spring and early summer of 1797 four commissions, constituted by
Napoleon, worked out a constitution which likewise reproduced all of
the essential features of the French model, and, July 9, the
Transpadane Republic was inaugurated, with brilliant ceremony, at
Milan. Provision was made for a directory and for two legislative
councils consisting of one hundred sixty and eighty members
respectively; and the first directors, representatives, and other
officials were named by Napoleon. At the urgent solicitation of the
Cispadanes the two republics were united, July 15, and upon the
combined commonwealth was bestowed the name of the Cisalpine
Republic.[519] During the preceding May the venerable but helpless
Venetian republic had been crushed, and when, in the treaty of Campo
Formio, October 17, 1797, Austria was brought to the point of
recognizing the new Cisalpine state, she was compensated in some
degree by being awarded the larger part of the Venetian territories,
including the city of Venice.[520]
[Footnote 519: The Cisalpine constitution was
amended September 1, 1798, when there was
introduced in the republic the French system of
administrative divisions.]
[Footnote 520: E. Bonnal de Ganges, La chute d'une
république (Paris, 1885).]
*388. The Ligurian, Roman, and Parthenopæan Republics, 1797-1799.*--In
the meantime, in June, 1797, the ancient republic of Genoa had
undergone a remodelling. The ruling oligarchy, driven from power by
Napoleon, gave place to a democracy of a moderate type, the (p. 355)
legislative functions being intrusted to two popularly elected
chambers, while the executive power was vested in a doge and twelve
senators; and to the new commonwealth, French in all but name, was
given the designation of the Ligurian Republic. The Ligurian
constitution was accepted by the people December 2, 1797. During the
winter of 1797-1798 the French Directory, openly hostile to the
papacy, persistently encouraged the democratic party at Rome to
overthrow the temporal power and to set up an independent republic.
February 15, 1798, with the aid of French arms, the democrats secured
the upper hand, assembled in the Forum, declared for the restoration
of the Roman Republic, and elected as head of the state a body of
seven consuls. The aged pontiff, Pius VI., was maltreated and
eventually transported to France. For the new Tiberine, or Roman,
Republic was promulgated, March 20, 1798, a constitution providing for
the customary two councils--a Senate of thirty members and a Tribunate
of sixty--and a directory, christened a consulate, consisting of five
consuls elected by the councils. Within a twelvemonth thereafter
(January 23, 1799), following a clash of arms between the French and
the Neapolitan sovereign, Ferdinand IV., Naples was taken and the
southern kingdom was converted into the Parthenopæan Republic. A
constitution was there promulgated providing for a directory of five
members, a Senate of fifty, possessing exclusive right of legislative
initiative, and a Tribunate of one hundred twenty.[521]
[Footnote 521: For an interesting portrayal of the
workings of republican idealism in the Neapolitan
republic see Fisher, Republican Tradition in
Europe, 150-157.]
*389. Constitutional Revisions.*--During the absence of Napoleon on the
Egyptian expedition the armies of France suffered repeated reverses in
Italy, and by the end of 1799 all that had been gained for France
seemed to be, or about to be, lost. By the campaign which culminated
at Marengo (June 14, 1800), however, Napoleon not only clinched his
newly won position in France but brought Italy once more to his feet.
Under the terms of the treaty of Lunéville (February 9, 1801) Austria
recognized the reconstituted Cisalpine and Ligurian republics, while
Modena and Tuscany reverted to French control, and French ascendancy
elsewhere was securely established. September 21, 1802, Piedmont was
organized in six departments and incorporated in the French Republic.
During the winter of 1802-1803 the constitutions of the Cisalpine and
Ligurian republics were remodelled in the interest of that same
autocratic domination which already was fast ripening in France. In
each republic were established at first three bodies--an executive
_consulta_,[522] a legislature of 150 members, and a court--which
were chosen by three electoral colleges comprising (1) the (p. 356)
_possidenti_, or landed proprietors, (2) the _dotti_, or scholars and
ecclesiastics, and (3) the _commercianti_, or merchants and traders;
but the legislature could be overridden completely by the _consulta_,
and the _consulta_ was little more than the organ of Napoleon.
Incidentally, the Cisalpine Republic at this point was renamed the
Italian Republic. Within a twelvemonth the new constitutions, proving
too democratic, were revised in such a manner that for the legislative
body was substituted a senate of thirty members presided over by a
doge, in which were concentrated all political and administrative
powers.
[Footnote 522: An advisory council of state,
consisting of eight members.]
*390. The Kingdom of Italy (1805) and the Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples,
1807.*--The stipulation of the treaty of Lunéville to the effect that
the Italian republics should remain entirely independent of France was
all the while disregarded. Politically and commercially they were but
dependencies, and, following the proclamation of the French empire
(May 18, 1804), the fact was admitted openly. To Napoleon it seemed
incongruous that an emperor of the French should be a patron of
republics. How meager was the conqueror's concern for the political
liberty of the Italians had been demonstrated many times, never more
forcefully than in the cynical treatment which he accorded Venice. No
one knew better, furthermore, how ill-equipped were the Italians for
self-government. Gradually, therefore, there was framed a project for
the conversion of the Italian Republic into a kingdom which should be
tributary to France. Napoleon's desire was that his eldest brother,
Joseph, should occupy the throne of this kingdom. But Joseph, not
caring to jeopardize his chances of succession in France, demurred, as
did also the younger brother, Louis. The upshot was that by a
constitutional statute of March 17, 1805, the Emperor caused himself
to be called to the throne of Italy, and May 26 following, in the
cathedral at Milan, he placed upon his own head the iron crown of the
old Lombard kings. The sovereign's step-son, Eugène Beauharnais, was
designated regent. In June of the same year, in response to a petition
which Napoleon himself had instigated, the Ligurian Republic was
proclaimed an integral part of the French empire. The annexation of
Parma and Piacenza promptly followed.
Against the coalition of Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Naples,
which was prompted immediately by the Ligurian annexation, Napoleon
was completely successful. By the treaty of Pressburg (December 26,
1806) Austria ceded to the Italian kingdom her portion of Venetia,
together with the provinces of Istria and Dalmatia.[523] Following a
vigorous campaign conducted by Joseph Bonaparte, the restored Bourbon
family was driven again from Naples, whereupon Joseph allowed (p. 357)
himself to be established there as king. In 1808 he was succeeded by
Napoleon's ambitious marshal and brother-in-law Murat. From Bayonne,
Joseph issued a constitution for his former subjects, providing for a
council of state of from twenty-six to thirty-six members and a single
legislative chamber of one hundred members, of whom eighty were to be
named by the king and twenty were to be chosen by electoral colleges.
Not until 1815, however, and then but during the space of a few weeks,
was this instrument actually in operation.
[Footnote 523: The incorporation of Dalmatia with
the kingdom of Italy was but temporary.]
*391. The End of French Dominance.*--Finally, there were brought under
complete control the papal territories. Following prolonged friction
with the Pope, Napoleon first of all (April 2, 1808) annexed to the
kingdom of Italy the papal march of Ancona and the duchies of Urbino,
Macerata, and Camerina, and then (by decrees of May 17, 1809, and
February 17, 1810) added to the French empire Rome itself and the
_Patrimonium Petri_. The Roman territory was divided into two
departments, and in them, as in all of the Italian provinces which
fell under Napoleon's rule, a thoroughgoing French system of law and
administration was established. To all of the tributary districts
alike were extended the Code Napoléon, and in them were organized
councils, courts, and agencies of control essentially analogous to
those which comprised the Napoleonic governmental régime in France. In
them, likewise, were undertaken public works, measures for public
education, and social reforms similar to those which in France
constituted the most permanent and the most beneficent aspects of the
Napoleonic domination. For the first time since the age of Justinian
the entire peninsula was brought under what was in fact, if not in
name, a single political system.
If the rise of French power in Italy had been brilliant, however, the
collapse of that power was speedy and complete. It followed hard upon
Napoleon's Russian campaign and the defeat at Leipzig. The final
surrender, consequent upon Napoleon's first abdication was made April
16, 1814, by the viceroy Beauharnais, whereupon the Austrians resumed
possession in the north, the Bourbons in the south, and the whole
problem of permanent adjustment was given over to the congress of the
powers at Vienna.[524]
[Footnote 524: For brief accounts of the Napoleonic
régime in Italy see Cambridge Modern History, IX.,
Chap. 14; B. King, A History of Italian Unity
(London, 1899), I., Chap. 1. Works of value dealing
with the subject include P. Gaffarel, Bonaparte et
les républiques italiennes, 1796-1799 (Paris,
1895); A. Dufourcq, Le régime jacobin en Italie,
1796-1799 (Paris, 1900); F. Lemmi, Le origini del
risorgimento italiano (Milan, 1906); G. Sabini, I
primi esperimenti costituzionali in Italia,
1797-1815 (Turin, 1911); and R. M. Johnston, The
Napoleonic Empire in Southern Italy, 2 vols.
(London, 1904). An older work is E. Ramondini,
L'Italia durante la dominazione francese (Naples,
1882).]
II. THE RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 (p. 358)
*392. Italy in 1815.*--By the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, June
9, 1815, Italy was remanded to a status such that the name of the
peninsula could be characterized with aptness by Metternich as merely
a geographical expression. In essentials, though not in all respects,
there was a return to the situation of pre-Napoleonic times. When the
bargainings of the diplomats were concluded it was found that there
remained, in all, ten Italian states, as follows: the kingdom of
Sardinia, Lombardo-Venetia, Parma, Modena, Lucca, Tuscany, Monaco, San
Marino, the kingdom of Naples, and the States of the Church. To the
kingdom of Sardinia, reconstituted under Victor Emmanuel I., France
retroceded Nice and Savoy, and to it was added the former republic of
Genoa. Lombardo-Venetia, comprising the duchy of Milan and all of the
continental possessions of the former Venetian republic, including
Istria and Dalmatia, was given into the possession of Austria.[525]
Tuscany was restored to the grand-duke Ferdinand III. of
Hapsburg-Lorraine; the duchy of Modena, to Francis IV., son of the
archduke Ferdinand of Austria; Parma and Piacenza were assigned to
Maria Louisa, daughter of the Austrian emperor and wife of Napoleon;
the duchy of Lucca, to Maria Louisa of Bourbon-Parma. In the south,
Ferdinand IV. of Naples, restored to all of his former possessions,
was recognized under the new title of Ferdinand I. And, finally, Pope
Pius VII., long held semi-prisoner by Napoleon at Fontainebleau,
recovered the whole of the dominion which formerly had belonged to the
Holy See.
[Footnote 525: By decree of April 24, 1815, these
territories were erected into a kingdom under
Austrian control, though possessing a separate
administration.]
Respecting the entire arrangement two facts are obvious. The first is
that there was not, in the Italy of 1815, the semblance, even, of
national unity. The second is that the preponderance of Austria was
scarcely less thoroughgoing than in Napoleon's time had been that of
the French. Lombardo-Venetia Austria possessed outright; Tuscany,
Modena, and Parma were ruled by Austrian princes; Ferdinand of Naples
was an Austrian ally, and he had pledged himself not to introduce in
his possessions principles of government incompatible with those
employed by the Austrians in the north; while even Victor Emmanuel of
Sardinia--the only important native sovereign, aside from the Pope, in
the peninsula--was pledged to a perpetual Austrian alliance.[526]
[Footnote 526: W. R. Thayer, The Dawn of Italian
Independence, 2 vols. (Boston, 1893), I.,
116-178.]
*393. Foreshadowings of Unity.*--"Italy," wrote Napoleon some (p. 359)
time after his banishment to St. Helena, "isolated between her natural
limits, is destined to form a great and powerful nation. Italy _is_
one nation; unity of language, customs, and literature, must, within a
period more or less distant, unite her inhabitants under one sole
government. And, without the slightest doubt, Rome will be chosen by
the Italians as their capital."[527] At the time when this prophecy
was written the unification of Italy appeared, upon the surface, the
most improbable of events. It was, none the less, impending, and to it
Napoleon must be adjudged to have contributed in no unimportant
measure. In the words of a recent writer, "the brutalities of
Austria's white coats in the north, the unintelligent repression then
characteristic of the house of Savoy, the petty spite of the duke of
Modena, the mediæval obscurantism of pope and cardinals in the middle
of the peninsula, and the clownish excesses of Ferdinand in the south,
could not blot out from the minds of the Italians the recollection of
the benefits derived from the just laws, vigorous administration, and
enlightened aims of the great emperor. The hard but salutary training
which they had undergone at his hands had taught them that they were
the equals of the northern races both in the council chamber and on
the field of battle. It had further revealed to them that truth, which
once grasped can never be forgotten, that, despite differences of
climate, character, and speech, they were in all essentials a
nation."[528] It is not too much to say that Napoleon sowed the seed
of Italian unity.
[Footnote 527: M. Cesaresco, The Liberation of
Italy (London, 1895), 3.]
[Footnote 528: J. Holland Rose, in Encyclopædia
Britannica, 11th ed., XV., 48. See also Fisher, The
Republican Tradition in Europe, 158-159.]
*394. Attempted Revolution, 1820-1832.*--From 1815 to 1848 Austrian
influence, shaped largely by Metternich, was everywhere reactionary,
and during this prolonged period there was no government anywhere in
Italy that was not of the absolutist type. No one of the states had a
constitution, a parliament, or any vestige of popular political
procedure. In July, 1820, Ferdinand of Naples was compelled by a
revolutionary uprising to promulgate a constitution which was
identical with that forced in the same year upon Ferdinand VII. of
Spain. This ready-made instrument provided for a popularly elected
parliament of one chamber, upon which were conferred large powers; a
council of state composed of twenty-four members to advise the king;
an independent judiciary; and a parliamentary deputation of seven
members elected by the parliament, whose duty it was, in the event of
the dissolution of parliament, to safeguard the observance of the
constitution. In March, 1821, revolution broke out in Piedmont and,
after the mild-tempered king, Victor Emmanuel, had abdicated in (p. 360)
favor of his brother, Charles Albert, a temporary regent, the Prince
of Carignano, under pressure, conceded to the people a replica of the
Spanish fundamental law. In both Naples and Piedmont, however, the
failure of the progressives was complete. The reformers proved to be
lacking in unity of purpose, and when, under authorization of the
greater continental powers, Austria intervened, every gleam of
constitutionalism was promptly snuffed out. Similarly, in 1831-1832,
there was in Modena, Parma, and the Papal States, widespread
insurrection, and with rather more evidence of a growing national
spirit; but again, with Austrian assistance, the outbreaks were
suppressed.[529]
[Footnote 529: Cambridge Modern History, X., Chap.
4; Johnston, Napoleonic Empire in Southern Italy,
II., Chap. 4; Thayer, Dawn of Italian Independence,
I., 215-278.]
*395. The Revolution of 1848 and the New Constitutions.*--The turning
point came with the great year of revolution, 1848. During the
thirties and forties, by public agitation, by the organization of
Mazzini's "Young Italy," by the circulation of patriotic literature,
and in a variety of other ways, the ground was prepared systematically
for the _risorgimento_ upon which the patriots and the prophets had
set their hearts. In 1846 a liberal-minded pope, Pius IX., instituted
a series of reforms, and the example was followed forthwith by the
princes of Piedmont (Sardinia) and Tuscany. In January, 1848,
revolution broke out afresh in Naples and within a month Ferdinand II.
was obliged to yield to public demand for a constitution. The
instrument, promulgated February 10, provided for a legislative body
consisting of a chamber of peers, appointed by the king for life, and
a chamber of deputies, elected by the people. February 15 the
sovereign of Tuscany, Leopold II., granted to his subjects a
constitution of a similar character, making provision for a complete
representative system.
February 5 the municipality of Turin, voicing a demand in which many
of the nobility and high officials of state concurred, petitioned
Charles Albert of Piedmont for the grant of a constitution. Three days
subsequently, at the conclusion of a series of secret sessions of his
council, the sovereign announced that "of his free and entire will" he
believed the time to have come for an extension to his subjects of a
full-fledged representative system of government, and March 4 there
was promulgated a remarkable instrument--the _Statuto fondamentale del
Regno_, modelled on the amended French Charter of 1830--which, with
absolutely no modification of text, survives to the present day as the
constitution of the Italian kingdom.[530] March 14 there was (p. 361)
issued by the Pope an instrument known as the _Statuto fondamentale
del Governo temporale_, by which were constituted two legislative
bodies--a high council and a chamber of deputies--and a council of
state, composed of ten members and twenty-four advisors, to which was
committed the task of preparing measures. Bills passed by the
parliament were to be submitted to the Supreme Pontiff, who, after
their discussion in consistory, should extend to them, or withhold
from them, final approval. Before the year was far advanced the news
of the overthrow of Louis Philippe, of the uprising in Germany, and of
the fall of Metternich plunged the whole of Italy afresh in
insurrection. Under the pressure of popular demand the Pope and the
King of Naples sent troops to aid the northern states in the
liberation of the peninsula from Austrian despotism, and for a time,
under the leadership of the Piedmontese monarch, Charles Albert, all
Italy seemed united in a broadly nationalistic movement. July 10 a new
and extremely liberal constitution was adopted by a constituent
assembly in Naples, and, February 9, 1849, following a breach between
the Pope and the Roman parliament, the temporal power of the papacy
was once more swept away and Rome, under an appropriate constitution,
was proclaimed a republic.[531]
[Footnote 530: The nature of the governmental
system provided in this instrument will be
explained at length in the succeeding chapter.]
[Footnote 531: G. Garavani, La costituzione della
repubblica romana nel 1798 e nel 1849 (Fermo,
1910).]
*396. The Reaction.*--The reaction, however, was swift and seemingly all
but complete. At the earliest possible moment the king of Naples
withdrew from the war, revoked the constitution which he had granted,
and put the forces of liberalism to rout. With the assistance of
France, Austria, and Naples, the Pope extinguished the Roman republic
and re-established in all of its vigor the temporal power. By Austrian
arms one after another of the insurrectionary states in the north and
center was crushed, and Austrian influence in that quarter rose to its
former degree of ascendancy. Constitutionalism gave place to
absolutism, and the liberals, disheartened and disunited, were
everywhere driven to cover. Only in Piedmont, whose sovereign, after
the bitter defeat at Novara, had abdicated in favor of his son, Victor
Emmanuel II. (March 23, 1849), was there left any semblance of
political independence or civil liberty.[532]
[Footnote 532: Elaborate accounts of the revolution
of 1848 in Italy are contained in King, History of
Italian Unity, I., Chaps. 9-19, and Thayer, Dawn of
Italian Independence, II., Bks. 4-5. A good brief
account is Cambridge Modern History, XI., Chap. 4
(bibliography, pp. 908-913). A suggestive sketch is
Fisher, Republican Tradition in Europe, Chap. 9.]
III. THE ACHIEVEMENT OF UNIFICATION (p. 362)
*397. The Leadership of Piedmont.*--To all inducements to abrogate the
constitution which his father had granted Victor Emmanuel continued
deaf, and the logic of the situation began to point unmistakably to
Piedmont as the hope of the patriotic cause. After 1848 the building
of the Italian nation becomes, indeed, essentially the story of
Piedmontese organization, leadership, conquest, and expansion. Victor
Emmanuel, honest and liberal-minded, was not a statesman of the first
rank, but he had the wisdom to discern and to rely upon the
statesmanship of one of the most remarkable of ministers in the
history of modern Europe, Count Cavour. When, in 1850, Cavour entered
the Piedmontese ministry he was known already as an ardent advocate of
both constitutionalism and national unification, and after, in 1852,
he assumed the post of premier he was allowed virtually a free hand in
the prosecution of policies designed to contribute to a realization of
these ends. The original purpose of the king and of his minister was
to bring about the exclusion of Austrian influence from Italy and to
organize the various states of the peninsula into a confederacy under
the nominal leadership of the Pope, but under the real supremacy of
the sovereign of Piedmont. Ultimately the plan was so modified as to
contemplate nothing short of a unification of the entire country under
the control of a centralized, national, temporal government.
*398. The Annexations of 1859-1860.*--In 1855 Cavour signed an offensive
and defensive alliance with France, and in 1859 Piedmont, with the
connivance of her ally, precipitated war with Austria. According to an
understanding arrived at by Cavour and the Emperor Napoleon III. at
Plombières (June 20, 1858) Austria was to be expelled absolutely from
Italian soil; Lombardo-Venetia, the smaller duchies of the north, the
papal Legations, and perhaps the Marches, were to be annexed to
Piedmont, the whole to comprise a kingdom of Upper Italy; Umbria and
Tuscany were to be erected into a kingdom of Central Italy; the Pope
was to retain Rome and Ferdinand Naples; and the four states thus
constituted were to be formed into an Italian confederation. In the
contest which ensued the Austrians were roundly defeated, but their
only immediate loss was the ancient duchy of Lombardy. Despite
Napoleon's boast that he would free Italy to the Adriatic, Venetia was
retained yet seven years by the Hapsburgs. Under the terms of the
treaty of Zürich (November 10), in which were ratified the preliminaries
of Villafranca (July 11), Lombardy was annexed to Piedmont. Years (p. 363)
before (June 8, 1848) a Lombard plebiscite upon the question of such
annexation had brought out an affirmative vote of 561,002 to 681.[533]
[Footnote 533: King, History of Italian Unity, II.,
Chap. 27.]
The gain arising from the annexation of Lombardy was in a measure
counterbalanced by the cession of Savoy and Nice to France, in
conformity with an agreement entered into before the war. In point of
fact, none the less, the benefits which accrued to Piedmont from the
Austrian war were enormous. Aroused by the vigor and promise of
Piedmontese leadership, a large portion of central Italy broke into
revolt and declared for union with Victor Emmanuel's dominion. In
September, 1859, four assemblies, representing the grand-duchy of
Tuscany, the duchies of Modena and Parma, and the Romagna (the
northern portion of the Papal States), met at Florence, Modena, Parma,
and Bologna, respectively, and voted unanimously for incorporation
with Piedmont. During March, 1860, the alternatives of annexation and
independence were submitted to the choice of the inhabitants of each
of these districts, all males of age being privileged to vote, with
the result of an aggregate of 792,577 affirmative votes in a total of
807,502. Under authority conferred by the Piedmontese parliament the
king accepted the territories, the formal proclamation of the
incorporation of Parma, Modena, and the Romagna being dated March 18,
and that of the incorporation of Tuscany, March 22. Deputies were
elected forthwith to represent the annexed provinces, and April 2,
1860, the enlarged parliament was convened at Turin. Within the space
of a year the population of the kingdom had been more than doubled. It
was now 11,000,000, or approximately half of that of the peninsula.
*399. Further Annexations: the Kingdom of Italy, 1861.*--Meanwhile the
programme of Cavour and the king had been broadened to comprise a
thoroughgoing unification of the entire country. With amazing rapidity
the task was carried toward completion. Aided by Garibaldi and his
famous Thousand, the people of Sicily and Naples expelled their
Bourbon sovereign, and, at the plebiscite of October 21, 1860, they
declared, by a vote of 1,734,117 to 10,979, for annexation to
Piedmont. At the same time Umbria and the Marches were occupied by the
Piedmontese forces, leaving to the Pope nothing save the Eternal City
and a bit of territory immediately surrounding it. By votes of 97,040
to 380 and 133,077 to 1,212, respectively, these districts declared
for annexation, and, December 17, 1860, a royal decree announced their
final incorporation, together with that of Naples. January 27, 1861,
general elections were held, and, February 18, there was convened (p. 364)
at Turin a new and enlarged parliament by which, March 18, was
proclaimed the united Kingdom of Italy. Over the whole of the new
territories was extended the memorable _Statuto_ granted to Piedmont
by Charles Albert thirteen years before, and Victor Emmanuel II. was
acknowledged "by the grace of God and the will of the nation, King of
Italy."[534]
[Footnote 534: King, History of Italian Unity, II.,
Chaps. 29-32.]
*400. The Completion of Unification, 1866-1871.*--It remained but to
consolidate the kingdom and to accomplish the annexation of the two
Italian districts, Venetia and Rome, which were yet in foreign hands.
Venetia was acquired in direct consequence of Italy's alliance with
Prussia against Austria in 1866. A plebiscite of October 21-22, 1866,
following the enforced cession of Venetia by Austria, October 3,
yielded a vote of 647,246 to 47 for annexation. The union was
sanctioned by a decree of November 4, 1866, and ratified by a law of
July 18, 1867. The acquisition of Rome was made possible four years
later by the exigencies of the Franco-German war. The conviction had
been ripening that eventually Rome must be made the kingdom's capital,
and when, in 1870, there was withdrawn from the protection of the
papacy the garrison which France had maintained in Italy since 1849,
the opportunity was seized to follow up fruitless diplomacy with
military demonstrations. September 20 the troops of General Cadorna
forced an entrance of the city and the Pope was compelled to
capitulate. October 2 the people declared, by a vote of 133,681 to
1,507, for annexation; October 9 the annexation was proclaimed; and
December 31 it was ratified by act of parliament. The guarantees of
independence to be accorded the papacy were left to be determined in a
subsequent statute.[535] By an act of February 3, 1871, the capital of
the kingdom--already, in 1865, transferred from Turin to Florence--was
removed to Rome; and in the Eternal City, November 27 following, was
convened the eleventh parliament since the revolution of 1848, the
fourth since the proclamation of the kingdom of Italy, the first since
the completion of Italian unity.[536]
[Footnote 535: The resulting measure, the Law of
Papal Guarantees, was enacted May 13, 1871. See p.
388.]
[Footnote 536: For a brief account of the final
stages in the unification of Italy see Cambridge
Modern History, XI., Chaps. 14, 19. The best
presentation of the entire subject is that in the
two volumes of King, History of Italian Unity,
1814-1871. Other works of value are W. J. Stillman,
The Union of Italy, 1815-1895 (Cambridge, 1898); J.
Probyn, Italy, 1815-1890 (London, 1884); M.
Cesaresco, The Liberation of Italy (New York,
1894); P. Orsi, L'Italia moderna (Milan, 1901); F.
Bertolini, Storia d'Italia dal 1814 al 1878 (Milan,
1880-1881); and E. Sorin, Histoire de l'Italie
depuis 1815 jusqu'à la mort de V. Emm. (Paris,
1910). Among biographies mention may be made of G.
Godkin, Life of Victor Emmanuel II. (2d ed.,
London, 1880); M. Cesaresco, Cavour (London, 1898);
D. Zanichelli, Cavour (Florence, 1905); B. King,
Mazzini (London, 1902). A very valuable biography,
which indeed comprises virtually a history of the
period 1848-1861, is W. R. Thayer, Count Cavour, 2
vols. (Boston, 1911). The monumental Italian work
in the field is C. Tivaroni, Storia critica del
risorgimento italiano, 9 vols. (Turin, 1888-1897).
The principal documentary collection is N. Bianchi,
Storia documentata della diplomazia Europea in
Italia dall' anno 1814 all' anno 1861, 8 vols.
(Turin, 1865-1872). Invaluable are L. Chiala,
Lettere del Conte di Cavour, 7 vols. (Turin,
1883-1887), and D. Zanichelli, Scritti del Conte di
Cavour (Bologna, 1892). For full bibliography see
Cambridge Modern History, XI., 908-913.]
IV. THE CONSTITUTION (p. 365)
*401. The Statuto.*--The formal constitution of the kingdom of Italy
to-day is the _Statuto fondamentale del Regno_ granted March 4, 1848,
by Charles Albert to his Piedmontese subjects. To each of the
territories successively annexed to the Piedmontese kingdom this
instrument was promptly extended, on the basis of popular
ratifications, or plebiscites; and when, in 1861, the kingdom of
Piedmont was converted into the kingdom of Italy, the fundamental law,
modified in only minor respects, was continued in operation. The
_Statuto_ was granted originally as a royal charter, and its author
seems to have expected it to be final, at least until it should have
been replaced as a whole by some other instrument. At the same time,
there is little reason to doubt that from the outset there was
contemplated the possibility of amendment through the agencies of
ordinary legislation. In any case, there was put into the instrument
no stipulation whatsoever relating to its revision, and none has ever
been added. Upon a number of occasions since 1861 possible
modifications of the constitutional text have been suggested, and even
debated, but no one of them has been adopted. But this does not mean
that the constitutional system of Italy has stood all the while
unchanged. On the contrary, that system has exhibited remarkable
vitality, growth, and adaptive capacity. In Italy, as in other states
the constitution as it exists in writing is supplemented in numerous
important ways by unwritten custom, and Italian jurists are now
substantially agreed that custom is legitimately to be considered a
source of public law.
*402. Legislative Amendment.*--A more important matter, however, is the
extension and the readaptation of the constitution through
parliamentary enactment. In the earlier days of the kingdom there was
a disposition to observe rather carefully in practice the distinction
between functions and powers of a legislative, and those of a
constitutional, character. Gradually, however, the conviction grew
that the constitutional system of the nation might be modified (p. 366)
through the processes of ordinary legislation, and in Italy to-day the
theory of parliamentary omnipotence is scarcely less firmly entrenched
than it is in Great Britain. The parliamentary chambers have never
directly avowed a purpose to amend a single article of the _Statuto_,
but numerous measures which they have enacted have, with clear intent,
taken from the instrument at some points, have added to it at others,
and have changed both its spirit and its application. Care has been
exercised that such enactments shall be in harmony with the public
will, and in practice they are rarely brought to a final vote until
the country shall have been given an opportunity to pass upon them at
a general election. What has come to be the commonly accepted doctrine
was stated forcefully, in the session of July 23, 1881, by Crispi, as
follows: "I do not admit the intangibility of the _Statuto_. Statutes
are made to prevent governments from retrograding, not from advancing.
Before us there can be nothing but progress.... If we retain immutable
the fundamental law of the state, we desire immobility, and should
throw aside all advances which have thus far been made by the
constituted authorities. I understand that in the _Statuto_ of Charles
Albert nothing is said of revision, and this was prudent. But how
should this silence be interpreted? It should be interpreted in the
sense that it is not necessary to the Italian Constitution that a
constituent assembly should be expressly convoked, but that Parliament
in its usual manner of operation is always constituent and
constituted. Whenever public opinion has matured a reform, it is the
duty of Parliament to accept it, even though the reform may bring with
it the modification of an article of the _Statuto_."[537] It is in
accord with the principles here enunciated that--to mention but a few
illustrations--the law of December 6, 1865, regulating the
organization of the judiciary, the Law of Papal Guarantees of 1871,
and the measures of 1882 and 1895 overhauling and extending the
franchise, were placed upon the statute books.
[Footnote 537: Quoted by G. A. Ruiz, The Amendments
to the Italian Constitution, in _Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science_,
Sept., 1895, 38.]
*403. Nature of the Constitution.*--The _Statuto_, in eighty-four
articles, is an instrument of considerable length. It deals,
successively, with the Crown, the rights and duties of citizens, the
Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, the Ministers, the Judiciary, and
matters of a miscellaneous character. The bill of rights contained in
Articles 24-32 guarantees to all inhabitants of the kingdom equality
before the law, liberty of person, inviolability of domicile and of
property, freedom of the press, exemption from non-parliamentary
taxation and, with qualifications, freedom of assembly. It is (p. 367)
constantly to be borne in mind, however, that, so overlaid is the
_Statuto_ with statutory enactments and with custom, that one cannot
apprehend adequately the working constitution of the kingdom to-day,
in respect to either general principles or specific governmental
organs, through an examination of this document alone. In the language
of an Italian publicist, the Italian constitution no longer consists
of the Statute of Charles Albert. This forms simply the beginning of a
new order of things. Many institutions have been transformed by laws,
decrees, usages, and neglect, whence the Italian constitution has
become cumulative, consisting of an organism of law grouped about a
primary kernel which is the _Statuto_.[538]
[Footnote 538: Ruiz, Amendments to the Italian
Constitution, _loc. cit._, 57. The text of the
_Statuto_ appears in P. Coglio e Malchiodi, Codice
Politico Amministrativo. Raccolta completa di tutte
le leggi e regolamenti concernenti la pubblica
amministrazione nei suoi rapporti politici e
amministrativi (6th ed., Florence, 1907), and in V.
Gioia, Le leggi di unificazione amministrativa
precedute dalla legge fondamentale del regno, 2
vols. (Palermo, 1879). It is printed also in
Lowell, Governments and Parties, II., 346-354.
There is a French version in F. R. Dareste, Les
constitutions modernes, 2 vols. (Paris, 1883) I.,
550-560. There is an English translation in Dodd,
Modern Constitutions, II., 5-16, and another, by S.
M. Lindsay and L. S. Rowe, in _Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science_,
Nov., 1894. The Codice Politico Amministrativo
contains a good collection of statutes, ordinances,
and administrative regulations. The most
comprehensive work on Italian constitutional law
which has been written is F. Racioppi and I.
Brunelli, Commento allo statuto del regno, 3 vols.
(Turin, 1909). Among other treatises the following
are of principal value: G. Arangio Ruiz, Storia
costituzionale del regno di Italia, 1848-1898
(Florence, 1898); E. Brusa, Das Staatsrecht des
Königreichs Italien (Leipzig, 1892), in
Marquardsen's Handbuch; E. del Guerra,
L'Amministrazione pubblica in Italia (Florence,
1893); and, for briefer treatment, G. Mosca,
Appunti di diritto costituzionale (Milan, 1908) and
I. Tambaro, II diritto costituzionale italiano
(Milan, 1909).]
CHAPTER XX (p. 368)
THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM
I. THE CROWN AND THE MINISTRY
*404. Status of the Sovereign.*--The constitutional system of Italy
comprises, according to the phraseology of the _Statuto_, a
"representative monarchical government." The throne is hereditary,
after the principle of the Salic Law; that is, it may be inherited
only by and through males. Elaborate provision is made for the
exercise of regal authority in the event of the minority or the
incapacity of the sovereign. During a minority (which terminates with
the close of the king's eighteenth year) the prince who stands next in
the order of succession, provided he be twenty-one years of age, is
authorized to act as regent. In the lack of male relatives the regency
devolves upon the queen-mother, and in default of a queen-mother the
regent is elected by the legislative chamber.[539] Upon ascending the
throne, the king is required to take an oath in the presence of the
legislative chambers faithfully to maintain and observe the
constitution of the realm. The monarch is declared to be sacred and
inviolable in his person, and there is settled upon him a civil list
of 16,050,000 lire, of which amount at present, however, the sum of
one million lire is repaid annually to the state. Since 1870 the royal
residence has been the Palazzo del Quirinale, a palace which for
generations, by reason of its elevated and healthful situation, was
much frequented by the popes.
[Footnote 539: Arts. 11-17. Dodd, Modern
Constitutions, II., 6.]
*405. Powers and Functions of the Crown.*--On paper, the powers of the
crown appear enormous; in reality they are much less considerable, as
is inevitably the fact wherever monarchy is tempered by
parliamentarism. In the king alone is vested, by the _Statuto_, the
executive power, and to him alone this power, in theory, still
belongs. The exercise of it, however, devolves almost wholly upon a
group of ministers, who are responsible, not to the crown, but to the
parliament. In no continental country has there been a more deliberate
or a more unreserved acceptance of the essential principles which
underlie the parliamentary system of Great Britain. No one of the (p. 369)
three sovereigns of united Italy has ever sought for an instant to
establish anything in the nature of personal government. The principle
that the ministry shall constitute the working executive, and that it
shall be continually responsible to the lower chamber of Parliament,
has been so long observed in practice that it is now regarded as an
inflexible law of the constitution. Under these limitations, however,
the king approves and promulgates the laws, grants pardons and
commutes sentences, declares war, commands all military and naval
forces, concludes treaties, issues ordinances, creates senators, and
makes appointments to all offices of state.[540] By the _Statuto_ it
is provided that treaties involving financial obligations or
alterations of the territory of the state shall be effective only
after receiving the sanction of the legislative chambers. In practice,
treaties of all kinds are submitted regularly for such approval, save
only such as comprise military conventions or foreign alliances. The
power of the veto exists, but it is in practice never used. Rarely
does the king attend the sessions of the cabinet, in which the
policies of the government are discussed and its measures formulated
and, save through the designation of the premier, in the event of a
cabinet crisis, and within the domain of foreign relations, the royal
power may be said to be brought to bear in direct manner upon the
affairs of state only incidentally. As head of the nation, however,
and visible token of its hard-won unification, the monarch fulfills a
distinctly useful function. The reigning family, and especially the
present sovereign, Victor Emmanuel III., is extremely popular
throughout the country; so that, although in Italy, as elsewhere among
European monarchies, there is an avowed republican element, there is
every indication that royalty will prove an enduring institution.
[Footnote 540: Arts. 5-8. Dodd, Modern
Constitutions, II., 5. Dupriez, Les Ministres, I.,
292-297.]
*406. The Ministry: Composition.*--From what has been said it follows
that the ministry in Italy, as in Great Britain and France,
constitutes the actual executive. Nominally it consists of heads of
departments, although occasionally a member is designated without
portfolio. Of departments there are at present eleven, as follows:
Foreign affairs; War; Marine; the Interior; Finance; the
Treasury;[541] Public Instruction; Public Works; Justice and
Ecclesiastical Affairs; Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture; and Posts
and Telegraphs. Ordinarily the premier, or "president of the council,"
occupies the portfolio of the Interior. He is named by the king, and
inasmuch as, by reason of the multiplicity of Italian political (p. 370)
parties, there is often no clearly distinguished "leader of the
opposition," such as all but invariably stands ready to assume office
in Great Britain, in the making of the appointment there is room for
the exercise of considerable discretion. All remaining members of the
ministry are designated by the crown, on nomination of the premier. In
accordance with the provisions of a law of February 12, 1888, each
minister is assisted by an under-secretary of state.
[Footnote 541: Separated from Finance in 1889.]
All ministers and under-secretaries possess the right to appear on the
floor of either of the legislative chambers, and to be heard upon
request; but no one of them is entitled to vote in either body unless
he is a member thereof.[542] To be eligible for appointment to a
portfolio or to an under-secretaryship it is not necessary that a man
be a member of either chamber; but if an appointee is not in
possession of such membership it is customary for him to seek the next
seat that falls vacant in the Deputies, unless in the meantime he
shall have been created a senator. In point of fact, the ministers are
selected regularly from among the members of Parliament, and
predominantly from the Chamber of Deputies. Only rarely has the
premiership devolved upon a senator. Ministers of war and of marine,
being chosen largely by reason of technical qualifications, are
frequently members of the Senate by special appointment.
[Footnote 542: Art. 66. Dodd, Modern Constitutions,
II., 13.]
*407. The Ministry: Organization and Functions.*--The internal
organization of the ministry--the interrelations of the several
departments and the relations sustained by each minister with the
premier--are regulated largely by a decree of March 28, 1867,
promulgated afresh, with minor modifications, August 25, 1876. Among
matters which are required to be brought before the ministerial
council are all projects of law which are to be submitted to the
chambers, all treaties, all conflicts of administrative jurisdiction,
all proposals relating to the status of the Church, petitions from the
chambers, and nominations of senators, diplomatic representatives, and
a wide range of administrative and judicial functionaries. By law
there is enumerated further an extended list of matters which must be
brought to the ministry's attention, though action thereupon is not
made compulsory; and the range of subjects which, upon the initiative
of the premier or that of other ministers, may be submitted for
consideration is left purposely without limit. It is the business of
the premier to convoke the ministers in council, to preside over their
deliberations, to maintain, in respect to both administrative methods
and political policy, as large a measure of ministerial uniformity and
solidarity as may be; and to require from time to time from his (p. 371)
colleagues full and explicit reports upon the affairs of each of
the several departments. By reason, however, of the multiplicity of
party groups in the chambers, the necessarily composite character
politically of every cabinet, and the generally unstable political
condition of the country, ministries rarely possess much real unity,
and in the administration of the public business they are likely to be
handicapped by internal friction. "The Italian ministry," says an able
French writer, "is manifestly unable to fulfill effectively the
three-fold purpose of a parliamentary cabinet. It exercises the
executive power in the name, and under the authority, of the king; but
it does not always know how to restrain Parliament within the bounds
of its proper control, and it is obliged to tolerate the interference
of deputies in the administration. Through the employment of the
initiative, and of influence upon the acts of Parliament, it is the
power which impels legislation; but not infrequently it is lacking in
the authority essential to push through the reforms which it has
undertaken, and the Chamber evades easily its control. It seeks to
maintain harmony between the two powers (executive and legislative);
but the repeated defeats which it suffers demonstrate to what a degree
its work is impeded by the disorganization of parties."[543] For all
of their acts the ministers are responsible directly to Parliament,
which means, in effect, to the Chamber of Deputies; and no law or
governmental measure may be put in operation until it has received the
signature of one or more of the ministerial group, by whom
responsibility for it is thereby explicitly assumed.
[Footnote 543: Dupriez, Les Ministres, I., 291.]
*408. The Promulgation of Ordinances.*--The administrative system of
Italy is modelled, in the main, upon that of France. In the effort to
achieve national homogeneity the founders of the kingdom indulged to
excess their propensity for centralization, with the consequence that
Italy has exhibited regularly an admixture of bureaucracy and
liberalism even more confounding than that which prevails in the
French Republic. In theory the administrative system is broadly
democratic and tolerant; in practice it not infrequently lends itself
to the employment of the most arbitrary devices. Abuse arises most
commonly from the powers vested in the administrative officials to
supplement legislation through the promulgation and enforcement of
ordinances. By the constitution it is stipulated that the Executive
shall "make decrees and regulations necessary for the execution of the
laws, without suspending their execution, or granting exemptions from
them."[544] This power, however, in practice, is stretched even
further than is the similar power of the Executive in France, and with
the result not infrequently of the creation of temporary law, or (p. 372)
even the virtual negation of parliamentary enactment. Parliament is
seldom disposed to stand very rigidly upon its rights; indeed, it
sometimes delegates expressly to the ministry the exercise of sweeping
legislative authority. The final text of the great electoral law of
1882, for example, was never considered in the chambers at all. After
debating the subject to their satisfaction, the two houses simply
committed to the Government the task of drawing up a permanent draft
of the measure and of promulgating it by executive decree. The same
procedure has been followed in other fundamental matters. And not
merely the ministers at Rome, but also the local administrative
agents, exercise with freedom the ordinance-making prerogative. "The
preference, indeed," as is observed by Lowell, "for administrative
regulations, which the government can change at any time, over rigid
statutes is deeply implanted in the Latin races, and seems to be
especially marked in Italy."[545]
[Footnote 544: Art. 6. Dodd, Modern Constitutions,
II., 5.]
[Footnote 545: Lowell, Governments and Parties, I.,
166. On the Italian executive see Dupriez, Les
Ministres, I., 281-329. An essay of value is M.
Caudel, Parlementarisme italien, in _Annales des
Sciences Politiques_, Sept., 1900.]
II. PARLIAMENT: THE SENATE
*409. Composition.*--Legislative power in Italy is vested conjointly in
the king and Parliament, the latter consisting of two houses--an
upper, the _Senato_, and a lower, _the Camera de' Deputati_. The
Senate is composed entirely of members appointed for life by the
crown. The body is no true sense a house of peers. Its seats are not
hereditary and its members represent not alone the great proprietors
of the country but a wide variety of public functionaries and men of
achievement. In the making of appointments the sovereign is restricted
by the necessity of taking all appointees from twenty-one stipulated
classes of citizens, and it is required that senators shall be of a
minimum age of forty years. The categories from which appointments are
made--including high ecclesiastics, ministers of state, ambassadors,
deputies of prolonged service, legal and administrative officials, men
who during as much as seven years have been members of the Royal
Academy of Sciences or of the Superior Council of Public
Instruction--may be reduced, broadly, to three: (1) high officials of
church and state; (2) persons of fame in science or literature, or who
by any kind of services or merit have brought distinction to the
country; and (3) persons who for at least three years have paid direct
property or business taxes to the amount of 3000 lire ($600). The
total number of members when the _Statuto_ was put in effect in 1848
was 78; the number in 1910 was 383. The last-mentioned number comprised
the president of the Chamber of Deputies, 147 ex-deputies of six (p. 373)
years' service (or men who had been elected to as many as three
parliaments), one minister of state, six secretaries of state, five
ambassadors, two envoys extraordinary, 23 officials of the courts of
cassation and of other tribunals, 33 military and naval officials,
eight councillors of state, 21 provincial functionaries, 41 members of
the Royal Academy of Sciences, three members of the Superior Council
of Public Instruction, two persons of distinguished services to the
country, 71 payers of direct taxes in the amount of 3,000 lire, and 19
other scattered representatives of several categories. The absence of
ecclesiastical dignitaries is to be accounted for by the rupture with
the Vatican. The last members of this class to be named were appointed
in 1866.
*410. Legislative Weakness.*--The prerogative of senatorial appointment
has been exercised upon several occasions for the specific purpose of
influencing the political complexion of the upper chamber. In 1886
forty-one appointments were made at one stroke; in 1890, seventy-five;
and in 1892, forty-two. The Senate guards jealously its right to
determine whether an appointee is properly to be considered as
belonging to any one of the twenty-one stipulated categories, and if
it decides that he is not thus eligible, he is refused a seat. But as
long as the sovereign keeps clearly within the enumerated classes, no
practical limitation can be placed upon his power of appointment.[546]
In practice, appointment by the king has meant regularly appointment
by the ministry commanding a majority in the lower chamber; and so
easy and so effective has proved the process of "swamping" that the
legislative independence of the Senate has been reduced almost to a
nullity. In general it may be said that the body exercises the
function of a revising, but no longer of an initiating or a checking,
chamber. During the period 1861-1910 the government presented in the
Chamber of Deputies a total of 7,569 legislative proposals, in the
Senate but 598; and the number of projects of law originated within
the Senate during this same period was but thirty-nine. In volume and
range of legislative activity the nominated senate of Italy is
distinctly inferior to the elected senate of France.[547]
[Footnote 546: Of 1,528 appointments made between
1848 and 1910 but 63 were refused confirmation by
the Senate.]
[Footnote 547: It is interesting to observe that,
in the interest of governmental stability and
permanence, Cavour favored the adoption of the
elective principle in Italy. For illustrations of
the weakness of the Italian Senate see C.
Morizot-Thibault, Des droits des chambres hautes ou
sénats en matière des lois de finance (Paris,
1891), 156-175.]
*411. Projected Reform.*--Within recent years there has arisen a
persistent demand for a reform of the Senate, to the end that the
body may be brought into closer touch with the people and be (p. 374)
restored to the position of a vigorous and useful second chamber. In
the spring of 1910 the subject was discussed at some length within the
Senate itself, and at the suggestion of the ministry a special
commission of nine members was created to study "the timeliness, the
method, and the extent" of the proposed reforms. December 5, 1910,
this commission brought in an elaborate report, written principally by
Senator Arcoleo, a leader among Italian authorities upon
constitutional law. After pointing out that among European nations the
reconstitution and modernization of upper chambers is a subject of
large current interest, the commission proposed a carefully considered
scheme for the popularizing and strengthening of the senatorial body.
The substance of the plan was, in brief; (1) that the chamber
henceforth should be composed of 350 members; (2) that the membership
should be divided into three categories, designated, respectively, as
officials, men of science and education, and men of political or
economic status; and (3) that members of the first category, not to
exceed 120, should be appointed, as are all members at present, by the
crown; but members of the other two should be elected by fifteen
special colleges so constituted that their membership would represent
actual and varied groups of interests throughout the nation. The
professors in the universities, for example, organized for the purpose
as an electoral college, should be authorized to choose a contingent
of thirty representatives. Other elements to be admitted to a definite
participation in the elections should include former deputies, larger
taxpayers, provincial and communal assemblies, chambers of commerce,
agricultural societies, and workingmen's associations. The primary
idea of those who propounded the scheme was that through its adoption
there would be established a more vital contact between the Senate and
the varied forces that contribute to the life of the nation than can
subsist under the existing order. Unfortunately, as many consider, the
Senate voted not to approve the commission's project. It contented
itself, rather, with a vote in favor of an enlargement of the classes
of citizens from which senators may be appointed by the king,
although, in February, 1911, it went so far as to request the ministry
to present new proposals, and, in particular, a proposal to vest in
the Senate the choice of its presiding officer. Toward a solution of
the problems involved there has been (to 1912) no further progress. It
is not improbable, however, that upon some such plan of modernization
as was prepared by the commission of 1910 agreement eventually will be
reached.[548]
[Footnote 548: E. Pagliano, Il Senato e la nomina
dei senatori (Rome, 1906); L. A. Magro, L'
aristocrazia e il Senato (Catania, 1909); I.
Tambaro, La réforme du Sénat italien, in _Revue du
Droit Public_, July-Sept., 1910, and Les débats sur
la réforme du Sénat italien, ibid., July-Sept.,
1911; M. Scelle, Réforme du Sénat italien, ibid.,
Oct.-Dec, 1911; Nazzareno, La riforma del Senato,
in _Rivista di Diritto Pubblica_, III., 171. The
report of the commission of 1910 is contained in
Per la riforma del Senato; relazione della
commissione (Rome, 1911).]
*412. Privileges and Powers.*--Within the Senate, as to-day (p. 375)
constituted, the president and vice-president are named by the king;
the secretaries are selected by the body from its own membership. The
privileges of members are defined minutely. Save by order of the
Senate itself, no senator may be arrested, unless apprehended in the
commission of an offense; and the Senate is constituted sole judge of
the alleged misdemeanors of its members--a curious duplication of an
ancient prerogative of the British House of Lords. Ministers are
responsible only to the lower house, and although there are instances
in which a minister has retired by reason of an adverse vote in the
Senate, in general it may be affirmed that the Senate's importance in
the parliamentary régime is distinctly subordinate. The two chambers
possess concurrent powers of legislation, except that all measures
imposing taxes or relating to the budget are required to be presented
first in the Deputies. By decree of the crown the Senate may be
constituted a High Court of Justice to try cases involving treason or
attempts upon the safety of the state, and to try ministers impeached
by the Chamber of Deputies. When acting in this capacity the body is a
tribunal of justice, not a political organization; but it is forbidden
to occupy itself with any judicial matters other than those for which
it was convened.[549]
[Footnote 549: Art. 36. Dodd, Modern Constitutions,
II., 10.]
III. THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES--PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE
*413. Composition: Franchise Law of 1882.*--The lower legislative
chamber is composed of 508 members chosen by the voters of the realm
under the provisions of the electoral law of March 28, 1895. In no
country of western Europe is the privilege of the franchise more
restricted than in Italy; yet progress toward a broadly democratic
scheme of suffrage has been steady and apparently as rapid as
conditions have warranted. The history of the franchise since the
establishment of the present kingdom falls into three periods,
delimited by the electoral laws of 1882 and 1895. Prior to 1882 the
franchise was, in the main, that established by the electoral law of
December 17, 1860, modified by amendments of July, 1875, and May,
1877. It was restricted to property-holders who were able to read and
write, who had attained the age of twenty-five, and who paid an annual
tax of at least forty lire. Under this system less than two and a (p. 376)
half per cent of the population possessed the right to vote.
In 1882, after prolonged consideration of the subject, the Government
carried through Parliament a series of measures--co-ordinated in the
royal decree of September 24--by which the property qualification was
reduced from forty lire to nineteen lire eighty centesimi and the age
limit was lowered to twenty-one years. The disqualification of
illiteracy was retained, and a premium was placed upon literacy by the
extension of the franchise, regardless of property, to all males over
twenty-one who had received a primary school education. There were
minor extensions in other directions. The net result of the law of
1882 was to raise the number of voters at a stroke from 627,838 to
2,049,461, about two-thirds of the new voters obtaining the franchise
by reason of their ability to meet the educational qualification.[550]
An incidental effect of the reform was to augment the political
influence of the cities, because in them the proportion of illiterates
was smaller than in the country districts. Small landed proprietors,
though of a more conservative temperament, and not infrequently of a
better economic status, than the urban artisans, were commonly unable
to fulfill the scholarship qualification.
[Footnote 550: Lowell, Governments and Parties, I.,
157.]
The law of 1882 provided for elections by general ticket, i.e., on the
principle of _scrutinio di lista_. An act of May 8, 1891, abolished
the general ticket and created a commission by which the country was
divided into 508 electoral districts, each entitled to choose one
deputy. By a law of June 28, 1892, there were introduced various
reforms in the control and supervision of elections, and by another of
July 11, 1894, new provisions were established for the revision of
electoral and registration lists. Finally, March 28, 1895, there was
promulgated an elaborate royal decree whereby the entire body of
electoral laws enacted since the establishment of constitutional
government, and at the time continuing in operation, was co-ordinated
afresh. The existing system was not altered fundamentally, although
the method of making up the voting-lists was changed, with the result
that the number of electors was somewhat diminished.
*414. The Franchise To-day.*--The Italian voter to-day must possess the
following qualifications: (1) Italian citizenship; (2) age of
twenty-one, or over; (3) ability to read and write; and (4) successful
passage of examinations in the subjects comprised in the course of
compulsory elementary education. The last-mentioned qualification is
not, however, required of officials, graduates of colleges, professional
men, persons who have served two years in the army, citizens who pay a
direct tax annually of not less than nineteen lire eighty (p. 377)
centesimi, those who pay an agricultural rental of 500 lire, those who
pay house rent of from 150 lire in communes of 2,500 people to 400
lire in communes of over 150,000, and certain less important classes.
So serious at all times has seemed the menace of illiteracy in Italy
that the establishment of manhood suffrage has but rarely been
proposed. Under the existing system the extension of education carries
with it automatically the expansion of the franchise, though the
obstacles to universal education are still so formidable that the
democratizing of the state proceeds but slowly.[551] In 1904 the
number of enrolled electors was 2,541,327--29 per cent of the male
population over twenty-one years of age, and 7.67 per cent of the total
population--exclusive of 26,056 electors temporarily disfranchised by
reason of being engaged in active military service. At the elections
of November, 1904, the number of qualified electors who voted was
1,593,886, or but 62.7 per cent of those who possessed the privilege.
The proportion of registered electors who actually vote is kept down
by the prosaic character of Italian electoral campaigns, by the
influence of the papal _Non Expedite_,[552] and, most of all, by the
habitual indifference of citizens, who, if the truth be told, for the
most part have never displayed an insatiable yearning for the
possession of the voting privilege. With the exception of the
Socialists, no party has a clear-cut, continuous programme; none, save
again the socialists, attempts systematically to arouse the voters at
election time.
[Footnote 551: King and Okey, Italy To-day, Chap.
12.]
[Footnote 552: See p. 400.]
*415. Electoral Reform.*--Notwithstanding these facts, there has been,
in recent years, a somewhat insistent demand for electoral reform. The
Luzzatti ministry fell, in March, 1911, primarily because a plan of
suffrage extension which it had proposed was not to be put in
operation before 1913. June 10, 1911, the Giolitti ministry which
succeeded laid before the Chamber the text of a measure which, if
adopted, would go far toward the establishment of universal male
suffrage. The proposal was that practically all male citizens over
thirty years of age, and all over twenty-one who have performed the
military service required by the state, should be given the privilege
of voting, irrespective of their ability to read and write. This
project, after being debated at length, was adopted in the Chamber of
Deputies early in 1912 by the enormous majority of 392 to 61. In the
event of its final enactment the existing electorate will be increased
from three millions to two and a half times that number and a general
overhauling of electoral methods and machinery will be rendered
necessary. The grounds upon which the change is urged are, first, (p. 378)
the example of other nations and, second, the political and economic
progress which Italy has achieved within the past generation. Serious
students doubt whether the time is ripe for so radical a step. One
half of the proposed electorate would be wholly illiterate.[553]
[Footnote 553: For the text of the Giolitti
proposals see _Il Seculo_, June 11, 1911. On
Italian electoral reform see A. Piebantoni, La
riforma della legge elettorale (Naples, 1909); G.
Bandini, La riforma elettorale con la
rappresentanza proporzionale nelle elezioni
politiche (Rome, 1910); G. Sabini, La riforma del
sistema elettorale in Italia (Turin, 1910);
Siotto-Pintor, Estensione del suffragio e
distribuzione della rappresentanza, in _Rivista di
Diritto Pubblico_, Dec., 1911, and Le riforma del
régime elettorale e le dottrine della
rappresentanza politica e dell' elettorato nel
secolo XX. (Rome, 1912).]
*416. Electoral Procedure.*--Save during the years 1882-91, when the
_scrutinio di lista_ was in operation, deputies have been chosen
uniformly from single-member districts. There are to-day 508 such
districts. No candidate is returned unless he not only polls a number
of votes in excess of one-sixth of the total number of enrolled
electors within the district, but has also an absolute majority of all
the votes cast. If, after balloting, it is found that no candidate
meets this requirement, a second ballot (_ballottaggio_) takes place
one week subsequently.[554] At each polling place the presiding
officer and "scrutineers" are chosen by the voters present. The method
of voting is simple. In the polling-booth stands a table, on which are
placed two square glass boxes, one empty, the other containing the
voting papers. As the list of enrolled electors is read
alphabetically, each man steps forward, receives a ballot paper, takes
it to an adjoining table and writes on it the name of the candidate
for whom he wishes to vote, folds the paper, and deposits it in the
box reserved for the purpose. After the list has been read through it
is the right of any voter who was not present to respond when his name
was called to cast his ballot in a similar manner. The polling hours
extend, as a rule, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.[555]
[Footnote 554: At the elections of March, 1909, in
75 of the 508 districts no candidate received an
adequate majority. In 57 of these districts the
candidate who, at the first ballot, had received
the largest number of votes was elected at the
second ballot. The political effect of the second
ballot is slight. At the election of 1900 there
were 77 second ballotings; at that of 1904, 39. A.
N. Holcombe, Direct Primaries and the Second
Ballot, in _Amer. Political Science Review_, Nov.,
1911; A. F. Locatelli, Considerazioni intorno all'
opportunità di abolire il ballottaggio, in _La
Riforma Sociale_, July-Aug., 1910.]
[Footnote 555: King and Okey, Italy To-day, 14.]
*417. Qualifications and Privileges of Members.*--A deputy is not
required to be a resident of the district from which he is chosen. He
must, however, be a citizen; must be at least thirty years of age;
must be in possession of full civil and political rights; and must not
belong to any of the classes or professions whose members are (p. 379)
debarred by law. All salaried government officials, all persons
receiving stipends from the state, and all persons ordained for the
priesthood or filling clerical office are disqualified outright.
Furthermore, while officers in the army and navy, ministers,
under-secretaries, and various other higher functionaries may be
elected, their number must never exceed forty, not including the
ministers and under-secretaries. Neither senators nor deputies receive
a salary or other compensation, a fact that undoubtedly accounts in
some measure for the uniformly slender attendance in the chambers.
Members are permitted, however, to travel free throughout Italy by
rail, or on steamers belonging to lines that have a government
contract containing a stipulation upon the subject. Measures providing
for the payment of members have been proposed from time to time, but
none have received the approval of the two chambers. A measure of the
sort introduced in 1882 by Francesco Crispi, when a deputy, was
rejected by the lower house. More recently, in the electoral bill
voted by the Chamber of Deputies in 1912 provision is made for the
payment of deputies; but at the time of writing final action upon this
project has not been taken. Deputies are elected nominally for a
five-year period, which is the maximum duration of a parliament. In
point of fact, a dissolution is practically certain to intervene
before the expiration of the full term, and the average interval
between elections is nearer three years than five. If for any reason a
deputy ceases to perform his duties, the electoral district that chose
him is called upon forthwith to elect a new representative.
*418. The Chambers: Organization.*--The constitution does not prescribe
definitely that the parliament shall be assembled annually. It
stipulates merely that the sessions of the two houses shall begin and
end at the same time, that a meeting of one house at a time when the
other is not in session is illegal, and that measures enacted under
such circumstances are void.[556] Custom and the necessities of
administration, however, render it incumbent upon the crown to convoke
the chambers in at least one session each year, unless, indeed, as has
sometimes happened, a session is so prolonged as to extend, with
occasional recesses, over an entire year, or even two years.
[Footnote 556: Art. 48. Dodd, Modern Constitutions,
II., 12.]
The president and vice-president of the Senate are designated by the
crown, but the president, vice-presidents, and secretaries of the
lower chamber are chosen by the chamber itself from among its own
members at the beginning of each session, for the entire session. The
president of the Deputies, although empowered to appoint certain
committees, such as those on rules and contested elections, is not (p. 380)
infrequently re-elected again and again without regard to party
affiliations, after the manner of the Speaker of the British House of
Commons. The membership of the Chamber of Deputies is divided into
nine _uffici_, or sections, and that of the Senate into five. A fresh
division, by lot, takes place every two months. The principal function
of the _uffici_ is the election of those committees for whose
constitution no other provision is made. In each chamber the most
important of all committees, that on the budget, is elected directly
by the chamber. In the Deputies certain other committees are elected
in the same way, while, as has been said, those on elections and on
rules are appointed by the president. But committees specially
constituted for the consideration of particular measures are made up
of members chosen from the various _uffici_, unless the chamber
prefers to designate some other method.
*419. The Chambers: Procedure.*--Each house frames its own rules of
procedure. By the constitution it is stipulated that the sessions
shall be public (with the provision that upon the written request of
ten members secret sessions may be held); that Italian shall be the
official language; that no session or vote of either house shall be
valid unless an absolute majority of the members is present; and that
neither house shall receive any deputation, or give hearings to
persons other than the legislative members, ministers, and
commissioners of the Government.[557] Except such as relate to
finance, bills on any subject may originate in either house, and at
the initiative of the Government or of private members, though in
practice all proposals of importance emanate from the Quirinal. The
ministers appear regularly on the floor of the two chambers, to
advocate the measures of the Government and to reply to inquiries. The
right of interpellation is not infrequently exercised, though the
debate and vote following a challenge of the ministry fall regularly
after an interval of some days, instead of at once, as in the French
system, thus guarding somewhat against precipitancy of action. A
measure which is passed in one house is transmitted to the other for
consideration. After enactment in both houses, it is presented to the
king for approval, which, in practice, is never withheld. A bill
rejected by the crown, or by either house, may not be reintroduced
during the same session. Votes are taken by rising and sitting, by
division, or by secret ballot. The third of these methods is
obligatory in all final votes on enactments, and on measures of a
personal character. It is specifically enjoined that deputies (p. 381)
shall represent the nation as a whole, and not the districts from
which they are chosen, and to this end no binding instructions may be
imposed upon them by the electors.[558] Except when taken in the
actual commission of an offense, deputies are exempt from arrest
during the continuance of a session, and they may not be proceeded
against in criminal matters without the previous consent of the
Chamber. Neither senators nor representatives may be called to account
for opinions expressed, or for votes cast, in the performance of their
official functions.
[Footnote 557: Arts. 52-54, 59, 62. Dodd, Modern
Constitutions, II., 12-13. In practice the
requirement of the presence of an absolute majority
of members is sometimes disregarded.]
[Footnote 558: Art. 41. Dodd, Modern Constitutions,
II., 11.]
IV. THE JUDICIARY
*420. General Aspects.*--The provisions of the _Statuto_ respecting the
administration of justice are brief and general. Justice, it is
declared, emanates from the king and is administered in his name by
the judges whom he appoints. These judges, after three years of
service, are irremovable. Proceedings of courts in civil cases and
hearings in criminal cases are required to be public. No one may be
withdrawn from his ordinary legal jurisdiction; and no modification
may be introduced in respect to courts, tribunals, or judges, save by
law.[559] On the basis of these principles there has been built up a
system of tribunals which differs in but few important respects from
the systems in operation in the other Latin countries of Europe. It
consists, in part, of courts which have been carried over from the
period preceding Italian unification and, in part, of courts which owe
their existence to legislation subsequent to 1861. The model upon
which the system has been developed is the judicial hierarchy of
France, and it differs from this system in little save the existence,
as will appear, of five largely independent courts of cassation
instead of one.
[Footnote 559: Arts. 68-73. Ibid., II., 14-15.]
*421. The Ordinary Courts.*--For purposes of justice the kingdom is
divided into 1,535 _mandamenti_,[560] 162 tribunal districts, and 20
appellate court districts. Within each _mandamento_ is a _pretura_, or
magistracy, which exercises jurisdiction in civil cases and in cases
of misdemeanors (_contravvenzioni_) and offenses (_delitte_)
punishable by imprisonment not exceeding three months, or banishment
not exceeding one year, or a fine not exceeding 1,000 lire. In (p. 382)
minor civil cases, involving sums not in excess of 100 lire,
jurisdiction is vested in justices of the peace (_giudici conciliatori_)
who likewise, upon request, act as arbitrators in cases involving any
amount. In each of thirteen of the largest towns there is a _pretura_
which exercises penal jurisdiction exclusively. Next above the
_pretori_ stand the penal courts, one in each of the 162 tribunal
districts. These exercise jurisdiction in the first instance in
offenses involving a maximum imprisonment of ten years or a fine of
more than 1,000 lire. To them appeal may be carried from the decisions
of the _pretori_. Closely associated are the courts of assize, which
possess original jurisdiction in cases involving a penalty of
imprisonment for life, or for a period longer than a minimum of five,
and a maximum of ten, years. Save when the Senate is constituted a
high court of justice, these tribunals have exclusive jurisdiction of
all press offenses and of all cases involving attacks upon the
security of the state. As a rule, the courts of assize make use of the
jury. From their decisions there is no appeal, save upon a point of
form, and appeal lies solely to the court of cassation at Rome. From
the penal tribunals appeal lies, in cases not dealt with by the assize
courts, to the twenty courts of appeal.
[Footnote 560: Prior to 1901 the administrative and
electoral _mandamenti_ and the _mandamenti
giudiziarii_ were identical geographically, and
there were 1,805 of them in the kingdom. By a law
of the year mentioned the judicial _mandamenti_
were reduced in number to 1,535.]
At the top of the system stand five largely independent courts of
cassation, located at the old capitals of Turin, Florence, Naples,
Palermo, and Rome. Each of these exercises, within its own territory,
final jurisdiction in all cases involving the ordinary civil law. The
court of cassation at Rome, it is true, has been given exclusive
jurisdiction in conflicts of competence between different courts,
conflicts between the courts and the administrative authorities, the
transfer of suits from one tribunal to another, writs of error in
criminal cases, and a variety of other special matters. But, aside
from this, the five tribunals are absolutely equal in function; there
is no appeal from one to another, and the decisions arrived at by one
do not constitute precedents which the others are obligated to
recognize. One of the most striking aspects, indeed, of the Italian
judicial system is its lack of centralization; though it should be
added that the centralizing principle which, since 1870, has dominated
so notably all other departments of the government has been gradually
winning its way in the judiciary.
*422. The Administrative Courts.*--In Italy, as in continental countries
generally, there is preserved a sharp distinction between public and
private law; but the separation of functions of the ordinary and the
administrative courts is much less clear-cut than in France and
elsewhere. In 1865, indeed, the surviving administrative courts of (p. 383)
the states which had been drawn into the kingdom, were abolished and
it was arranged that the ordinary courts should exercise unrestricted
jurisdiction in all criminal cases and in all civil cases in which, by
the decision of the Council of State, a civil or political right was
involved. The system worked poorly and by laws of June 2, 1889, and
May 1, 1890, a special section of the Council of State (composed of a
president and eight councillors named by the king) was set off to
serve as an administrative court, while at the same time an inferior
administrative jurisdiction was conferred upon the _giunta_ (prefect
and certain assistants) of the province. In practice to-day, when the
legality of acts committed by the administrative officials is called
in question, the ordinary courts exercise jurisdiction, if the
question is one of private _right_; if it is one merely of private
_interest_, it goes for decision to an administrative tribunal. In
most continental countries _all_ cases involving the legality of
official acts fall within the domain of the administrative
courts.[561]
[Footnote 561: There is a brief description of the
Italian judicial system in Lowell, Governments and
Parties, II., 170-178.]
V. LOCAL GOVERNMENT
*423. Historical Basis.*--In her ancient territorial divisions Italy had
once the basis of a natural and wholesomely decentralized system of
local government. Instead of availing themselves of it, however, the
founders of the present kingdom preferred to reduce the realm to a
_tabula rasa_ and to erect within it a wholly new and symmetrical
hierarchy of territorial divisions and governmental organs. By a great
statute of March 20, 1865, there was introduced in the kingdom a
system of provincial and communal organization, the essentials of
which were taken over in part from Belgium, but more largely from
France. The functions and relations of the various local agencies were
amplified and given substantially their present form in the law of
December 30, 1888, supplemented and amended by acts of July 7, 1889,
and July 11, 1894. So closely has the French model been adhered to
throughout that the resemblance between the two systems amounts almost
to duplication. The system of Italy calls, therefore, for no very
extended independent description.
The units of local government are four in number--the province, the
_circondaro_, the _mandamento_, and the commune. Of these, the first
and last alone possess vitality, distinct interests, and some measure
of autonomy; and throughout the entire series runs that same principle
of thoroughgoing centralization which is the pre-eminent characteristic
of the local governmental system of France. The _circondaro_, (p. 384)
corresponding to the French _arrondissement_, is essentially an
electoral division. Strictly, there are in the kingdom 197 _circondarii_;
but 87 districts comprising the province of Mantua and the eight
provinces of Venetia are, in all save name, _circondarii_ also. The
1806 _mandamenti_, or cantons, are but subdivisions of the provinces
for administrative purposes.
*424. The Province: Prefect and Council.*--There are in the kingdom 69
provinces, varying considerably in size but with an average population
of 450,000 to 500,000. The Italian province corresponds closely to the
French department. At its head is a prefect, appointed by the crown
and directly responsible to the Minister of the Interior. Like the
French prefect, the Italian is a political official, and the fact not
merely influences his appointment but affects greatly his conduct in
office. As representative and agent of the central government the
prefect publishes and executes the laws, supervises the provincial
administration, opens and closes sessions of the provincial council
and sanctions or vetoes the measures of that body, and safeguards in
general the interests of the Government in the province.
Within each province is a council of from 20 to 60 members, elected
for a period of six years on a franchise somewhat broader than that
which prevails in parliamentary elections. One-half of the membership
is renewed triennially. The council meets regularly once each year,
nominally for a month's session; but an extraordinary session may be
convened at any time by the prefect, by the deputation, or upon call
of one-third of the councillors. Aside from the voting of the
provincial budget, the powers of the council are relatively meager. In
part, e.g., in respect to the maintenance of highways, the control of
secondary and technical education, and a share in the supervision of
charity, they are obligatory; in part they are merely permissive. A
deputation, or commission, of from six to ten persons, elected by the
council from its own membership, represents the council in the
intervals between its sittings and carries on the work which it may
have in hand. The prefect is advised by a prefectorial council of
three members appointed by the Government, and he is further assisted
by a _giunta_ of six members, four of whom are elected by the
provincial council, the other two being drawn from the prefectorial
council. It is the business of the _giunta_ to assist the prefect and
sub-prefects in the supervision of local administration and to serve
as a tribunal for the trial of cases arising under the administrative
law. The prefect and the _giunta_ possess large, and to a considerable
degree, discretionary powers of control over the proceedings of the
council; and the prefect, representing as he does the central government
exclusively, can be called to account only by his superiors at (p. 385)
Rome.
*425. The Commune: Syndic and Council.*--As in France, the commune is
the least artificial and the most vigorous of the local governmental
units. In June, 1911, there were in Italy a total of 8,323 communes,
besides four boroughs in Sardinia not included in the communal
organization. Each commune has a council of from 15 to 80 members,
according to its population, elected for a period of six years,
one-half retiring every three years. The communal franchise is
appreciably broader than the parliamentary. It extends to all Italian
citizens twenty-one years of age who can read and write, provided they
are on the parliamentary list, or pay any direct annual contribution
to the commune, or comply with various other very easy conditions. The
council holds two regular sessions a year, though in the large towns
it, in point of fact, meets much more frequently. Between sittings its
work is carried on by a _giunta_, which serves as a committee to
execute the resolutions of the council and to draft its budget and
by-laws. The powers of the council are comprehensive. It is obligated
to maintain streets, roads, and markets; to provide for elementary
education; to make suitable arrangements for the relief of the poor,
the registration of births and deaths, and of electors; to establish
police regulations and prisons; and, under varying conditions, to
attend to a wide variety of other matters. The range of its optional
activities is almost boundless. The council may establish theatres,
found museums, subsidize public amusements, and, indeed, go to almost
any length in the regulation of local affairs and the expenditure of
local funds.[562]
[Footnote 562: For an arraignment of the
extravagance of the local governing authorities see
King and Okey, Italy To-day, 267.]
As its chief official, every commune has a _sindaco_, i.e., a syndic,
or mayor. Prior to 1896 the syndic was chosen by the communal council
from its own members, if the commune had more than 10,000 inhabitants,
or was the capital of a province or _circondaro_; otherwise he was
appointed from among the members of the council by the king. In the
great majority of communes the procedure was of the second type. Since
1896 the syndic has been chosen regularly in all communes by the
council, for a term of three years, together with a secretary, elected
in the first instance for two, but afterwards for periods of not less
than six, years. Despite the fact that the syndic is now elected
universally by the communal council, his position is not that
exclusively of executive head of the local community. Like the
prefect, he is a government official, who, save under very exceptional
circumstances, may be removed only with the prefect's permission. He
may not be called to account except by his superiors, or sued save (p. 386)
with the permission of the crown.[563]
[Footnote 563: For a brief account of local
government in Italy see King and Okey, Italy
To-day, Chap. 14. More extended treatment will be
found in E. del Guerra, L'Amministrazione pubblica
in Italia (Florence, 1893) and G. Greco, Il nuova
diritto amministrativo Italiano (Naples, 1896).]
CHAPTER XXI (p. 387)
STATE AND CHURCH--POLITICAL PARTIES
I. QUIRINAL AND VATICAN
Italy differs from other nations of importance in containing what is
essentially a state within a state. The capital of the kingdom is
likewise the capital of the Catholic world--the administrative seat of
a government which is not only absolutely independent of the
government of the Italian nation but is in no small degree
antagonistic to it. It need hardly be remarked that the consequences
of this anomalous situation affect profoundly the practical operations
of government, and especially the crystallization and programmes of
political parties, in the peninsula.
*426. Termination of the Temporal Power.*--One goal toward which the
founders of the kingdom directed their efforts was the realization of
the ideal of Cavour, "a free church in a free state." A thoroughgoing
application of this principle proved impracticable, but such progress
has been made toward it as to constitute, for Italy, a veritable
revolution. On the 20th of September, 1870, the armed forces of King
Victor Emmanuel crossed the bounds of the petty papal dominion about
Rome, entered the city, and by a few sharp strokes beat down all
forcible opposition to the sovereignty of the united Italian nation.
Pope Pius IX. refused absolutely to acquiesce in the loss of his
temporal dominion, but he was powerless to prevent it. His sole hope
of indemnity lay in a possible intervention of the Catholic powers in
his behalf--a hope which by Prussia's defeat of France and the
downfall of the Emperor Napoleon III. was rendered extremely
unsubstantial. The possibility of intervention was, however,
sufficiently considerable to occasion real apprehension on the part of
Victor Emmanuel and of those attached to the interests of the young
nation. In part to avert complications abroad, as well as with an
honest purpose to adjust a difficult situation, the Government made
haste to devise what it considered a fair, safe, and honorable
settlement of its relations with the papal authority. The result was
the fundamental statute known as the Law of the Papal Guarantees,
enacted March 21, 1871, after a heated parliamentary contest (p. 388)
lasting upwards of two months, and promulgated under date of May 13
following.[564]
[Footnote 564: Text in Coglio e Malchiodi, Codice
Politico Amministrativo. An English version is
printed in Dodd, Modern Constitutions, II., 16-21.]
*427. The Law of Papal Guarantees, 1871: Papal Prerogatives.*--This
important measure, which remains to this day unchanged, falls into two
principal parts. The first is concerned with the prerogatives of the
Supreme Pontiff and of the Holy See; the second regulates the legal
relations of church and state within the kingdom. In a series of
thirteen articles there is enumerated a sum total of papal privileges
which constitutes the Vatican an essentially sovereign and independent
power. First of all, the Pope is declared sacred and inviolable, and
any offense against his person is made punishable with the same
penalty as a similar offense against the person of the king. In the
second place, the Italian Government "grants to the Supreme Pontiff,
within the kingdom, sovereign honors, and guarantees to him the
pre-eminence customarily accorded to him by Catholic sovereigns."[565]
Diplomatic agents accredited to him, and envoys whom he may send to
foreign states, are entitled to all the prerogatives and immunities
which international law accords to diplomatic agents generally. In
lieu of the revenues which were cut off by the loss of the temporal
dominion there is settled upon the Pope a permanent income to be paid
from the treasury of the state. For the uses of the Holy See--the
preservation and custody of the apostolic palaces, compensation and
pensions for guards and attachés, the keeping of the Vatican museums
and library, and any other needful purposes--there is reserved the sum
of 3,225,000 lire ($645,000) annually, to be "entered in the great
book of the public debt as a perpetual and inalienable income of the
Holy See."[566] The obligation thus assumed by the state may never be
repudiated, nor may the amount stipulated be reduced. Permanent
possession, furthermore, of the Vatican and Lateran palaces, with all
buildings, museums, libraries, gardens, and lands appertaining thereto
(including the church of St. Peter's), together with the villa at
Castel Gandolfo, is expressly guaranteed, and it is stipulated, not
only that these properties shall be exempt from all taxation and
charges and from seizure for public purposes, but that, except with
papal permission, no public official or agent in the performance of
his public duties shall so much as enter the papal palaces or grounds,
or any place where there may be in session at any time a conclave or
ecumenical council. During a vacancy of the pontifical chair no
judicial or political functionary may, on any pretext, invade the (p. 389)
personal liberty of the cardinals, and the Government engages
specifically to see to it that conclaves and ecumenical councils shall
not be molested by external disorder.
[Footnote 565: Art. 3. Dodd, Modern Constitutions,
II., 16.]
[Footnote 566: Art. 4. Ibid., 17.]
*428. Papal Freedom in the Exercise of Spiritual Functions.*--In the
exercises of spiritual functions the independence of the Holy See is
fully secured. The Pope may correspond freely with the bishops and
with "the whole Catholic world," without interference from the
Government.[567] Papers, documents, books, and registers deposited in
pontifical offices or in congregations of an exclusively spiritual
character are exempt from all legal processes of visit, search, or
sequestration, and ecclesiastics may not be called to account by the
civil authorities for taking part officially in the promulgation of
any act pertaining to the spiritual ministry of the Holy See. To
facilitate the administration of papal affairs the right is granted of
maintaining separate postal and telegraph offices, of transmitting
sealed packages of correspondence under the papal stamp, either
directly or through the Italian post, and of sending couriers who,
within the kingdom, are placed on an equal footing with emissaries of
foreign governments.
[Footnote 567: Art. 12. Dodd, Modern Constitutions,
II., 19.]
*429. Legal Relations of Church and State.*--The regulations by which
the relations of church and state are governed more specifically begin
with the abolition of all restrictions upon the right of members of
the Catholic clergy to assemble for ecclesiastical purposes. With
provisional exceptions, the _exequatur_, the _placet_, and all other
forms of civil authorization of spiritual measures are done away.[568]
The state yields its ancient right of nominating to bishoprics, and
the bishops themselves are no longer required to take oath of fidelity
to the king. In matters of spiritual discipline it is stipulated that
there shall be no appeal to the civil courts from the decisions of the
ecclesiastical authorities. If, however, any ecclesiastical decision
or act contravenes a law of the state, subverts public order, or
encroaches upon the rights of individuals, it is, _ipso facto_, of no
effect; and in respect to these things the state is constituted sole
judge. The Church, in short, is granted a very large measure of
freedom and of autonomy; but at the same time it is not so far
privileged as to be removed beyond the pale of the public law. If its
measures constitute offenses, they are subject to the provisions of
the ordinary criminal code.[569]
[Footnote 568: On the Government's use of the
_exequatur_ since 1871 see King and Okey, Italy
To-day, 253.]
[Footnote 569: By act of July 12, 1871, articles
268-270 of the Italian penal code were so modified
as to render ecclesiastics liable to imprisonment
of from six months to five years, and to fines of
from one thousand to three thousand lire, for
spoken or written attacks upon the state, or for
the incitement of disorder.]
*430. Papal Opposition to the Existing System.*--The arrangements (p. 390)
thus comprised in the Law of Guarantees have never received the
sanction of the papacy. They rest exclusively upon the authority of
the state. Pope Pius IX., flatly refusing to accept them, issued, May
15, 1871, an encyclical to the bishops of the Church repudiating the
Law and calling upon Catholic princes everywhere to co-operate in the
restoration of the temporal power. The call was unheeded, and the Pope
fell back upon the obstructionist policy of maintaining absolutely no
relations, with the Italian kingdom. His successor, Leo XIII.,
preserved essentially the same attitude, and, although many times it
has been intimated that the present Pope, Pius X., is more disposed to
a conciliatory policy, it still is true that the only recognition
which is accorded the Quirinal by the Vatican is of a purely passive
and involuntary character. The Pope persists in regarding himself as
"the prisoner of the Vatican." He will not so much as set foot outside
the petty domain which has been assigned to him, because his doing so
might be construed as a virtual recognition of the legality of the
authority of the kingdom within the Eternal City. Not a penny of the
annuity whose payment to the Holy See was stipulated in 1871 has been
touched. By the Italian Government the annuity itself has been made
subject to quinquennial prescription, so that in the event of a
recognition of the Law at any time by the papacy not more than a
five-year quota, with interest, could be collected.
As to the measure of fidelity with which the Government has fulfilled
the obligations which it assumed under the Law, there is, naturally, a
wide divergence of opinion. The authors of what is probably the most
authoritative book on Italy written from a detached and impartial
point of view say that "on the whole, one is bound to conclude that
the Government has stretched the Law of Guarantees in its own
interest, but that the brevity and incompleteness of the Law is
chiefly responsible for the difficulty in construing it."[570]
Undoubtedly it may be affirmed that the spirit of the Law has been
observed with consistency, though the exigencies of temporal interest
have compelled not infrequently the non-observance of the letter. So
long as the Vatican persists in holding rigidly aloof from
co-operation in the arrangement the Law obviously cannot be executed
with the spontaneity and completeness that were intended by its
framers. The situation is unfortunate, alike for state and church, and
subversive of the best interests of the Italian people.[571]
[Footnote 570: King and Okey, Italy To-day, 255.]
[Footnote 571: For a brief discussion of the
subject of church and state in Italy see King and
Okey, Italy To-day, Chaps. 2 and 13. A useful book
is R. de Cesare, Roma e lo stato del papa dal
ritorno di Pio IX., 2 vols. (Rome, 1907), of which
there is an abridged translation by H. Zimmern, The
Last Days of Papal Rome, 1850-1870 (Boston, 1909).
Mention may be made of M. Pernot, La politique de
Pie X. (Paris, 1910); A. Brunialto, Lo stato e la
chiesa in Italia (Turin, 1892); G. Barzellotti,
L'Italia e il papato, in _Nuova Antologia_, March
1, 1904; and F. Nielsen, The History of the Papacy
in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1906).]
II. PARTIES AND MINISTRIES, 1861-1896 (p. 391)
*431. Party Beginnings: the Conservative Ascendancy, 1861-1876.*--In
Italy, as in France, political parties are numerous and their
constituencies and programmes are subject to rapid and bewildering
fluctuation. In the earliest days of the kingdom party lines were not
sharply drawn. In the parliament elected in January, 1861, the
supporters of Cavour numbered 407, while the strength of the
opposition was but 36. After the death of Cavour, however, June 6,
1861, the cleavage which already had begun to mark off the Radicals,
or Left, from the Conservatives, or Right, was accentuated, and the
Left grew rapidly in numbers and in influence. During the period
between 1861 and 1870 the two parties differed principally upon the
question of the completion of Italian unity, the Conservatives
favoring a policy of caution and delay, the Radicals urging that the
issue be forced at the earliest opportunity. With the exception of
brief intervals in 1862 and 1867, when the Radicals, under Rattazzi,
gained the upper hand, the government during the period indicated was
administered by the Conservative ministries of Ricasoli (the successor
of Cavour), Minghetti, La Marmora, Menabrea, and Lanza. Each of the
Rattazzi ministries had as one of its principal incidents an invasion
of the papal territory by Garibaldi, and each fell primarily because
of the fear of the nation that its continuance in power would mean war
with France. The unification of the peninsula was left to be
accomplished by the Conservatives.
After 1870 the dominance of the Conservatives was prolonged to 1876.
The Lanza government, whose most distinguished member was the finance
minister Sella, lasted until July 10, 1873, and the second ministry of
Minghetti, given distinction by the able foreign minister
Visconti-Venosta, filled out the period to March 18, 1876. Upon these
two ministries devolved the enormous task of organizing more fully the
governmental system of the kingdom, and especially of bringing order
out of chaos in the national finances. The work was effectively
performed, but when it had been completed the nation was more than
ready to drive the Conservatives from office. The Conservative
administration had been honest and efficient, but it had been rigid
and at times harsh. It had set itself squarely against the democracy
of Garibaldi, Crispi, and Depretis; it had sought to retain the (p. 392)
important offices of state in the hands of its own immediate
adherents; and in the execution of its fiscal measures it had been
exacting, and even ruthless. March 18, 1876, the Minghetti government
found itself lacking a majority in the Chamber, whereupon it retired
and was replaced by a Radical ministry under the premiership of
Depretis, successor of Rattazzi in the leadership of the Left. A
national election which followed, in November, yielded the new
Government the overwhelming parliamentary majority of 421 to 87.
*432. The Rule of the Radicals, 1876-1896.*--Prior to their accession to
power the Radical leaders had criticised so sharply the fiscal and
administrative policies of their opponents that they were expected by
many persons to overturn completely the existing order of the state.
As all but invariably happens under such circumstances, however, when
the "outs" became the "ins" their point of view, and consequently
their purposes, underwent a remarkable transformation. In almost every
essential the policies, and even the methods, of the Conservatives
were perpetuated, and the importance of the political overturn of 1876
arises, not from any shift which took place from one style of
government to another, but from its effects upon the composition and
alignment of the parties themselves. During its fifteen-year
ascendancy the Right had exhibited again and again a glaring lack of
coherence; yet its unity was in reality considerably more substantial
than was that of the Left. So long as the Radicals occupied the
position of opponents of the Government they were able, indeed, to
present a seemingly solid front. But when it fell to them to organize
ministries, to frame and enact measures, and to conduct the
administration, the fact appeared instantly that they had neither a
constructive programme nor a unified leadership. The upshot was that
upon its advent to power the Left promptly fell apart into the several
groups of which it was composed, and never thereafter was there
substantial co-operation among these groups, save at rare intervals
when co-operation was necessary to prevent the return to office of the
Conservatives.
*433. The Depretis Ministries, 1876-1887.*--That portion of the party
which first acquired ascendancy was the more moderate, under the
leadership of Depretis. Its programme may be said to have embraced the
extension of the franchise, the enforcement of the rights of the state
in relation to the Church, the incompatibility of a parliamentary
mandate with the holding of public office, the maintenance of the
military and naval policy instituted by the Conservatives, and,
eventually, fiscal reform, though the amelioration of taxation was
given no such prominence as the nation had been led to expect. (p. 393)
Save for the brief intervals occupied by the two Cairoli ministries of
1878 and 1879-1881, Depretis continued in the office of premier from
1876 until his death, in the summer of 1887. Again and again during
this period the personnel of the ministry was changed. Ministers who
made themselves unpopular were replaced by new ones,[572] and so
complete became the lack of dividing principles between the parties
that in 1883 there was established a Depretis cabinet which
represented a coalition of the moderate Left and the Right.[573] The
coalition, however, proved ill-advised, and when, July 27, 1887,
Depretis died he left behind him a government which represented rather
a fusion of the moderate and radical wings of the Left. By reason of
the disintegrated condition of parties Depretis had been able to
override habitually the fundamental principles of parliamentarism and
to maintain through many years a government which lived from hand to
mouth on petty manoeuvers. The franchise, it is true, had been
broadened by the law of 1882, and some of the more odious taxes, e.g.,
the much complained of grist tax, had been abolished. But electoral
corruption had been condoned, if not encouraged; the civil service had
been degraded to a mere machine of the ministerial majority; and the
nation had been led to embark upon highly questionable policies of
colonial expansion, alliance with Germany and Austria, and protective
tariffs.
[Footnote 572: This partial renewal of a ministry,
known in Italy as a _rimpasto_, was, and still is,
rendered easy by the average ministry's lack of
political solidarity.]
[Footnote 573: This coalition policy--the so-called
_transformismo_--did not originate with Depretis.
As early as 1873 a portion of the Right under
Minghetti, by joining the Left, had overturned the
Lanza-Sella cabinet; and in 1876 Minghetti himself
had fallen a victim to a similar defection of
Conservative deputies.]
*434. The First Crispi, First Rudini, and First Giolitti Ministries,
1887-1893.*--The successor of Depretis was Crispi, in reality the only
man of first-rate statesmanship in the ranks of the Left. To him it
fell to tide the nation safely over the crises attendant upon the
death (January 9, 1878) of King Victor Emmanuel II. and that (February
7 following) of Pope Pius IX. The personality of Crispi was very much
more forceful than was that of Depretis and the grasp which he secured
upon the political situation rendered his position little short of
that of a dictator. The elections of 1876 had reduced to impotence the
old Right as a party of opposition, and although prior to Crispi's
ministry there had been some recovery, the Left continued in all but
uncontested power. In the elections of November, 1890, the Government
was accorded an overwhelming majority. None the less, largely by
reason of his uncontrollable temper, Crispi allowed himself, at the
end of January, 1891, to be forced by the Conservatives into a (p. 394)
position such that the only course open to him was to resign.
There followed a transitional period during which the chaos of party
groups was made more than ever apparent. The Rudini ministry, composed
of representatives of both the Right and the Left, survived little
more than a year. May 5, 1892, the formation of a ministry was
intrusted by King Humbert to Giolitti, a Piedmontese deputy and at one
time minister of finance in the Crispi cabinet. The product was a
ministry supported by the groups of the Centre and the Left, but
opposed by those of the Right and of the Extreme Left. Parliament was
dissolved and during the ensuing November were held national elections
in which, by exercise of the grossest sort of official pressure, the
Government was able to win a substantial victory. The period covered
by Giolitti's ministry--marked by a cringing foreign policy, an almost
utter breakdown of the national finances, and the scandals of 1893 in
connection with the management of state banks, especially the Banca
Romana--may well be regarded as the most unfortunate in Italian
history since the completion of national unity. The revelations made,
November 23, 1893, by a committee appointed by Parliament to
investigate the bank scandals were of such a character that the
Giolitti ministry retired from office, November 24, without so much as
challenging a vote of confidence. After prolonged delay a new ministry
was made up, December 10, by Crispi, whose return to power was
dictated by the conviction of the nation that no one else was
qualified to deal with a situation so desperate.
*435. The Second Crispi Ministry, 1893-1896.*--The second Crispi
ministry extended from December, 1893, to March, 1896. Politically,
the period was one of extreme unsettlement. Supported by the Centre
and the Left, substantially as Giolitti had been, the Government
suppressed disorder, effected economies, and entered upon an ambitious
attempt at colonial aggrandizement in East Africa. But it was opposed
by the Extreme Left, a large portion of the Right, and the adherents
of Giolitti, so that its position was always precarious. In December,
1894, Giolitti produced papers purporting to show that Crispi himself
had been implicated in the bank irregularities. The effort to bring
about the premier's fall failed, although there ensued a veritable war
between the cabinet and the chambers, in the course of which even the
appearance of parliamentary government was abandoned. In the elections
of May, 1895, the Government was victorious, and it was only by reason
of public indignation arising from the failure of the Eritrean
enterprise that, finally, March 5, 1896, Crispi and his colleagues
surrendered office.
III. THE ERA OF COMPOSITE MINISTRIES, 1896-1912 (p. 395)
During the period which was terminated by the retirement of Crispi the
successive ministries, while occasionally including representatives of
more than a single political group, exhibited normally a considerable
degree of solidarity. After 1896 there set in, however, an epoch
during which the growing multiplicity of parties bore fruit in
cabinets of amazingly composite character. In the place of the fairly
substantial Conservative and Radical parties of the seventies stood
now upwards of half a score of contending factions, some durable, some
but transitory. No government could survive a month save by the
support of an affiliation of a number of these groups. But such
affiliations were, in the nature of things, artificial and
provisional, and ministerial stability became what it remains to-day,
a thing universally desired but rarely enjoyed.
*436. The Second Rudini and the Pelloux Ministries, 1896-1900.*--To
General Ricotti-Magnani was committed, at Crispi's fall in 1896, the
task of forming a new ministry. After some delay the premiership was
bestowed upon Rudini, now leader of the Right. The new Government,
constructed to attract the support of both the Right and the Extreme
Left, took as its principal object the elimination of Crispi from the
arena of politics. In time its foreign policy was strengthened
appreciably by the return of Visconti-Venosta, after twenty years, to
the foreign office, but home affairs were administered in a grossly
inefficient manner. Bound by a secret understanding with Cavalotti,
the leader of the Extreme Left, Rudini was obliged to submit
habitually to radical dictation, and the elections of 1899, conducted
specifically to crush the adherents of Crispi, threw open yet wider
the door of opportunity for the Socialists, the Republicans, and the
radical elements generally. The Rudini ministry survived until June
18, 1898, when it was overthrown in consequence of riots occasioned in
southern Italy by a rise in the price of bread.
June 29, 1898, a ministry was made up by General Pelloux which was
essentially colorless politically and whose immediate programme
consisted solely in the passage of a public safety measure originated
during the preceding ministry. When, in June, 1900, the Government
dissolved parliament and appealed to the country the result was
another appreciable increase of power on the part of the radicals. In
the new chamber the extremists--Radicals, Republicans, and
Socialists--numbered nearly 100, or double their former strength. The
Pelloux government forthwith retired, and a Liberal ministry was
constituted (June 24, 1900) under Saracco, president of the (p. 396)
Senate. Five weeks later, upon the assassination of King Humbert,
occurred the accession of the present sovereign, Victor Emmanuel III.
*437. The Saracco and Zanardelli Ministries, 1900-1903.*--The Saracco
ministry, formed as a cabinet of pacification, was overthrown February
7, 1901, in consequence of its hesitating attitude towards a dock
strike at Genoa. It was succeeded by a ministry containing Giolitti
(in the portfolio of the interior) and presided over by Zanardelli,
long a leader of the extremer wing of the Radicals. The members of the
new Government were drawn from several groups. Three were of
Zanardelli's following, three were adherents of Giolitti, three
belonged to the Right, one was a Crispian, and two were Independents.
Such was their forced reliance, however, upon the support of the
Extreme Left that the formation of this cabinet served as an impetus
to a notable advance on the part of the extremer groups, especially
the Socialists.
*438. Giolitti, Fortis, and Sonnino, 1903-1909.*--In October, 1903,
Premier Zanardelli retired, by reason of ill-health, and the cabinet
was reconstituted under Giolitti. Aside from the premier, its most
distinguished members were Tittoni, minister of foreign affairs, and
Luzzatti, minister of finance. The position of the new Government was
insecure, and although the elections of November, 1904, resulted in
the return of a substantial ministerial majority, the cabinet,
realizing that it really lacked the support of the country, resigned
in March, 1905. A new and colorless ministry, that of Fortis, lasted
less than a year, i.e., until February 2, 1906. The coalition cabinet
of Sonnino proved even less long-lived. The well-known statesmanship
of Sonnino, together with the fact that men of ability, such as
Luzzatti and Guicciardini, were placed in charge of various
portfolios, afforded ground for the hope that there might ensue an
increased measure of parliamentary stability. But the hope was vain
and, May 17, 1906, the ministry abandoned office. Curiously enough,
the much desired stability was realized under a new Giolitti
government, composed, as all Italian governments in these days must
be, of representatives of a number of political groups. In part by
reason of the shrewdness of the premier and his colleagues, in part by
reason of sheer circumstance, the Giolitti cabinet maintained steadily
its position until December 2, 1909, although, as need hardly be
observed, during these three and a half years there were numerous
changes in the tenure of individual portfolios.
*439. Second Sonnino and Luzzatti Ministries, 1909-1911.*--Upon the
retirement of Giolitti there was constituted a second Sonnino
ministry, composed of elements drawn from all of the moderate groups
from the Liberal Right to the Democratic Left. The programme which it
announced included electoral reform, the improvement of primary (p. 397)
education, measures for the encouragement of agriculture,
reorganization of local taxation, reduction of the period of military
service to two years, and a multiplicity of other ambitious projects.
Scarcely more fortunate, however, was the second Sonnino government
than had been the first, and, in the midst of the turmoil attending
the debates upon a Shipping Conventions bill, the premier and his
colleagues felt themselves forced to retire, March 21, 1910.
Giolitti refused to attempt the formation of another ministry, and the
task devolved upon the former minister of finance, Luzzatti. In the
new cabinet the premier and one other member represented the Liberal
element of the Right; one member represented the Centre; three were
adherents of Giolitti; two were Radicals; one was a Socialist; and two
professed independence of all groups. Whatever of advantage might be
supposed to accrue from a government which was broadly representative
could legitimately be expected from this combination; although the
composite character of the ministry, it was well enough understood,
must of necessity operate to the detriment of the Government's unity
and influence. The programme which the Luzzatti ministry announced was
no less ambitious than that put forward by its predecessor. Included
in it were the establishment of proportional representation, the
extension of the suffrage, measures to remedy unemployment and other
industrial ills, compulsory insurance for agricultural laborers,
resistance to clerical intrigue and the prevention of anti-clerical
provocations, and the usual pledge to maintain the Triple Alliance.
*440. Giolitti and the Left, 1911-.*--The life of the Luzzatti
government covered barely a twelvemonth. March 29, 1911, Giolitti
returned to the premiership, signalizing his restoration to power by
avowing in the Chamber a programme of policies which, for the time at
least, elicited the support of all of the more important party groups.
The composition of the new government differed but slightly from that
of the former one, but the fact was undisguised that Giolitti relied
for support principally upon the more radical elements of the nation,
and that, furthermore, he did so with the full assent of the king. A
striking evidence of this was the invitation which was extended the
socialist leader Bissolati to assume a post in the ministry. Certain
obstacles arose which prevented acceptance of the offered position,
but when the Government's programme was being given shape Bissolati
was called repeatedly into counsel, and it is understood that the
ministry's pronouncement in behalf of universal suffrage and the
reduction of military and naval expenditures was inspired immediately
by socialist influence. Socialism in Italy, it may be observed, is not
entirely anti-monarchical, as it is in France and Spain; on the (p. 398)
contrary, it tends constantly to subordinate political to social
questions and ends. Bissolati is himself an exponent of the
evolutionary type of socialism, as is Briand in France. The first vote
of confidence accorded the Giolitti government was participated in by
the Giolitti Liberals, the Democratic Left, the Radicals, and a
section of the Socialists--by, in short, a general coalition of the
Left. The shift of political gravity toward the Left, of which the
vote was symptomatic, is the most fundamental aspect of the political
situation in Italy to-day, even as it is in that of France. During
more than a generation the grouping of parties and factions has been
such as to preclude the formation of a compact and disciplined
majority able and willing to grapple with the great social questions
which successive ministries have inscribed in their programmes. But it
seems not impossible that a working _entente_ among the groups of the
Left may in time produce the legislative stability requisite for
systematic and fruitful legislation.
IV. PHASES OF PARTY POLITICS
*441. Lack of a Conservative Party: Effects.*--"From the beginning,"
says an Italian writer, "the constitution of our parties has been
determined, not at all by great historical or political
considerations, but by considerations of a purely personal nature, and
this aspect has been accentuated more and more as we have progressed
in constitutional development. The natural conditions surrounding the
birth and growth of the new nation did not permit the formation of a
true conservative party which could stand in opposition to a liberal
party. The liberal party, therefore, occupying the entire field,
divided empirically into groups, denominated not less empirically
Right and Left, in accordance with simple distinctions of degrees and
forms, and perchance also of personal disposition."[574]
[Footnote 574: Cardon, Del governo nella monarchia
costituzionale, 125.]
The preponderating facts, in short, relative to political parties in
Italy are two: (1) the absence of any genuine conservative party such
as in virtually every other European state plays a rôle of greater or
lesser importance, and (2) the splitting of the liberal forces, which
elsewhere are bound to co-operate against the conservatives, into a
number of factional groups, dominated largely by factional leaders,
and unwilling to unite save in occasional coalitions for momentary
advantage. The lack of a genuine conservative party is to be explained
largely by the anomalous situation which has existed since 1870 in
respect to church and state. Until late years that important element,
the clericals, which normally would have constituted, as does its
counterpart in France, the backbone of a conservative party has (p. 399)
persisted in the purely passive policy of abstention from national
politics. In the evolution of party groupings it has had no part, and
in Parliament it has been totally unrepresented. Until recently all
active party groups were essentially "liberal," and rarely did any one
of them put forward a programme which served to impart to it any vital
distinction from its rivals. Each was little more than a faction,
united by personal ties, fluctuating in membership and in leadership,
fighting with such means as for the moment appeared dependable for the
perquisites of office. Of broadly national political issues there were
none, just as indeed there were no truly national parties.
*442. The Groups of the Extreme Left.*--More recently there has begun to
be a certain development in the direction of national parties and of
stable party programmes. This is coming about primarily through the
growth of the Extreme Left, and especially of the Socialists. Although
the effects are as yet scarcely perceptible, so that the politics of
the country exhibit still all of the changeableness, ineffectiveness,
and chaos characteristic of the group system, the development of the
_partiti populari_ which compose collectively the Extreme Left, i.e.,
the Republicans, the Radicals, and the Socialists, is an interesting
political phenomenon.[575] The Republicans are not numerous or well
organized. Quite impotent between 1870 and 1890, they gained no little
ground during the struggle against Crispi; but the rise of socialism
has weakened them, and the party may now be said to be distinctly in
decline. To employ the expressive phrase of the Italians, the
Republicans are but _quattro noci in un sacco_, four nuts rattling in
a bag. The Radicals are stronger, and their outlook is much more
promising. They are monarchists who are dissatisfied with the
misgovernment of the older parties, but who distrust socialism. They
draw especially from the artisans and lower middle class, and are
strongest in Lombardy, Venetia, and Tuscany.
[Footnote 575: For an exposition of party
conditions during the past decade see A. Labrioli,
Storia di dieci anni, 1899-1909 (Milan, 1910).]