MATERIAL INTERESTS.
"For my part," said a great fat Neapolitan,
"I don't care the value of a bit of orange-peel for
politics. I am willing to believe we've got a bad
government, because all the world says we have, and because
our King never dare show himself in public. All I can say
is, that my grandfather made 20,000 ducats as a
manufacturer; that my father doubled his capital in trade;
and that I bought an estate which, in my tenants' hands,
pays me six per cent. for the investment. I eat four meals a
day, I'm in vigorous health, and I weigh fourteen stone. So
when I toss off my third glass of old Capri wine at supper,
I can't for the life of me help crying, 'Long live the
King!'"
A huge hog which happened to cross the street as the Neapolitan
reached his climax, gave a grunt in token of approbation.
The "hog" school is not numerous in Italy, whatever superficial
travellers may have told you on that head. The most highly-gifted
nation in Europe will not easily be persuaded that the great end of
human existence is to eat four meals a day.
But let us suppose for an instant that all the Pope's subjects are
willing to renounce all liberty,--religious, political, municipal, and
even civil,--for the sake of growing sleek and fat, without any higher
aim, and are content with the merely animal enjoyments of health and
food; do they find in their homes the means of satisfying their wants?
Can they, on that score at least, applaud their Government? Are they
as well treated as beasts in a cage? Are the people fat and thriving?
I answer, No!
In every country in the world the sources of public wealth are three
in number: agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. All governments
which do their duty, and understand their interests, emulate one
another in favouring, by wholesome administrative measures, the farm,
the workshop, and the counting-house. Wherever the nation and its
rulers are united, trade and manufactures will be found clinging round
the government, and increasing even to excess the population of the
capital cities; while agriculture works her greatest miracles in the
circuit which is the most immediately subject to the influence of
authority.
Borne is the least industrious and commercial city in the Pontifical
States, and its suburbs resemble a desert. You must travel very far to
find any industrial experiment, or any attempt at trade.
Whose fault is this? Industrial pursuits require, above all things,
liberty. Now in the States of the Church all the manufactures of any
importance constitute privileges bestowed by the government upon its
friends. Not only tobacco and salt, but sugar, glass, wax, and
stearine, are objects of privilege. Privilege here--privilege
there--privilege everywhere. An Insurance Company is established, of
course by special privilege. The very baskets used by the
cherry-vendors are the monopoly of a privileged basket-maker. The
Inspector of the Piazza Navona[14] would seize any refractory basket
which had failed to pay its tribute to monopoly. The grocers of
Tivoli, the butchers of Frascati, all the retail dealers in the
suburbs of Rome, are privileged. The system of privileges and
monopolies is universal, and of course commerce shares the common lot.
Commerce cannot flourish without capital, facilities of credit, easy
communication, and, above all, personal safety. I have shown you what
the roads are as to safety. I have not yet shown you how wretchedly
bad and insufficient they are. Now for a few facts.
In June, 1858, I travelled through the Mediterranean provinces, taking
notes as I went along. I established the fact that in one township the
bread cost nearly three-halfpence a pound, while in another, some
twelve miles off, it was to be had for a penny. It follows that the
carriage of goods along twelve miles of road cost a farthing a pound.
At Sonnino bad wine was sold for sevenpence the _litre_, while the
same quantity of passable wine might be had at Pagliano, thirty miles
off, for twopence halfpenny; so the cost of carrying an article
weighing some two pounds for thirty miles was fourpence halfpenny.
Wherever governments make roads, prices naturally find their level.
I may be told that I explored remote and out-of-the-way districts. If
we approach the capital, we find the matters still worse. The nearest
villages to Rome have not roads fit for carriages from one to the
other. What would be said of the French administration, if people
could not get from Versailles to St. Germain without passing through
Paris? This, however, has been for centuries the state of things near
the Pope's capital. If you want a still more striking instance, here
it is. Bologna, the second city in the Pontifical States, is in rapid
and frequent communication with the whole world--except Rome. It
despatches seven mails a week to foreign countries--only five to Rome.
The letters from Paris arrive at Bologna some hours before those from
Rome; the letters from Vienna are in advance of those from Rome by a
day and a night. The Papal kingdom is not very extensive, but it seems
to me even too extensive, when I see distances trebled by the
carelessness of the Government and the inadequacy of the public works.
As to railways, there are two, one from Rome to Frascati, and one from
Rome to Civita Vecchia; but the Adriatic provinces, which are the most
populous, the most energetic, and the most interesting in the country,
will not hear the whistle of the locomotive and the rush of the train
for a long time to come. The nation loudly demands railways. The lay
proprietors, instead of absurdly asking fancy prices for their land,
eagerly offer it to companies. The convents alone raise barricades, as
if they thought the devil was trying to break in at their gates. The
erection of a railway station in Rome gave rise to some comical
difficulties. Our unfortunate engineers were utterly at a loss for the
means of effecting an opening. On all sides the way was blocked up by
obstructive friars. Black friars--white friars--grey friars--and brown
friars. They began with the Lazarists. The Holy Father personally came
to their rescue. "Ah, Mr. Engineer, have mercy on my poor Lazarists!
The good souls are given to prayer and meditation; and your
locomotives do make such a hideous din!" So Mr. Engineer is fain to
try the neighbouring convent. New difficulties there. The next attack
is made upon a little nunnery founded by the Princess de Bauffremont.
But I have neither time nor space for episodical details. It suffices
for our purpose to state that the construction of railways will be a
terribly long-winded affair, and that in the meantime trade languishes
for want of crossroads. The budget of public works is devoted to the
repair of churches, and the building of basilicas. Nearly
half-a-million sterling has already been sunk in the erection of a
very grey and very ugly edifice on the Ostia road.[15] As much more
will be required to finish it, and the commerce of the country will be
none the better.
Half a million sterling! Why the entire capital of the bank of Rome is
but £400,000; and when merchants go there to have their bills
discounted, they can get no money. They are obliged to apply to
usurers and monopolists, and the governor of the bank is one. Rome has
an Exchange. I discovered its existence by mere chance, in turning
over a Roman almanack. This public establishment opens _once a week_,
a fact which gives some idea of the amount of business transacted
there.
If trade and manufactures offer but small resources to the subjects of
his Holiness, they fortunately find some compensation in agriculture.
The natural fertility of the soil, and the stubborn industry of those
who cultivate it, will always suffice to keep the nation from
starvation. While it pays away a million sterling annually for foreign
manufactures, the surplus of its agricultural produce brings back some
£800,000. Hemp and corn, oil and wool, wine, silk, and cattle, form
its substantial wealth.
How do we find the Government acting in this respect? Its duties are
very simple, and may be summed up in three words,--protection,
assistance, and encouragement.
The budget is not heavily burdened under the head of encouragement.
Some proprietors and land stewards, residing in Rome, ask permission
to found an Agricultural Society. The authorities refuse. In order to
attain their object, they steal furtively into a Horticultural
Society, already established by authority. They organize themselves,
raise subscriptions, exhibit to the Romans a good collection of cattle
and distribute some gold and silver medals offered by Prince Cesarini.
Is it not curious that an exhibition of cattle, in order to be
tolerated, is obliged to smuggle itself in under the shelter of
camellias and geraniums?
Lay sovereigns not only openly favour agriculture, but they encourage
it at a heavy cost, and do not consider their money thrown away. They
are well aware that to give a couple of hundred pounds to the inventor
of a good plough, is to place a small capital out at a heavy interest.
The investment will render their kingdom more prosperous, and their
children more wealthy. But the Pope has no children. He prefers sowing
in his churches, in order to reap the harvest in Paradise.
Might he not at least assist the unfortunate peasants who furnish the
bread he eats?
An able and truthful statistician (the Marchese Pepoli) has proved
that in the township of Bologna, the rural proprietors actually pay
taxes to the amount of £6. 8s. 4d. upon every £4-worth of taxable
income. The fisc is not content with absorbing the entire revenue, but
it annually eats into the capital. What think you of such moderation?
In 1855 the vines were diseased everywhere. Lay governments vied with
each other in assisting the distressed proprietors. Cardinal Antonelli
seized the opportunity to impose a tax of £74,680 upon the vines; and
as there were no grapes that year to pay it, the amount was charged
upon the different townships. Now which has proved the heaviest
scourge--the _Oidium_ or the Cardinal Minister? Certainly not the
_Oidium_, for that has disappeared. The Cardinal remains.
All the corn harvested in the _Agro Romano_ pays a fixed duty of
twenty-two pauls per rubbio. The rubbio is worth, on an average, from
80 to 100 pauls; so that the government taxes the harvest to the
amount of at least 22 per cent. Here is a moderate tax. Why it is more
than double the tithe. So much for the assistance rendered to the
growers of corn.
Every description of agricultural produce pays a tax on export. There
are governments which give a premium to exporters: one may call that
encouraging the national industry. There are others, and they are
still more numerous, which allow a free export of the surplus produce
of the land: this is not merely to encourage, it is to assist the
labourers. The Pope levies an average tax of 22 per thousand on the
total amount of exports, 160 per thousand on the value of imports. The
Piedmontese government is satisfied with 13 per thousand on exports,
and 58 per thousand on imports. Of the two countries, I should prefer
farming in Piedmont.
Cattle are subject to vexatious taxes, which add from twenty to thirty
per cent. to their cost. They pay when at pasture; they pay nearly
twenty-three shillings per head at market; they pay on exportation.
And yet the breeding of cattle is one of the most valuable resources
of the State, and one of those which ought to be the most assisted.
The horses raised in the country pay five per cent. on their value
every time they change hands. By the time a horse has passed through
twenty different hands, the Government has pocketed as much as the
breeder. When I say the Government, I am wrong; the horse-tax is not
included in the Budget. It is an ecclesiastical prebend. Cardinal
della Dateria throws it in with general episcopal revenues.
"The good shepherd should shear, and not flay his sheep." These are
the words of an Emperor, not a Pope, of Rome.
And now I dare not ask of the Holy Father certain protective measures
which could not fail to double the revenue of his crown and the number
of his subjects.
According to the statistical returns of 1857, the territorial wealth
of the Romans is estimated at £104,400,000. The gross produce of this
capital does not reach more than £116,563. 11s. 8d., or about ten per
cent. This is little. In Poland, and some other great agricultural
countries, the land pays a net revenue of twelve per cent., which
represents at least twenty per cent. gross. The Roman soil would
produce the same if the Roman government did its duty.
The country is divided into cultivated and uncultivated lands. The
former, that is to say those planted with useful trees, enriched by
manure, regularly submitted to manual labour, and sown every year, lie
chiefly in the provinces of the Adriatic, far beyond the ken of the
Pope. In this half of the States of the Church (the most worthy of
attention, and the least known) twenty years of French occupation have
left excellent traditions. The system of primogeniture is abolished,
if not by law, at least in practice. The equality of rights among the
children of the same father necessitates the subdivision of property
so favourable to agricultural progress. There are some large landed
proprietors here, as there are everywhere; but instead of abandoning
their estates to the rapacity of an intendant, they divide them into
different occupations, which they confide to the best farmers. The
landlord supplies the land, the buildings, and the cattle, and pays
the property-tax. The tenant supplies the labour, and pays the other
taxes, and the produce is equally shared between the landlord and the
tenant. The system answers well, and the Adriatic provinces would
hardly seem deserving of pity, if it were not for the brigands, the
inundations of the Po and the Reno, and the crushing taxation I have
described.
These taxes are lighter on the other side of the Apennines. There are
even in the neighbourhood of Rome some landowners who pay scarcely any
at all. In 1854 the _Consulta di Stato_ valued the privileged lands at
£360,000. But we will turn to the subject of the uncultivated lands.
Towards the Mediterranean, north, east, south, and west of Rome, and
wherever the Papal benediction extends, the flat country, which covers
an immense extent, is at once uninhabited, uncultivated, and
unhealthy. Various are the modes in which experienced persons have
attempted to account for the wretched condition of this fine country.
One says,
"It is uncultivated because it is uninhabited. How can you
cultivate without men? It is uninhabited because it is
unwholesome. How can you expect men to inhabit it at the
risk of their lives? Make it healthy, and it will populate
itself, and the population will cultivate it, for there is
not a finer soil in the world."
Another replies,
"You are wrong. You confound cause with effect. The country
is unhealthy because it is uncultivated. The decayed
vegetable matter accumulated by centuries ferments under the
summer sun. The wind blows over it, and raises up a
provision of subtle miasma, imperceptible to the smell, and
yet destructive to life. If all these plains were ploughed
or dug up three or four times, so as to let the air and
light penetrate into the depths of the soil, the fever which
lies dormant under the rank vegetation would speedily
evaporate, and return no more. Hasten then to bring ploughs,
and your first crop will be one of health."
A third replies to the two first,
"You are both right. The country is unhealthy because it is
uncultivated, and uncultivated because it is unhealthy. The
question lies in a vicious circle, from which there is no
escape. Let us therefore leave things as they are; and when
the fever-season arrives, we can go and inhale the fresh
mountain air under the tall trees of Frascati."
The last speaker, if I am not greatly mistaken, is a Prelate. But have
a care, Monsignore! Frascati, once so renowned for the purity of its
air, now no longer deserves its reputation; and I may say the same of
Tivoli. The quarters of Rome most remarkable for healthiness, such for
instance as the Pincian, have of late become unhealthy. Fever is
gaining ground. It is equally worthy of observation that at the same
time the cultivation of the land is diminishing; and that the estates
in mortmain--that is to say, delivered into the hands of the
priesthood--have been increasing at the yearly rate of from £60,000 to
£80,000 a year. Is _mortmain_ indeed the hand which kills?
I submitted this delicate question to a very intelligent, very
honourable, and very wealthy man, who farms several thousand acres of
Church property. He is one of the _Mercanti di Campagna_, mentioned in
a former chapter (Chap. VI.). The following is the substance of his
reply.
"Six-tenths of the Agro Romano are held in mortmain.
Three-tenths belong to the princely families, and the
remaining tenth to different individuals.
"I hold under a religious community. I have a three-years'
lease of the bare land. The live and dead farm-stock is my
own property. It represents an enormous capital, which is
liable to all sorts of accidents. But in our dear country
one must risk a great deal to gain a little.
"If the land, which is almost all of fine quality, were my
own, I should bring nearly the whole of it under the plough;
but I am expressly forbidden by a clause in my lease to
break up the best land, for fear of exhausting it by growing
corn. No doubt such would be the result in the course of
time, because we apply no manure; but of course the inferior
land which I _am_ allowed to break up will be worn out much
sooner, and will in the end become almost worthless. The
monks knowing this, take care that the best land shall not
lose its quality, and oblige me to keep it in pasture for
cattle. Thus I grow little corn merely because the good
fathers will not let me grow a great deal. I cultivate first
one piece of land, then another. On my farm, as throughout
the Agro Romano, cultivation is but a passing accident; and
so long as this continues, the country will be unhealthy.
"I raise cattle, which, as you will presently see, is
sometimes a profitable pursuit, sometimes quite the
contrary. On the whole of my farm I have no shelter for my
cattle. I asked the monks to build me some sheds, offering
to pay an increased rent in proportion to outlay. The monk
who acts as the man of business of the convent, shrugged his
shoulders. 'What can you be thinking of?' he said; 'you know
we have only a life interest in the property. To comply with
your request, we must spend our income for the benefit of
our successors: and what care we for our successors? No, we
look to the present usufruct; the future is no concern of
ours--we have no children!' And the friar is right. Well, he
went on to say that I was at liberty to build at my own cost
as many sheds as I liked, which of course would belong to
the convent at the expiration of my lease. I replied that I
had no objection to erect the sheds, if the convent would
grant me a lease of reasonable length. But just then it
occurred to me very opportunely, that the canon law does not
recognize leases for more than three years, and that on the
very day when my sheds were completed, the pious fathers
might find it convenient to pick a quarrel with me. So here
the matter dropped. Although our cattle are naturally hardy
they are bound to suffer from exposure to the weather. A
hundred cows under shelter will yield the same quantity of
milk through the winter as five hundred in the open air, at
half the cost. A large portion of the hay we strew about the
pastures for the cattle, is trodden underfoot and spoilt
instead of being eaten; and if rain falls, the whole is
spoilt. Calculate the loss of milk, the cost of cartage over
a wide range of land, the damage done to the pastures by the
trampling of heavy cattle in wet weather, all caused by the
want of a few sheds, which it is impossible to have under
the present system, and you will appreciate the position of
a farmer holding under landlords who are careless as to the
future, and merely live from hand to mouth.
"There is another improvement, which I offered to make at my
own expense. I asked permission to dam up a little stream,
dig some trenches, and irrigate the fields, by which I could
have doubled the produce both in quantity and quality. You
will hardly imagine the answer I received. The monks
declared the extraordinary fertility which would result from
the irrigation, would be a sort of violence done to nature,
by which in the end the soil could not fail to be
impoverished. What could I reply to such reasoning? These
good fathers only think of nursing their income. I tax them
neither with ignorance nor bad intentions. I only regret
that the land should be in their hands."
"Pasture-farming under such conditions as these is a
terribly hazardous pursuit. A single year of drought will
suffice to ruin a breeder completely. In the years 1854-5 we
lost from twenty to forty per cent. of our cattle; in 1856-7
from seventeen to twenty per cent: and bear in mind that
every beast, before it died, had been taxed."
A champion of the Pontifical system offered to prove to me _by
figures_ that all is for the best even in the ecclesiastical estates.
"We have our reasons," he said,
"for preferring pasture to arable land. Here is a property
consisting of a hundred _rubbia_[16] (not quite three
hundred acres). If it were farmed on the proprietor's own
account, the cultivation, harvesting, threshing, and storing
would amount to the value of 13,550 days' labour. The wages,
seed, keep of horses and cattle, the interest of capital
invested in stock, cost of superintendence, wear and tear of
tools, etc., would stand him in 8,000 scudi, or 80 scudi per
rubbio. The earth returns sevenfold on the seed sown. If 100
measures of seed are sown, the return will be 700. The
average price of the measure of corn may be taken at 10
scudi. Thus the value of the crop will be 7,000 scudi,
whereas the same crop cost to raise 8,000 scudi. Here are
1,000 scudi (about £215) flung clean into the gutter; and
all for the pleasure of cultivating 100 rubbia of land. Is
it not much better to let the 100 rubbia to a
cattle-breeder, who will pay a rent of thirty or forty
shillings per rubbio? On one side we have a clear loss of
£215, and on the other a clear income of £160 or £184."
This reasoning is founded upon the calculations of Monsignore Nicolai,
a prelate of considerable ability[17]: but it proves nothing, because
it attempts to prove too much. If the cultivation of corn be really so
ruinous an operation, it is strange that farmers should continue to
grow it merely to spite the government.
But although it is quite true that the cultivation of a rubbio of land
costs 80 scudi, it is false that the earth only yields sevenfold on
the seed sown. According to the admission of the farmers
themselves--and they are notoriously not in the habit of exaggerating
their profits--it yields thirteen-fold on the seed sown. Thirteen
measures of corn are worth thirteen times ten scudi, or 130 scudi.
Deduct 80, the cost of cultivation, and 50 remain. Multiply by 100,
the result is 5,000 scudi (about £1,070), which will be the net income
arising from the 100 rubbia cultivated in corn. The same extent of
land under pasturage will produce £160 or £180.
Consider, moreover, that it is not the net, but the gross income,
which constitutes the wealth of a country. The cultivation of 100
rubbia, before it puts 5,000 scudi into the farmer's pockets, has put
some 8,000 scudi in circulation. These eight thousand scudi are
distributed among a thousand or fifteen hundred poor creatures who are
sadly in want of them. Pasture-farming, on the contrary, is only
profitable to three persons, the landlord, the breeder, and the
herdsman. Add to this, that in substituting arable for pasture
farming, you substitute health for disease, a more important
consideration than any other.
But churchmen who hold or administer lands in mortmain, will never
consent to such a salutary resolution. It does not profit them
directly enough. As long as they have the upper hand, they will prefer
their own ease, and the certainty of their income, to the future
welfare of the people.
Pius VI., a Pope worthy to have statues erected to him, conceived the
heroic project of forcing a change upon them. He decided that 23,000
rubbia should be annually cultivated in the Agro Romano, and that all
the land should in turn be subjected to manual labour. Pius VII. did
still better. He decided that Rome, the _origo mali_, should be the
first to apply the remedy. He had a circuit of a mile traced round the
capital, and ordered the proprietors to cultivate it without further
question. A second, and then a third, were to succeed to the first.
The result would have been the disappearance, in a few years, of
malaria, and the gradual population of the solitudes. The purification
of the atmosphere would, too, be further promoted by planting trees
round the fields. Excellent measures these, although tinged by
despotism. Enlightened despotism repairs the errors of clumsy
despotism. But what could the will of two men avail against the
passive resistance of a caste? The laws of Pius VI. and Pius VII. were
never enforced. Cultivation, which had extended over 16,000 rubbia
under the reign of Pius VI., is reduced to an annual average of 5,000
or 6,000 under the paternal inspection of Pius IX. Not only is the
planting of young trees abandoned, but the sheep are allowed to nibble
down the tender shoots of the old ones. Besides this, speculators are
tolerated, who burn down whole forests, for the production of potash.
The estates of the Roman princes are somewhat better cultivated than
those of the Church: but they are involved in the same movement, or,
more strictly speaking, enchained in the same stagnation. The law,
which retains immense domains for ever in the hands of the same
family, and custom, which obliges the Roman nobles to spend so large a
portion of their incomes upon show, are equally obstacles to the
subdivision and to the improvement of the land.
And while the richest plains in Italy are thus lying dormant, a
vigorous, indefatigable, and heroic population cultivates with the
pickaxe the arid sides of mountains, and exhausts its strength in
attempting to extract vegetation from flints.
I have described the small mountain proprietors who form the
populations of the towns of 10,000 inhabitants towards the
Mediterranean. You have seen with what indomitable resolution they
combat the sterility of their meagre domains, without any hope of ever
becoming rich. These poor people, who spend their lives in getting
their living, would fancy themselves transported to Paradise, if
anybody were to give them a long lease of half-a-dozen acres in the
country about Rome. Their labour would then have a purpose, their
existence an aim, their family a future.
Perhaps you think they would refuse to labour in an unhealthy country.
Why, these are the very men who at present cultivate the Roman
Campagna to such extent as it is allowed to be cultivated. They it is
who, every spring, come down in large companies from their native
mountains, to break up the heavy clods with pickaxes, and complete the
work of the plough. It is they, too, who return to harvest the crop
under the fatal heat of the summer sun. They attack a field waving
with golden corn. They reap from dawn to dusk, with no food more
nourishing than bread and cheese. They sleep in the open field,
regardless of the nocturnal exhalations which float around them--and
some of them never rise again. Those who survive ten days of a harvest
more destructive than many a battle, return to their native village
with some four or five scudi in their pockets.
If these men could obtain a long lease, or merely take the land from
year to year, they would make more money, and the dangers to be
encountered would be no greater. They might be established between
Home and Montepoli, Rome and Civita Castellana, in the valley of
Ceprano, on the hills extending round the _Castelli_ of Rome, where
they would breathe an air as wholesome as that of their own mountains;
for fever does not always spare them even there. In course of time,
the colonizing system, advancing slowly and gradually, might realize
the dream of Pius VII., and would inevitably drive before it pauperism
and disease.
I dare not hope that such a miracle will ever be wrought by a Pope.
The resistance to be encountered is too great, and the power is too
inert. But if it should ever please Heaven, which has given them ten
centuries of clerical government, to accord them, by way of
compensation, ten blessed years of lay administration, we should
perhaps see the Church property placed in more active and abler hands.
Then, too, we should see the law of primogeniture and the system of
entails abolished, large estates divided, and their owners reduced, by
the force of circumstances, to the necessity of cultivating their
properties. Good laws on exportation, well enforced, would enable
spirited farmers to cultivate corn on a large scale. A network of
country roads, and main lines of railway, would convey agricultural
produce from one end of the country to the other. A national fleet
would carry it all over the world. Public works, institutions of
credit, police--But why plunge into such a sea of hopes?
Suffice it to say, that the subjects of the Pope will be as prosperous
and as happy as any people in Europe--as soon as they cease to be
governed by a Pope!