Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-04-11

)ect over twenty-one years Of age who can read
and write and who pays direct taxes to the
amount Of 10 lire, 80 centesimi (about S4).
Thus at one stroke the electors were increased
become to the passive existence they endured
under old Italy that not more than about
half OF the electors have - yet taken part in
the elections.
CHANGE OF MEN, NOT PRINCIPLES
The more important parties Of the chamber
OF deputies are the conservatives or moderatss,
the ultra-radicals or extreme left and the pro-
gressists- The democratic party, composed
mainly Of radicals, doubtless increases in
numerical strength-Signor Crispi himself
once belonged to it-but is not revolutionary,
a fact that Is chiefly due to the liberal policy
OF King Humbert, who has given the impress
sion that he would not wish to rule over Q
nation that did not desire him for king.
II has been suggested already that there is
not much real difference between the policy of
Crispl and that Of his successor in office. The
change was change Of men, not of princi-
pies. The differences between the tenets of
the parties among the deputies are not radical.
They are all factions Of the liberal party From
1860 to 1876 (the year Of Crispis great tri-
umph( the country was under the moderates.
Then 1t passed into the hands Of the progress
lists. But the moderates are not conservatives
or tories In the sense in which Englishmen use
those words. They are merely less radical pro-
gressists. They are for church and state, but
they have uniformly abandoned the church
when they feared that it might reassert its
temporal sway.
THE SILENT BUT POWERFUL CLERICAL PARTY.
Among the masses of the people interest in
parliamentary government and parliamentary
parties is faint, fact of which the feeble exer-
else Of the right Of suffrage is conclusive
PROOF: This has been explained upon the the
ory that few of the laws passed affect the
people In their daily life. But outside of par
Lament there exists strong party and it is to
this party that liberal Italy is unalterably and
unitedly antagonistic. The motto of the party
known as the clericals has always been,
Neither elect nor be elected" The organiza-
ton is thus silent one, but it is none the less
powerful on that account 1t depends for its
ultimate triumph mainly upon foreign inau-
Signor Bonghi, himself one of the most pro-
nounced members of the moderate party.
1.-The pope's policy beyond the Alps" he
wrote, lis quite different thing from his pol
icy on this side Of the mountain frontier. Nay,
the gentler it is there the bitterer it becomes
here. In fact. in all the pope's conduct it ia
difficult to discover single sign of reconcilia-
ton with Italy, of acceptance of the conditions
which the kingdom has created for the papacy
Leo XIII does not pour out on the kingdom
the wordy torrents of Pho Nino, but his ami
mus toward it is in nowise changed and, as the
years pass. this becomes ever clearer. =
The kingdom as it is constituted, and as alone
1t can be constituted, cannot allow the pope,
as sovereign, to possess single c1-un,b of Ital
ian SOIL but the pope does not conceive now,
any more than he did in the past, of
the independence of his spiritual power un-
accompanied by some span Of territory Of his
own. Among the reasons that in
fuence the pope's trans-Alpine policy stands
foremost the desire to create for himself
favorable opinion among foreign governments
I'M vrhi oh hall
future revindication. He is convinced that
some day or other the impossibility of the free
exercise OF spiritual power apart from tenn
poral sovereignty will be made so clear to gov
ernments and peoples that it will be restored to
him by common accord. This conviction Of
the pope and the Curis is as strong today as in
times gone by"
cR1sPI AND DI RUD1NI FOES TO THE cLER1cALs.
Against this party Signor Crispi has always
been bitterly opposed. what" said he in
speech delivered in 1883, "what can you oppose
to this vast creation, which has no earthly
limits and which pursues men even into the
heavens?" His successor is equally its foe, but
1t has stronger enemy than either of these in
the king. His utterances on the subject have
been such as to leave no doubt as to his posi-
ton. He is Catholic. The queen is q most
devout member Of that religious sect. His
subjects are Catholics, but he is not willing to
yield to the head of the spiritual world any
temporal power over his subjects.
Italy is liberal. The clericals on one side
and the irredentists on the other will neither of
them triumph in our day unless an extraordi-
nary change takes place in the temper of the
people. But Italy is, after all, the newest
nation in Europe, and broad national spirit
has not yet had time to blossom and bear fruit
In the meantime the salvation of the people
rests in disarmament. and this cannot be &C
complished unless the other powers Of Europe
agree to pursue the same course.
So much briefly for the country Of the Malta,
whose premier measured swords with our
premier. 1t is a country not only interesting
because of its antiquities, but because of its
politics. All America has always taken an in
terest in the former, but it is only recently
that the country has ever been called upon to
take any account of the latter.