MISERY IN ITALY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 322, 20 June 1879, Page 9

MISERY IN ITALY.

Our space will not permit us to do more than give a few extracts whicb we translate from an article in the Civilta Cattolica. on the misery to which Italy has sunk ; but we imagine that even these few extracts will astonish our readers. The writer commences by sayiug, that whereas Italy a few years ago enjoyed such abundance, that not only did no one die of hunger, but that only a few even suffered from it. habitually, it is now reduced to pauperism. Twenty years ago Italians could scarcely credit the accounts of starvation and crimeSwbicb reached them from the great cities of England, France,"and Germany. They now ace this starvation and ciime not only in their own great cities, but infecting the entire peninsula. This^mieery^he; attributes to the double system,— political economy and treatment of {religion, by the Stmte, — but he deals with the political economy only. When Italy was set on its feet by Napoleon 111., the only thing to be looked to was its financial condition. Napoleon would look to its political welfare, becau«e he bad set it up, and certain foreign governments would help out of hatred for the Pope. But by all means the rulers of Italy were to see that it did not lose national credit outside, nor by bungling within, mrke the people regret the change. . But the mlers have not performed their part, and in little more than 20 years Italy has advanced to the firfct place in the -world for misery ard crime. A stranger visitine Italy and examining with careful eye the cities and villages beholds three-fourths of the population almost in rags, struggling more or less openly with hunger ; and the remaining fourth, with few exceptions, encumbering themselves with debts, or slowly consuming their patrimony in the attempt to live in the style that suits their position. In the country the peopl* can icarcely live, and wander from one part to another trying to escape want. The great test of pauperism is emigration. Not counting fch ? 8 « who leave Italy for a time, or for other causes than those which prompt to emigration, the true emigrants in the year 1876 amounted to 60,000 ! though the soil is the richest, most fertile nnd most varied in Europe, and though large quantities of it are not under tillage from mere want of hands. These 60,000 are gone merely to escape dying of hunger. In the 10 years, from 1864 to 1874, only 82,000 emigrated troni France. In a few months nearly 6,000 Italians went to Algiers, when a circular was sent round to inform others who wished to go, that there was not labour enough for so many. . On the 6th of October, 1878, Gioachino Pepoli wnt to Pans and declared to an audience of political economists " tb*t the number ot persons suffering from the pangs of hunger was increasing every day, and that the workmen of the Province of Ferrara were not dying an actual violent death of hunger, hut were dying a slow death of hunger from unwholesome and insufficient food." The writer adds that in Ci lento the rural population eat a bread made of acorns, bread made of wheat being given only to the dying. Pepoli then went on to show "that in Italy, not le-ss than 400,000 workmen suffer the pangs ot hunger, and that in the rich plains of Lombardy many of the peasant* struggle with want, and do not eat meat above once a year. \ Jmi ™™ des ic'onowtistes, revue de la science iconomique, Paris, October Ib 7», From the same journal the writer then gives tlie following statementp. all along on the authority of Pepoli, p. 150-151. '• If the Italian Government is the freest of all, it is also the most reactionary in the matter of taxes. All the States of Europe aeek to abolish, or at least diminish taxes on the first necessaries of life, X d« not speak of England, where the Whigs and Tories have agreed to

• A slight error. t And impiety too ; -witness Culture. t IlUt. de 1* Compagni* d* Jfeue, t, I, p. 8< tQMUM&dS."

give the workman a dinner free from taxes. Belgium, Holland, Germany, Russia, and Austria, have done the same ; and even Trance in the midst of her disasters has not ventured to impose taxes on bread and meat ; and the increase upon salt was only temporary. The Italian Government alone has. resisted the current of public opinion, aad demanded 200,000,000 of lire, from salt, bread and meat 1" * " Salt is not taxed in England, nor in Belgium, nor in Portugal, nor in Roumania. In Russia the tax. is. B centeshni per chilogram (about 2$ lbs), in Greece 8, m Germany 15, in France 10 ; and scarcely had the waT tax been imposed when it was suppressed. Even at the . lughest it never went beyond 30 centesimi. In Italy only ba,s the tax risen to 55 eentemni, giving the State a revenue of 80,000,000 lire. , . . Mantegazza has calculated that each individual requires 7$ chilograms of salt. Now the majority of Italians can procure only 3." So much for the salt tax ;" now for the corn. The tax on corn is 2 lire per hectolitre (about 26£ gallons) and produces for the State 81,000,000 lire, and as the Government reserves the farther right of taxing the flour made from the corn, in several cities people pay 20 per cent ; — This is the number returned officially by Seismet Boda." Next comes tbe meat. '• In France the tax on fresh meat is 9-francsper cwt. In Borne, Turin, Milan, and Florence it is 18 ; exactly double. Under this system the workman can no longer save up, for his wages baTely suffice to keep him alive." . Public works were started on a stupendous scale. The cost in the year 1876 was 489,000,000 lire ! Of this 287,897,000 were paid by taxation, the other 200,000,000 w&xe raised by loan. Thus the Government and the corporations are striving to outdo each other in impoverishing the rich and in starving the poor. Hence the bankruptcy of the corporations is looked forward to as a natural result. At Florence all payments have been suspended, and nothing is wanting but the sanction of the Chamber of Legislation to liquidate with some million of zeros, the debt of 175,000,000 lire due there. The bankruptcy of Naples, Rome, and the other leading cities will follow in due time. • Pepoli next proceeds to show that not even the poor peasants who nocked into the towns to escape starvation in the country, and obtain employment on the public works aie benefited by them. Besides all the other taxes there is one on building, "which exceeds all bounds. In Bologna it amounts, according to the official return, to 41 per cent." Pepoli is apparently unaware that in Florence it amounts to 43 per cent. "The income tax is 13 per cent. Then the people employed work only 11 months for their family and have to give up tbe 12th to the Public Treasury. This exhorbitant taxation opens the way to a thousand frauds, and while the rich find means not to pay, those who are poorer pay for them." (p. 150.) The reason of this extravagance and misery is that before the new state of things a few officials sufficed for each town. Thus a certain great city of Italy f used to be exceedingly well governed by 37 salaried officials, whereas there are now 800 who draw a good salary every month. Moreover the Government exacts from each corporation a ruinous payment under the name of custom dues (ccvnone . gabellare). This grinding taxation is so bad that it might well seem it could not be worse ; yet the licence allowed the taxgatherers renders it still more intolerable. Their motto is " solve at repete." No master how unfounded a demand may be, either in law or justice, you must pay at once, but you have the right of redemanding what you have paid ;— a chimerical right. If you gained your cause it might probably cost you many times your original loss, and youi losing is just as likely as your gaining it. When people refuse to pay, or are unable to do so, their goods are sold by auction, and grievous is the misery inflicted by these petty tyrants. Meantime nothing is to be heard throughout Italy but the cry oi Liberty I The writer then proceeds to give the amazing history of tne cruelties exercised in Giglio. Giglio is a very small island lying south-east of Elba. Before the absorption of Tuscany by Piedmont, 1900 people by dint of hard work obtained from the poor soil a scanty sustenance. In pity of their poverty the Grand Duke exacted no tribute from them. On being " liberated" by the Piedmontese. they were subjected to taxes to the amount of 20,000 lire". The poor people could not pay, and the Government put up to auction, not only their lands but their wretched furniture, which produced 23,000 lire. The largest holding went for 760 lire (slightly over £30), and the smallest for about 6 shillings. Next there is given the case of a man who had to pay taxes for his mother, who had been dead for seven years 1 Prove as he would that the dead are not supposed to pay taxes, he had to pay, the collector coolly telling him to recover it at law ! It would have cost him 500 lire to do so. , On the 2nd of July, 1878, the Deputy Adolfo Sanguinetti brought forward so clearly the abyss of debt in which Italy was disappearing that the Liberal journals tried to hush the matter up. He showed that the only way the Government dreamt of to meet a deficit was to borrow 1 In three years it had added to the burden of Italy a debt of 150 millions ! In the year 1861 the Italian debt was 3092 millions. In 1877 it was 11,016 millions ; so that the increase in 16 years was 7924 millions, or almost 500 millions a-year I Who can say what the next account will show 1 1 And the paper money amounts to 200,000,000 1 "In Austria," continues Sanguinetti, 23 per cent, of the revenue go to pay the national debt ; 25 in Russia ; 28 in Belgium ; 33 in England ;40 in France ; but in Italy 49." So that Italy stands first in poverty as well as crime 1 So much for the taxation. Now a word on property. It is so overwhelmed with mortgages that it is perpetually changing hands. The land taxes are so heavy that the prodncts scarcely suffice to meet them.

* £8,000,000. There are 25 lire in a pound sterling. Therefore this and all subsequent numbers must be divided by 25. t Borne probably is meant.

Sanguinetti gives the following appalling statistics on this head : — "In a c% of secondary rank, with only 100,000 inhabitants, 76,414 distraints of furniture for taxes were began, and 44,860 were carried out, in the space of five years I In the same city, and during the same five years, 18,000 distraints of houses and lands were begun, 2,325 were carried out, and in 2,300 cases the property was seized by the Government for want of buyers !" After showing that forty-sits per cent, of the entire wealth of Italy is swallowed up by taxes, he declares this to be the worst form of Communism, because its victims are the poorer classes. Private means are steadily disappearing, and useless papers represent property that no longer exists. A single shock will be sufficient to reduce thousands of families to ruin and despair. _ Exportation is daily decreasing, and importation increasing, which, of course, causes a steady drain of coin from unhappy Italy. A group of speculators find their profit in this state of things, but as for the people at large, people of means aTe so weighed down by taxes that they can. neither improve their lands nor vest capital in manufactures, nor compete with foreigners. Manufactured cotton, which in France would pay 5,000 francs, must pay 16,000 in Italy, whence Pepoli concludes that " free-trade " is a mockery to Italy. (Journal des ioonomistes, p. 148.) The peasants are emigrating, therefore agriculture is going down. There are continual bankruptcies, therefore commerce is grievously injured. People regarded as rich are masters of scarcely half their incomes; they ase obliged to practise the most rigid economy, and they are sinking and disappearing every day. Small proprietors are selling off their property in order not to be completely swallowed up by the G-overnment. The result is a marvellous depreciation of property. The writer cites numerous examples brought forward by a warm admirer of " Italian unity and freedom," Signor (Jenala. Our limits do not allow us to give the particulars : we can merely state that in the present state of depreciation the valuation may be only the quarter or one fifth of the real value ; yet, even at this low price it is impossible to get buyers. For instance, a country house which had cost 150,000 lire was valued at 39,000, and bought for a little over 21,000 ; and the purchaser lost 4,000 lire (£160) by his bargain. Another house, valued at 89,000 lire, after being put up for sale again and again at auction, at length fetched 12,000, &c, &c. Pepoli consoles his starving countrymen by the reflection that " human thought and conscience are now free." When the people were in abundance they were free to do everything which was not contrary to the law of God. but of course they were not free to lie, or steal, or commit any other crime. Now that they are in wretchedness they enjoy no greater liberty. Pepoli's empty words are the mere cant of the day, which some people believe because human stupidity is unfathomable, and which some pretend to believe because they hate the Catholic religion. But his facts are only too real, and his demonstration of Italy's misery is unanswerable.