The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-13 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 13, 1869.

MINISTERIAL CRISIS IN ITALY.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT,)

ROME, SEPT. 8.

I am induced to take up my pen sooner than I should
have otherwise done, by the increasing gravity of the
situation of the Italian Cabinet, and its consequent and
necessary reaction on Roman affairs.

The council of Ministers, held on the 3rd, was a most
stormy one. The whole of the Cabinet, save Ferraris,
was strongly in favour of a dissolution as the sole means
of avoiding the impeachment of the Ministry. The
King, however, was extremely unwilling to resort to this
measure, fearing a Mazzinian Parliament, and being,
moreover, desirous to recall Rattazzi to office.
Menabrea, however, and his colleagues are said,
on good authority, to have carried this point,
and a dissolution has been resolved on. The
corruptions of Piruti, the Minister of Justice, were
among the scandalous disclosures most dreaded, and the
report of his mental alienation is being industriously
spread to stave off further inquiry. In the meantime
there is no doubt that a formidable agitation is setting in
against the shameless corruptions of the Cabinet and its
employ6s in nearly every department of the Administra-
tion, and that a formidable list of derelictions of public
honesty can be framed against them. The "Legs degl
'Onesti," or League of Honest Men, is becoming a
sort of rallying point in Italy, and it is a good sign
that it is so ; not that its members are much more
respectable than those they are attacking, but that
hitherto public virtue has been a very jest and mockery
in Italy since 1860. Every successive party has gone
into office poor and left it rich. The treasury has been
considered the lawful plunder of every needy official.
Politics have become a trade, patriotism a speculation,
and the only persons found to attack the abuses have
been those who hitherto have not enjoyed an opportunity
of doing likewise. The shameless system of incerti,
maucie, and every courteous term for theft under trust
has passed into the Italian character so deeply and
fixedly that it is difficult to uproot it, or make the nation
take a pride in honesty. A poor gentleman is the
most despised of beings in Italy, and a man leaving
office with empty hands is written down as an ass.
It is this which renders every administration suspected
and odious to the people. Not that the Mazzinians would
chew a better example, as the immense fortunes amassed by
Bertani, Crispi, and others plainly sbews—fortunes
squeezed from the subscriptions of the Roman committees,
and from the spoils of the Neapolitan Government.
A man like Nelson, Pitt, or Disraeli, would be simply
impossible here, and the one maxim is "Fate Quatterini"
—put money in thy purse. You must make a new tradi-
tion, a new race, and a new people before public virtue
is possible to the present Government. There were
two influences in past generations which counter-
acted the love of money in the Italian character;
religious and local attachments. An Italian in the last
century would do far more for Florence or Milan than he
would do for Italy in the present day, and every hour
confirms the wisdom of the municipal institutions by which
Italy became great, and which were far more adapted to
her people and their habits than parliamentary ones,
which have simply fallen into the hands of adventurers,
and alienated (as in the United States) her noblest and
best citizens from public life.
I have dwelt on this, for a crisis is advancing with
giant strides on Italy, and those far off will seek for the
cause, which will long have been patent to those who
have studied her social and moral condition on the spot.

Garibaldi has been called on by the different societies of
working men to take an active part in the new elections,
and seems to have consented, and should the Chamber be
dissolved, you will hear of him in the central and northern
cities, the southern part of Italy being already sufficiently
devoted to the Republican party. The truth is that the
clerical party will give a passive support to the Mazzinians,
or to any party who will upset the Italian monarchy, so
far as abstaining from action goes. They will not vote
for Garibaldian candidates, as it would be against their
principles and conscience to do so, and they will not vote
for the official candidates, and this neutrality will probably
turn the scale. At Catania, and indeed in most towns in
the south, the authorities have begun to attend public
religious functions, which they had formerly ceased to do.
This is owing to the sort of understanding existing between
the Bourbonists and the Republicans.
The Farnese Palace is being prepared for the royal
"couches." Her Majesty returns on the 15th of this
month, and is in excellent health, according to letters
received from Schon Staremberg yesterday. The Nea-
politan noblesse will come from Naples in great numbers
for the occasion. The birth will take place in October,
and will be, if it be of a prince, of very great political
importance in Italy, especially taken in connection with
the present unpopularity of the House of Savoy.

4 O'CLOCK, P.M.

Letters received since I begun this speak of the possi-
bility of the Crown deciding on callirg on Eattazzi to
form a Cabinet. If so, he is certain of a defeat ; and a
Cabinet must then be formed of which the editors of the
Ficcanaso and Cazetlino Josa will be the most re-
spectable and the most Conservative members. Mena-
brea is seeking the support of the clergy, but they have
resolved on entire abstention from the affairs of the
whole of the Conservative classes.'
Official notice has been received in Venice of the pas-
sage of the Empress of the French. She will arrive on
the 15th or the 17th, and embark at once for Alexandria.
Trains and steamboat passages to Suez are being orga-
nised all over Italy. A new canal from Ostia to Ancona,
right across the Peninsula, is talked of in connection
with the opening of the port of Ostia and the new rail-
way. It is said by several eminent engineers to be
perfectly practicable.

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

- - 411.- -

ME3IBERS OUT OF PARLIAMENT.

Mr. Howard, M.P. for East Cumberland, noted
an interesting fact at an agricultural dinner at
Brompton the other day. He believed that the
" statesmen " of Cumberland were diminishing in
number ; or, in other words, that the practice,
so long honoured, of the son succeeding to
his father's acres was disappearing, and that the
son very often was tempted by considerations
of greater profit, and for various other reasons,
to withdraw his interest in the cultivation of the
land, and take his capital elsewhere. Mr. Howard
is sorry for this, because he is a firm believer in the
theory that land is better cultivated by the owner
than by the tenant. The Cumberland representative
hopes that the land question in Ireland will be
settled, not merely by giving the tenant security and
compensation for improvements, but by devising
fume means of rendering the occupier in due time a
proprietor.
Mr. Henley, M.P., at Thame, and Mr. Reed, M.P.,
at Attleborough, both adverted on Thursday to the
present outbreak of foot and mouth disease. The
latter gentleman feels confident that the malady is
imported from abroad, and that every precaution
against receiving diseased cattle ought to be taken.
He denies the assertion that the English farmers are
wishing to revive Protection. All they desire is to
preserve their herds from contagion. Mr. Henley,
too, hoped that there would be no cavilling over
remedial measures. Prevention and cure ought to be
aimed at by all parties concerned, in the best spirit
and with the purest intentions of doing good. Colonel
North was present at this dinner with Mr. Henley.
He " spoke, but said nothing."