ITALIAN FINANCE

Press, Volume XI, Issue 1373, 2 April 1867, Page 2

ITALIAN FINANCE

[From the " Pall Mall Gazette."] The main characteristics of Signor Scialoja'e new budget may be said to consist in the principle of finality which he, has asserted in regard to borrowing, and in the prospect of an equilibrium which he now for the first time holds out in the future. For this, indeed, we prepared our readers on Thursday, while in fact the details published here next day were being communicated to the Italian Parliament. The time had clearly arrived at which a radical change of financial policy was necessary. Six years have elapsed since what we may term the foundation of the " Italian" debt, using the term distinctively. Sigßor Bastogi, the ablest probably of all the Italian financiers, consolidated in.1861 the debts of the various States into ft common national stock ; and from that time the debt of Italy has been increasing through the huge deficits of every following year, until it; now probably exceeds two hundred millions sterling. These sacrifices of credit were borne with under the conviction that the safety of Italy could not bo assured until Venetia was ceded. That event having now, however, happened, it was clear that the original plea under which bo many loans had been concluded wan at an end. The struggle to secure independence was replaced b? & struggle to preserve credit. Singu* larly enough, now that the Italian programme (except as regaraa Borne) has been completed, the public securities are some 10 per cent, lower than they were before the menace of the last year's hostilities. This is significant enough of the weight of the burden of the country. Siguor Scialoja ;has had throughout a severe task. He took the portfolio ot finance about a year ago, when tw terrible blunders of Minghetti ana Sella had brought the Government to the verge of bankruptcy, their bucco*aive administrations of finance having spanned most of the four yeara: interval between the retirement of i* l8 * togi in 1862 and the appointment oi Signor Scialoja. Oue of the firafc necessities imposed upon the latter oa m accession to office was that of issuing a forced or inconvertible paper currency ; and had ho not yielded to *, the banks and many of the railway ß would probably have atopped POT 6 "*; In addition to the funded debt there is thus at this moment flboufc twe»« millions sterling of depreciated papw to be ultimately redeemed. rern»i»

~;„ burden has given a greater shock £ credit than the previous loans. In These circumstances it was desirS ti iHt there should be no more boSowiig. and that the Italians should their way to a permanent balance ofrevenue and expenditure at eoine de ?or thecurrent financial year Signor cXloia finds a deficit of nearly seven Sons anda-half sterling He reTondles the Chambers to this ugly Seult by pointing out that the wound, Jhougb still gaping, has been for some Sne Gradually contracting ; that the revenue has increased, and the deficit fas become less. By fresh taxes and Jprtain reforms in the revenue he now Proposes to reduce the present deft iencr fr° m Beven m,ll,ons and a ' half fn four millions. We do not attempt ♦„ follow him through mere details, if nnlv because it is apparent that some nfthe figures in the telegraphic summary are inaccurate; and we are mlined to suspect that the same must be said of the date at which Signor Scialoia fixes the future equilibrium. The deficit being henceforth to be reduced to four millions, it is improbable fhat a Minister of Finance should put that event off so late as the year 1880 ; the achievement bidding fair to lie more nearly within the compass of three years than thirteen. To bridge over the interval, however, be it what it may the Government resorts to the ecclesiastical property, which, apparently without entirely alienating, it Proposes to tax to the extent of twentyfr oU millions sterling; though this may be assumed to be pretty well as much as it is worth. Four millions of the amount are to complete the liquidation for the current financial year, and the rest is to be applied to the same purpose as long as it lasts. It is calculated that the whole amount will fully supply the interval until a natural equilibrium is attained. We have yet, however, to learn the details of the proposed measure of secularization. A Bill is to be introduced at once for this purpose into the Chambers, the question being pronounced an " urgent" one. "Wβ shall then ascertain what compensation or nominal equivalent the Government will offer to the clergy, excepting where, among the property of the regulars, they may abolish the institutions themselves for which the property has been held by the Church. It is not to be denied that this is a wholesale measure of confiscation; and one cannot but smile at the sanguine expectation professed by the Minister that the clergy will receive his proposals with favor. But it is what has been done, not only in France during a former generation, but almost in our own day in Spain and Portugal; and the little kingdom of Sardinia had already moved in the same direction befor Italy had become one kingdom. The Turkish Government, more conservative or more religious than other nations of the Mediterranean, still keeps its mosque property in reversion. • The best that can be said for Signor Scialoja's budget perhaps is that, assuming the value of the Church property to be rightly estimated, it contains little that is speculative or visionary. The realization of his measares is not dependent on contingencies, and we have the whole in a hard and bold outline. On the other hand, little or nothing has reached us on the subject of civil and administrative reductions. On this part of the question, however, the information by the telegraph is probably defective; for the projected equilibrium can hardly be attained otherwise than by gradual curtailments of expenditure, and we have yet to learn with certainty what they are to be.