge, 1907, &c.), where full bibliographies will be found.
(L. V.*)

F. HISTORY, 1870-1902

Italian occupation of Rome.

The downfall of the temporal power was hailed throughout Italy with unbounded enthusiasm. Abroad, Catholic countries at first received the tidings with resignation, and Protestant countries with joy. In France, where the Government of National Defence had replaced the Empire, Crémieux, as president of the government delegation at Tours, hastened to offer his congratulations to Italy. The occupation of Rome caused no surprise to the French government, which had been forewarned on 11th September of the Italian intentions. On that occasion Jules Favre had recognized the September convention to be dead, and, while refusing explicitly to denounce it, had admitted that unless Italy went to Rome the city would become a prey to dangerous agitators. At the same time he made it clear that Italy would occupy Rome upon her own responsibility. Agreeably surprised by this attitude on the part of France, Visconti-Venosta lost no time in conveying officially the thanks of Italy to the French government. He doubtless foresaw that the language of Favre and Crémieux would not be endorsed by the French Clericals. Prussia, while satisfied at the fall of the temporal power, seemed to fear lest Italy might recompense the absence of French opposition to the occupation of Rome by armed intervention in favour of France. Bismarck, moreover, was indignant at the connivance of the Italian government in the Garibaldian expedition to Dijon, and was irritated by Visconti-Venosta's plea in the Italian parliament for the integrity of French territory. The course of events in France, however, soon calmed German apprehensions. The advent of Thiers, his attitude towards the petition of French bishops on behalf of the pope, the recall of Senard, the French minister at Florence--who had written to congratulate Victor Emmanuel on the capture of Rome--and the instructions given to his successor, the comte de Choiseul, to absent himself from Italy at the moment of the king's official entry into the new capital (2nd July 1871), together with the haste displayed in appointing a French ambassador to the Holy See, rapidly cooled the cordiality of Franco-Italian relations, and reassured Bismarck on the score of any dangerous intimacy between the two governments.

Attitude of the Vatican.

The friendly attitude of France towards Italy during the period immediately subsequent to the occupation of Rome seemed to cow and to dishearten the Vatican. For a few weeks the relations between the Curia and the Italian authorities were marked by a conciliatory spirit. The secretary-general of the Italian foreign office, Baron Blanc, who had accompanied General Cadorna to Rome, was received almost daily by Cardinal Antonelli, papal secretary of state, in order to settle innumerable questions arising out of the Italian occupation. The royal commissioner for finance, Giacomelli, had, as a precautionary measure, seized the pontifical treasury; but upon being informed by Cardinal Antonelli that among the funds deposited in the treasury were 1,000,000 crowns of Peter's Pence offered by the faithful to the pope in person, the commissioner was authorized by the Italian council of state not only to restore this sum, but also to indemnify the Holy See for moneys expended for the service of the October coupon of the pontifical debt, that debt having been taken over by the Italian state. On the 29th of September Cardinal Antonelli further apprised Baron Blanc that he was about to issue drafts for the monthly payment of the 50,000 crowns inscribed in the pontifical budget for the maintenance of the pope, the Sacred College, the apostolic palaces and the papal guards. The Italian treasury at once honoured all the papal drafts, and thus contributed a first instalment of the 3,225,000 lire per annum afterwards placed by Article 4 of the Law of Guarantees at the disposal of the Holy See. Payments would have been regularly continued had not pressure from the French Clerical party coerced the Vatican into refusing any further instalment.

The Law of Guarantees.

Once in possession of Rome, and guarantor to the Catholic world of the spiritual independence of the pope, the Italian government prepared juridically to regulate its relations to the Holy See. A bill known as the Law of Guarantees was therefore framed and laid before parliament. The measure was an amalgam of Cavour's scheme for a "free church in a free state," of Ricasoli's Free Church Bill, rejected by parliament four years previously, and of the proposals presented to Pius IX. by Count Ponza di San Martino in September 1870. After a debate lasting nearly two months the Law of Guarantees was adopted in secret ballot on the 21st of March 1871 by 185 votes against 106.

It consisted of two parts. The first, containing thirteen articles,
recognized (Articles 1 and 2) the person of the pontiff as sacred and
intangible, and while providing for free discussion of religious
questions, punished insults and outrages against the pope in the same
way as insults and outrages against the king. Royal honours were
attributed to the pope (Article 3), who was further guaranteed the
same precedence as that accorded to him by other Catholic sovereigns,
and the right to maintain his Noble and Swiss guards. Article 4
allotted the pontiff an annuity of 3,225,000 lire (£129,000) for the
maintenance of the Sacred College, the sacred palaces, the
congregations, the Vatican chancery and the diplomatic service. The
sacred palaces, museums and libraries were, by Article 5, exempted
from all taxation, and the pope was assured perpetual enjoyment of the
Vatican and Lateran buildings and gardens, and of the papal villa at
Castel Gandolfo. Articles 6 and 7 forbade access of any Italian
official or agent to the above-mentioned palaces or to any eventual
conclave or oecumenical council without special authorization from the
pope, conclave or council. Article 8 prohibited the seizure or
examination of any ecclesiastical papers, documents, books or
registers of purely spiritual character. Article 9 guaranteed to the
pope full freedom for the exercise of his spiritual ministry, and
provided for the publication of pontifical announcements on the doors
of the Roman churches and basilicas. Article 10 extended immunity to
ecclesiastics employed by the Holy See, and bestowed upon foreign
ecclesiastics in Rome the personal rights of Italian citizens. By
Article 11, diplomatists accredited to the Holy See, and papal
diplomatists while in Italy, were placed on the same footing as
diplomatists accredited to the Quirinal. Article 12 provided for the
transmission free of cost in Italy of all papal telegrams and
correspondence both with bishops and foreign governments, and
sanctioned the establishment, at the expense of the Italian state, of
a papal telegraph office served by papal officials in communication
with the Italian postal and telegraph system. Article 13 exempted all
ecclesiastical seminaries, academies, colleges and schools for the
education of priests in the city of Rome from all interference on the
part of the Italian government.

This portion of the law, designed to reassure foreign Catholics, met
with little opposition; but the second portion, regulating the
relations between state and church in Italy, was sharply criticized by
deputies who, like Sella, recognized the ideal of a "free church in a
free state" to be an impracticable dream. The second division of the
law abolished (Article 14) all restrictions upon the right of meeting
of members of the clergy. By Article 15 the government relinquished
its rights to apostolic legation in Sicily, and to the appointment of
its own nominees to the chief benefices throughout the kingdom.
Bishops were further dispensed from swearing fealty to the king,
though, except in Rome and suburbs, the choice of bishops was limited
to ecclesiastics of Italian nationality. Article 16 abolished the need
for royal _exequatur_ and _placet_ for ecclesiastical publications,
but subordinated the enjoyment of temporalities by bishops and
priests to the concession of state _exequatur_ and _placet_. Article
17 maintained the independence of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in
spiritual and disciplinary matters, but reserved for the state the
exclusive right to carry out coercive measures.

On the 12th of July 1871, Articles 268, 269 and 270 of the Italian Penal Code were so modified as to make ecclesiastics liable to imprisonment for periods varying from six months to five years, and to fines from 1000 to 3000 lire, for spoken or written attacks against the laws of the state, or for the fomentation of disorder. An encyclical of Pius IX. to the bishops of the Catholic Church on the 15th of May 1871 repudiated the Law of Guarantees, and summoned Catholic princes to co-operate in restoring the temporal power. Practically, therefore, the law has remained a one-sided enactment, by which Italy considers herself bound, and of which she has always observed the spirit, even though the exigencies of self-defence may have led in some minor respects to non-observance of the letter. The annuity payable to the pope has, for instance, been made subject to quinquennial prescription, so that in the event of tardy recognition of the law the Vatican could at no time claim payment of more than five years' annuity with interest.

For a few months after the occupation of Rome pressing questions incidental to a new change of capital and to the administration of a new domain distracted public attention from the real condition of Italian affairs. The rise of the Tiber and the flooding of Rome in December 1870 (tactfully used by Victor Emmanuel as an opportunity for a first visit to the new capital) illustrated the imperative necessity of reorganizing the drainage of the city and of constructing the Tiber embankment. In spite of pressure from the French government, which desired Italy to maintain Florence as the political and to regard Rome merely as the moral capital of the realm, the government offices and both legislative chambers were transferred in 1871 to the Eternal City. Early in the year the crown prince Humbert with the Princess Margherita took up their residence in the Quirinal Palace, which, in view of the Vatican refusal to deliver up the keys, had to be opened by force. Eight monasteries were expropriated to make room for the chief state departments, pending the construction of more suitable edifices. The growth of Clerical influence in France engendered a belief that Italy would soon have to defend with the sword her newly-won unity, while the tremendous lesson of the Franco-Prussian War convinced the military authorities of the need for thorough military reform. General Ricotti Magnani, minister of war, therefore framed an Army Reform Bill designed to bring the Italian army as nearly as possible up to the Prussian standard. Sella, minister of finance, notwithstanding the sorry plight of the Italian exchequer, readily granted the means for the reform. "We must arm," he said, "since we have overturned the papal throne," and he pointed to France as the quarter from which attack was most likely to come.

Finance.

Though perhaps less desperate than during the previous decade, the condition of Italian finance was precarious indeed. With taxation screwed up to breaking point on personal and real estate, on all forms of commercial and industrial activity, and on salt, flour and other necessaries of life; with a deficit of £8,500,000 for the current year, and the prospect of a further aggregate deficit of £12,000,000 during the next quinquennium, Sella's heroic struggle against national bankruptcy was still far from a successful termination. He chiefly had borne the brunt and won the laurels of the unprecedented fight against deficit in which Italy had been involved since 1862. As finance minister in the Rattazzi cabinet of that year he had been confronted with a public debt of nearly £120,000,000, and with an immediate deficit of nearly £18,000,000. In 1864, as minister in the La Marmora cabinet, he had again to face an excess of expenditure over income amounting to more than £14,600,000. By the seizure and sale of Church lands, by the sale of state railways, by "economy to the bone" and on one supreme occasion by an appeal to taxpayers to advance a year's quota of the land-tax, he had met the most pressing engagements of that troublous period. The king was persuaded to forgo one-fifth of his civil list, ministers and the higher civil servants were required to relinquish a portion of their meagre salaries, but, in spite of all, Sella had found himself in 1865 compelled to propose the most hated of fiscal burdens--a grist tax on cereals. This tax (_macinato_) had long been known in Italy. Vexatious methods of assessment and collection had made it so unpopular that the Italian government in 1859-1860 had thought it expedient to abolish it throughout the realm. Sella hoped by the application of a mechanical meter both to obviate the odium attaching to former methods of collection and to avoid the maintenance of an army of inspectors and tax-gatherers, whose stipends had formerly eaten up most of the proceeds of the impost. Before proposing the reintroduction of the tax, Sella and his friend Ferrara improved and made exhaustive experiments with the meter. The result of their efforts was laid before parliament in one of the most monumental and most painstaking preambles ever prefixed to a bill. Sella, nevertheless, fell before the storm of opposition which his scheme aroused. Scialoja, who succeeded him, was obliged to adopt a similar proposal, but parliament again proved refractory. Ferrara, successor of Scialoja, met a like fate; but Count Cambray-Digny, finance minister in the Menabrea cabinet of 1868-1869, driven to find means to cover a deficit aggravated by the interest on the Venetian debt, succeeded, with Sella's help, in forcing a Grist Tax Bill through parliament, though in a form of which Sella could not entirely approve. When, on the 1st of January 1869, the new tax came into force, nearly half the flour-mills in Italy ceased work. In many districts the government was obliged to open mills on its own account. Inspectors and tax-gatherers did their work under police protection, and in several parts of the country riots had to be suppressed _manu militari_. At first the net revenue from the impost was less than £1,100,000; but under Sella's firm administration (1869-1873), and in consequence of improvements gradually introduced by him, the net return ultimately exceeded £3,200,000. The parliamentary opposition to the impost, which the Left denounced as "the tax on hunger," was largely factitious. Few, except the open partisans of national bankruptcy, doubted its necessity; yet so strong was the current of feeling worked up for party purposes by opponents of the measure, that Sella's achievement in having by its means saved the financial situation of Italy deserves to rank among the most noteworthy performances of modern parliamentary statesmanship.

Under the stress of the appalling financial conditions represented by chronic deficit, crushing taxation, the heavy expenditure necessary for the consolidation of the kingdom, the reform of the army and the interest on the pontifical debt, Sella, on the 11th of December 1871, exposed to parliament the financial situation in all its nakedness. He recognized that considerable improvement had already taken place. Revenue from taxation had risen in a decade from £7,000,000 to £20,200,000; profit on state monopolies had increased from £7,000,000 to £9,400,000; exports had grown to exceed imports; income from the working of telegraphs had tripled itself; railways had been extended from 2200 to 6200 kilometres, and the annual travelling public had augmented from 15,000,000 to 25,000,000 persons. The serious feature of the situation lay less in the income than in the "intangible" expenditure, namely, the vast sums required for interest on the various forms of public debt and for pensions. Within ten years this category of outlay had increased from £8,000,000 to £28,800,000. During the same period the assumption of the Venetian and Roman debts, losses on the issue of loans and the accumulation of annual deficits, had caused public indebtedness to rise from £92,000,000 to £328,000,000, no less than £100,000,000 of the latter sum having been sacrificed in premiums and commissions to bankers and underwriters of loans. By economies and new taxes Sella had reduced the deficit to less than £2,000,000 in 1871, but for 1872 he found himself confronted with a total expenditure of £8,000,000 in excess of revenue. He therefore proposed to make over the treasury service to the state banks, to increase the forced currency, to raise the stamp and registration duties and to impose a new tax on textile fabrics. An optional conversion of sundry internal loans into consolidated stock at a lower rate of interest was calculated to effect considerable saving. The battle over these proposals was long and fierce. But for the tactics of Rattazzi, leader of the Left, who, by basing his opposition on party considerations, impeded the secession of Minghetti and a part of the Right from the ministerial majority, Sella would have been defeated. On the 23rd of March 1872, however, he succeeded in carrying his programme, which not only provided for the pressing needs of the moment, but laid the foundation of the much-needed equilibrium between expenditure and revenue.

Religious Orders Bill.

In the spring of 1873 it became evident that the days of the Lanza-Sella cabinet were numbered. Fear of the advent of a Radical administration under Rattazzi alone prevented the Minghettian Right from revolting against the government. The Left, conscious of its strength, impatiently awaited the moment of accession to power. Sella, the real head of the Lanza cabinet, was worn out by four years' continuous work and disheartened by the perfidious misrepresentation in which Italian politicians, particularly those of the Left, have ever excelled. By sheer force of will he compelled the Chamber early in 1873 to adopt some minor financial reforms, but on the 29th of April found himself in a minority on the question of a credit for a proposed state arsenal at Taranto. Pressure from all sides of the House, however, induced the ministry to retain office until after the debate on the application to Rome and the Papal States of the Religious Orders Bill (originally passed in 1866)--a measure which, with the help of Ricasoli, was carried at the end of May. While leaving intact the general houses of the various confraternities (except that of the Jesuits), the bill abolished the corporate personality of religious orders, handed over their schools and hospitals to civil administrators, placed their churches at the disposal of the secular clergy, and provided pensions for nuns and monks, those who had families being sent to reside with their relatives, and those who by reason of age or bereavement had no home but their monasteries being allowed to end their days in religious houses specially set apart for the purpose. The proceeds of the sale of the suppressed convents and monasteries were partly converted into pensions for monks and nuns, and partly allotted to the municipal charity boards which had undertaken the educational and charitable functions formerly exercised by the religious orders. To the pope was made over £16,000 per annum as a contribution to the expense of maintaining in Rome representatives of foreign orders; the Sacred College, however, rejected this endowment, and summoned all the suppressed confraternities to reconstitute themselves under the ordinary Italian law of association. A few days after the passage of the Religious Orders Bill, the death of Rattazzi (5th June 1873) removed all probability of the immediate advent of the Left. Sella, uncertain of the loyalty of the Right, challenged a vote on the immediate discussion of further financial reforms, and on the 23rd of June was overthrown by a coalition of the Left under Depretis with a part of the Right under Minghetti and the Tuscan Centre under Correnti. The administration which thus fell was unquestionably the most important since the death of Cavour. It had completed national unity, transferred the capital to Rome, overcome the chief obstacles to financial equilibrium, initiated military reform and laid the foundation of the relations between state and church.

Minghetti.

The succeeding Minghetti-Visconti-Venosta cabinet--which held office from the 10th of July 1873 to the 18th of March 1876--continued in essential points the work of the preceding administration. Minghetti's finance, though less clear-sighted and less resolute than that of Sella, was on the whole prudent and beneficial. With the aid of Sella he concluded conventions for the redemption of the chief Italian railways from their French and Austrian proprietors. By dint of expedients he gradually overcame the chronic deficit, and, owing to the normal increase of revenue, ended his term of office with the announcement of a surplus of some £720,000. The question whether this surplus was real or only apparent has been much debated, but there is no reason to doubt its substantial reality. It left out of account a sum of £1,000,000 for railway construction which was covered by credit, but, on the other hand, took no note of £360,000 expended in the redemption of debt. Practically, therefore, the Right, of which the Minghetti cabinet was the last representative administration, left Italian finance with a surplus of £80,000. Outside the all-important domain of finance, the attention of Minghetti and his colleagues was principally absorbed by strife between church and state, army reform and railway redemption. For some time after the occupation of Rome the pope, in order to substantiate the pretence that his spiritual freedom had been diminished, avoided the creation of cardinals and the nomination of bishops. On the 22nd of December 1873, however, he unexpectedly created twelve cardinals, and subsequently proceeded to nominate a number of bishops. Visconti-Venosta, who had retained the portfolio for foreign affairs in the Minghetti cabinet, at once drew the attention of the European powers to this proof of the pope's spiritual freedom and of the imaginary nature of his "imprisonment" in the Vatican. At the same time he assured them that absolute liberty would be guaranteed to the deliberations of a conclave. In relation to the Church in Italy, Minghetti's policy was less perspicacious. He let it be understood that the announcement of the appointment of bishops and the request for the royal _exequatur_ might be made to the government impersonally by the congregation of bishops and regulars, by a municipal council or by any other corporate body--a concession of which the bishops were quick to take advantage, but which so irritated Italian political opinion that, in July 1875, the government was compelled to withdraw the temporalities of ecclesiastics who had neglected to apply for the _exequatur_, and to evict sundry bishops who had taken possession of their palaces without authorization from the state. Parliamentary pressure further obliged Bonghi, minister of public instruction, to compel clerical seminaries either to forgo the instruction of lay pupils or to conform to the laws of the state in regard to inspection and examination, an ordinance which gave rise to conflicts between ecclesiastical and lay authorities, and led to the forcible dissolution of the Mantua seminary and to the suppression of the Catholic university in Rome.

Military and naval reform.

More noteworthy than its management of internal affairs were the efforts of the Minghetti cabinet to strengthen and consolidate national defence. Appalled by the weakness, or rather the non-existence, of the navy, Admiral Saint-Bon, with his coadjutor Signor Brin, addressed himself earnestly to the task of recreating the fleet, which had never recovered from the effects of the disaster of Lissa. During his three years of office he laid the foundation upon which Brin was afterwards to build up a new Italian navy. Simultaneously General Ricotti Magnani matured the army reform scheme which he had elaborated under the preceding administration. His bill, adopted by parliament on the 7th of June 1875, still forms the ground plan of the Italian army.

Foreign policy under the Right.

It was fortunate for Italy that during the whole period 1860-1876 the direction of her foreign policy remained in the experienced hands of Visconti-Venosta, a statesman whose trustworthiness, dignity and moderation even political opponents have been compelled to recognize. Diplomatic records fail to substantiate the accusations of lack of initiative and instability of political criterion currently brought against him by contemporaries. As foreign minister of a young state which had attained unity in defiance of the most formidable religious organization in the world and in opposition to the traditional policy of France, it could but be Visconti-Venosta's aim to uphold the dignity of his country while convincing European diplomacy that United Italy was an element of order and progress, and that the spiritual independence of the Roman pontiff had suffered no diminution. Prudence, moreover, counselled avoidance of all action likely to serve the predominant anti-Italian party in France as a pretext for violent intervention in favour of the pope. On the occasion of the Metrical Congress, which met in Paris in 1872, he, however, successfully protested against the recognition of the Vatican delegate, Father Secchi, as a representative of a "state," and obtained from Count de Rémusat, French foreign minister, a formal declaration that the presence of Father Secchi on that occasion could not constitute a diplomatic precedent. The irritation displayed by Bismarck at the Francophil attitude of Italy towards the end of the Franco-German War gave place to a certain show of goodwill when the great chancellor found himself in his turn involved in a struggle against the Vatican and when the policy of Thiers began to strain Franco-Italian relations. Thiers had consistently opposed the emperor Napoleon's pro-Italian policy. In the case of Italy, as in that of Germany, he frankly regretted the constitution of powerful homogeneous states upon the borders of France. Personal pique accentuated this feeling in regard to Italy. The refusal of Victor Emmanuel II. to meet Thiers at the opening of the Mont Cenis tunnel (a refusal not unconnected with offensive language employed at Florence in October 1870 by Thiers during his European tour, and with his instructions to the French minister to remain absent from Victor Emmanuel's official entry into Rome) had wounded the _amour propre_ of the French statesman, and had decreased whatever inclination he might otherwise have felt to oppose the French Clerical agitation for the restoration of the temporal power, and for French interference with the Italian Religious Orders Bill. Consequently relations between France and Italy became so strained that in 1873 both the French minister to the Quirinal and the Italian minister to the Republic remained for several months absent from their posts. At this juncture the emperor of Austria invited Victor Emmanuel to visit the Vienna Exhibition, and the Italian government received a confidential intimation that acceptance of the invitation to Vienna would be followed by a further invitation from Berlin. Perceiving the advantage of a visit to the imperial and apostolic court after the Italian occupation of Rome and the suppression of the religious orders, and convinced of the value of more cordial intercourse with the German empire, Visconti-Venosta and Minghetti advised their sovereign to accept both the Austrian and the subsequent German invitations. The visit to Vienna took place on the 17th to the 22nd of September, and that to Berlin on the 22nd to the 26th of September 1873, the Italian monarch being accorded in both capitals a most cordial reception, although the contemporaneous publication of La Marmora's famous pamphlet, _More Light on the Events of 1866_, prevented intercourse between the Italian ministers and Bismarck from being entirely confidential. Visconti-Venosta and Minghetti, moreover, wisely resisted the chancellor's pressure to override the Law of Guarantees and to engage in an Italian _Kulturkampf_. Nevertheless the royal journey contributed notably to the establishment of cordial relations between Italy and the central powers, relations which were further strengthened by the visit of the emperor Francis Joseph to Victor Emmanuel at Venice in April 1875, and by that of the German emperor to Milan in October of the same year. Meanwhile Thiers had given place to Marshal Macmahon, who effected a decided improvement in Franco-Italian relations by recalling from Civitavecchia the cruiser "Orénoque," which since 1870 had been stationed in that port at the disposal of the pope in case he should desire to quit Rome. The foreign policy of Visconti-Venosta may be said to have reinforced the international position of Italy without sacrifice of dignity, and without the vacillation and short-sightedness which was to characterize the ensuing administrations of the Left.

First Depretis Cabinet.

The fall of the Right on the 18th of March 1876 was an event destined profoundly and in many respects adversely to affect the course of Italian history. Except at rare and not auspicious intervals, the Right had held office from 1849 to 1876. Its rule was associated in the popular mind with severe administration; hostility to the democratic elements represented by Garibaldi, Crispi, Depretis and Bertani; ruthless imposition and collection of taxes in order to meet the financial engagements forced upon Italy by the vicissitudes of her Risorgimento; strong predilection for Piedmontese, Lombards and Tuscans, and a steady determination, not always scrupulous in its choice of means, to retain executive power and the most important administrative offices of the state for the _consorteria_, or close corporation, of its own adherents. For years the men of the Left had worked to inoculate the electorate with suspicion of Conservative methods and with hatred of the imposts which they nevertheless knew to be indispensable to sound finance. In regard to the grist tax especially, the agitators of the Left had placed their party in a radically false position. Moreover, the redemption of the railways by the state--contracts for which had been signed by Sella in 1875 on behalf of the Minghetti cabinet with Rothschild at Basel and with the Austrian government at Vienna--had been fiercely opposed by the Left, although its members were for the most part convinced of the utility of the operation. When, at the beginning of March 1876, these contracts were submitted to parliament, a group of Tuscan deputies, under Cesare Correnti, joined the opposition, and on the 18th of March took advantage of a chance motion concerning the date of discussion of an interpellation on the grist tax to place the Minghetti cabinet in a minority. Depretis, ex-pro-dictator of Sicily, and successor of Rattazzi in the leadership of the Left, was entrusted by the king with the formation of a Liberal ministry. Besides the premiership, Depretis assumed the portfolio of finance; Nicotera, an ex-Garibaldian of somewhat tarnished reputation, but a man of energetic and conservative temperament, was placed at the ministry of the interior; public works were entrusted to Zanardelli, a Radical doctrinaire of considerable juridical attainments; General Mezzacapo and Signor Brin replaced General Ricotti Magnani and Admiral Saint-Bon at the war office and ministry of marine; while to Mancini and Coppino, prominent members of the Left, were allotted the portfolios of justice and public instruction. Great difficulty was experienced in finding a foreign minister willing to challenge comparison with Visconti-Venosta. Several diplomatists in active service were approached, but, partly on account of their refusal, and partly from the desire of the Left to avoid giving so important a post to a diplomatist bound by ties of friendship or of interest to the Right, the choice fell upon Melegari, Italian minister at Bern.

Programme of the Left.

The new ministers had long since made monarchical professions of faith, but, up to the moment of taking office, were nevertheless considered to be tinged with an almost revolutionary hue. The king alone appeared to feel no misgiving. His shrewd sense of political expediency and his loyalty to constitutional principles saved him from the error of obstructing the advent and driving into an anti-dynastic attitude politicians who had succeeded in winning popular favour. Indeed, the patriotism and loyalty of the new ministers were above suspicion. Danger lay rather in entrusting men schooled in political conspiracy and in unscrupulous parliamentary opposition with the government of a young state still beset by enemies at home and abroad. As an opposition party the Left had lived upon the facile credit of political promises, but had no well-considered programme nor other discipline nor unity of purpose than that born of the common eagerness of its leaders for office and their common hostility to the Right. Neither Depretis, Nicotera, Crispi, Cairoli nor Zanardelli was disposed permanently to recognize the superiority of any one chief. The dissensions which broke out among them within a few months of the accession of their party to power never afterwards disappeared, except at rare moments when it became necessary to unite in preventing the return of the Conservatives. Considerations such as these could not be expected to appeal to the nation at large, which hailed the advent of the Left as the dawn of an era of unlimited popular sovereignty, diminished administrative pressure, reduction of taxation and general prosperity. The programme of Depretis corresponded only in part to these expectations. Its chief points were extension of the franchise, incompatibility of a parliamentary mandate with an official position, strict enforcement of the rights of the State in regard to the Church, protection of freedom of conscience, maintenance of the military and naval policy inaugurated by the Conservatives, acceptance of the railway redemption contracts, consolidation of the financial equilibrium, abolition of the forced currency, and, eventually, fiscal reform. The long-promised abolition of the grist tax was not explicitly mentioned, opposition to the railway redemption contracts was transformed into approval, and the vaunted reduction of taxation replaced by lip-service to the Conservative deity of financial equilibrium. The railway redemption contracts were in fact immediately voted by parliament, with a clause pledging the government to legislate in favour of farming out the railways to private companies.

Nicotera, minister of the interior, began his administration of home affairs by a sweeping change in the _personnel_ of the prefects, sub-prefects and public prosecutors, but found himself obliged to incur the wrath of his supporters by prohibiting Radical meetings likely to endanger public order, and by enunciating administrative principles which would have befitted an inveterate Conservative. In regard to the Church, he instructed the prefects strictly to prevent infraction of the law against religious orders. At the same time the cabinet, as a whole, brought in a Clerical Abuses Bill, threatening with severe punishment priests guilty of disturbing the peace of families, of opposing the laws of the state, or of fomenting disorder. Depretis, for his part, was compelled to declare impracticable the immediate abolition of the grist tax, and to frame a bill for the increase of revenue, acts which caused the secession of some sixty Radicals and Republicans from the ministerial majority, and gave the signal for an agitation against the premier similar to that which he himself had formerly undertaken against the Right. The first general election under the Left (November 1876) had yielded the cabinet the overwhelming majority of 421 Ministerialists against 87 Conservatives, but the very size of the majority rendered it unmanageable. The Clerical Abuses Bill provoked further dissensions: Nicotera was severely affected by revelations concerning his political past; Zanardelli refused to sanction the construction of a railway in Calabria in which Nicotera was interested; and Depretis saw fit to compensate the supporters of his bill for the increase of revenue by decorating at one stroke sixty ministerial deputies with the Order of the Crown of Italy. A further derogation from the ideal of democratic austerity was committed by adding £80,000 per annum to the king's civil list (14th May 1877) and by burdening the state exchequer with royal household pensions amounting to £20,000 a year. The civil list, which the law of the 10th of August 1862 had fixed at £650,000 a year, but which had been voluntarily reduced by the king to £530,000 in 1864, and to £490,000 in 1867, was thus raised to £570,000 a year. Almost the only respect in which the Left could boast a decided improvement over the administration of the Right was the energy displayed by Nicotera in combating brigandage and the mafia in Calabria and Sicily. Successes achieved in those provinces failed, however, to save Nicotera from the wrath of the Chamber, and on the 14th of December 1877 a cabinet crisis arose over a question concerning the secrecy of telegraphic correspondence. Depretis thereupon reconstructed his administration, excluding Nicotera, Melegari and Zanardelli, placing Crispi at the home office, entrusting Magliani with finance, and himself assuming the direction of foreign affairs.

Foreign policy of the Left.

In regard to foreign affairs, the début of the Left as a governing party was scarcely more satisfactory than its home policy. Since the war of 1866 the Left had advocated an Italo-Prussian alliance in opposition to the Francophil tendencies of the Right. On more than one occasion Bismarck had maintained direct relations with the chiefs of the Left, and had in 1870 worked to prevent a Franco-Italian alliance by encouraging the "party of action" to press for the occupation of Rome. Besides, the Left stood for anti-clericalism and for the retention by the State of means of coercing the Church, in opposition to the men of the Right, who, with the exception of Sella, favoured Cavour's ideal of "a free Church in a free State," and the consequent abandonment of state control over ecclesiastical government. Upon the outbreak of the Prussian _Kulturkampf_ the Left had pressed the Right to introduce an Italian counterpart to the Prussian May laws, especially as the attitude of Thiers and the hostility of the French Clericals obviated the need for sparing French susceptibilities. Visconti-Venosta and Minghetti, partly from aversion to a Jacobin policy, and partly from a conviction that Bismarck sooner or later would undertake his _Gang nach Canossa_, regardless of any tacit engagement he might have assumed towards Italy, had wisely declined to be drawn into any infraction of the Law of Guarantees. It was, however, expected that the chiefs of the Left, upon attaining office, would turn resolutely towards Prussia in search of a guarantee against the Clerical menace embodied in the régime of Marshal Macmahon. On the contrary, Depretis and Melegari, both of whom were imbued with French Liberal doctrines, adopted towards the Republic an attitude so deferential as to arouse suspicion in Vienna and Berlin. Depretis recalled Nigra from Paris and replaced him by General Cialdini, whose ardent plea for Italian intervention in favour of France in 1870, and whose comradeship with Marshal Macmahon in 1859, would, it was supposed, render him _persona gratissima_ to the French government. This calculation was falsified by events. Incensed by the elevation to the rank of embassies of the Italian legation in Paris and the French legation to the Quirinal, and by the introduction of the Italian bill against clerical abuses, the French Clerical party not only attacked Italy and her representative, General Cialdini, in the Chamber of Deputies, but promoted a monster petition against the Italian bill. Even the _coup d'état_ of the 16th of May 1877 (when Macmahon dismissed the Jules Simon cabinet for opposing the Clerical petition) hardly availed to change the attitude of Depretis. As a precaution against an eventual French attempt to restore the temporal power, orders were hurriedly given to complete the defences of Rome, but in other respects the Italian government maintained its subservient attitude. Yet at that moment the adoption of a clear line of policy, in accord with the central powers, might have saved Italy from the loss of prestige entailed by her bearing in regard to the Russo-Turkish War and the Austrian acquisition of Bosnia, and might have prevented the disappointment subsequently occasioned by the outcome of the Congress of Berlin. In the hope of inducing the European powers to "compensate" Italy for the increase of Austrian influence on the Adriatic, Crispi undertook in the autumn of 1877, with the approval of the king, and in spite of the half-disguised opposition of Depretis, a semi-official mission to Paris, Berlin, London and Vienna. The mission appears not to have been an unqualified success, though Crispi afterwards affirmed in the Chamber (4th March 1886) that Depretis might in 1877 "have harnessed fortune to the Italian chariot." Depretis, anxious only to avoid "a policy of adventure," let slip whatever opportunity may have presented itself, and neglected even to deal energetically with the impotent but mischievous Italian agitation for a "rectification" of the Italo-Austrian frontier. He greeted the treaty of San Stefano (3rd March 1878) with undisguised relief, and by the mouth of the king, congratulated Italy (7th March 1878) on having maintained with the powers friendly and cordial relations "free from suspicious precautions," and upon having secured for herself "that most precious of alliances, the alliance of the future"--a phrase of which the empty rhetoric was to be bitterly demonstrated by the Berlin Congress and the French occupation of Tunisia.

Crispi.

Deaths of Victor Emmanuel II. and Pius IX.

Leo XIII.