The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-04-20
ITALY'D CONDITION AND PROS
PECTS.


"A Continental Statesman" contributes
to the Contemporary Reyicss an instructive
paper on the condition and prospects of
Italy and her present government. The
writer Is evidently what his nom de
plume represents him, and has evidently
enjoyed facilities for acquiring an inside
knowledge of politics, not only in Italy
but throughout Europe.
It 10 his Judgment that unless King
Humbert's government shall initiate a
complete change Of policy, both foreign
and domestic, the House of Savoy must,
within . very brief period, be overthrown
and be superseded by republic He
holds that the monarchy now rests upon
the edge of an abyss from which it can
only hope to escape by such prompt and
radical change of policy. In this connec-
tion he recalls as prophetic the declaration
Of i840 by Mamiani, that ''Rome must
belong either to the Pope or Cola Rienzi,n
meaning that it must become strictly
ecclesiastical state or republic.
The essential change of policy which
this writer suggests is to substitute what he
ISM to free italy from its unnatural and
necessarily costly alliance with Germany,
and restore the original, natural and COM
paratively inexpensive alliance with
France, which was most unwisely and
to Italy most injuriously thrown over
board soon after the foundation of the
present Italian kingdom in 1870. That
the French was the natural and judicious,
and the German an unnatural, injudicious
and ruinous alliance is based on the fact
that both the Italian and French govern
ments are revolutionary in their origin
and their people alike democratic in their
impulses. while that of Germany rests on
the assumption of divine right and is the
hereditary foe of the Latin races, reaching
away back into the barbaric ages of both
France and Germany.
This unnatural alliance with Germany
lcd-as was inevitable--to military alli-
ance with that country and its allies
against France, necessitating military
and naval establishment and an outlay
which the new kingdom, scarcely consoli-
dated. with rude financial system and on
uneducated, in part scarcely civilized
population, was wholly unprepared to sup
port. Not only did the triple alliance i'm
pose upon Italy a military and naval
establishment doubly more expensive
than il could afford, but this begot rela.
tons to France that compelled rivalry
with that country in colonization schemes,
for which Italy was not at all prepared,
and which could not result otherwise than
disastrously.
A financial condition not many removes
from hopeless bankruptcy has been the
result. In the last year of political neu-
trality. 1881, the national expenditures of
| all kinds amounted to s245 200, 900. In the
| eighth year of the German alliance, 1889.
| the expenditures had increased to $780,
| 100000, an addition of SOS, 900. 600, or
nearly IS per cent. In the former year,
under the neutrality policy. there was an
excess of Sic, 900 in revenue above ex-
| penses. In iss9 the triple alliance in
| VOWED expenditures of S45 200, 600 in excess
| OF the total revenue.
In the face of this change, and the kim
| dred abrogation of her commercial treaty
1
country, both exports and imports, has
| been rapidly falling of and public credit
| exists only in name, without reality.
| French banks no longer negotiate Italian
paper, and innumerable industries hereto
fore prospering as result of such accom-
| modations and OF French trade have sus-
| pended or are languishing. This, of
course, has deprived of employment vast
bodies OF operatives and has reduced the
| compensation of many more.
But inversely to their diminished ability
70 pay has been the increase of taxes i'm
posed upon the Italian people. Added 10
all this is the strained relations existing
between the monarchy and the Pope.
They coexist on Italian soil but are un-
reconeiled and irreconeileable. But this
| writer entertains no doubt that there
! could be immediate and perfect amity es-