The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1892-07-23
TAXATION In ITALY.
Government Takes Nearly One
Third Of the Peoples Earnings.
Low Wages and High Prices Keep the
Working Glasses in a Perpetual State
of Poverty-Financial MTis-
management.

The cities of Italy, the communes
and the provinces are Threatened with
political extinction as well as with
financial ruin, says an Italian CORE
spondent of the New York Independent.
In Naples the city treasury is not only
empty, but there is a dencit in the
municipal revenue this year Of $780, 600
or more. Rome is also in a bad way
financially, and SO are Florence, Genoa,
Milan, Turin, and other cities of the
peninsula. In some of the cities build
ing Spectators have been driven to such
desperate straits that the national gov
ernment has been forced to advance
them money in order to prevent whole
sake bankruptcy and rum. As a result
of all this the people are burdened with
enormous taxes and debts. 1t may be
doubted whether any modern nation is
so heavily pressed as italy. Il would
be m easy matter for the people to re-
cover their losses were it not for the
immense burdens laid upon them by the
national government. All kinds Of To-
cal improvements, sanitary as well as
others, are at a standstil because the
people cannot pay the costs. Some idea
of the burdens which the people of
Italy are enduring may be gathered
from q brief glance at a few ofthe most
important taxes.
Income from landed estates pays a
take of 43 per cent, for national and local
purposes; rent on houses pays "a per
cent; the earnings of merchants are
taxed 10 cents on the dollar. AL in
comes a6ove s120 pay o~ne-seventh of the
amount to the government. A school
teacher receiving 5000 a year has to pay
q tax Of about S97. Cab drivers and
railway employees also endure enormous
burdens. To make all this worse the
government imposes a heavy duty on
nearly all the necessaries of life. There
is q tax on imports and there is a tax on
exports. 1t would look as if a man
were taxed for being taxed. The duty
on sugar makes that important article
of food costs from Is to 20cents G pound.
Tea costs from SO cents to 81, coffee
from 20 to co cents, according to quality.
Bread is very dear, as there is a duty of
- per cent. on imported wheat. The
people pay, either directly or indirectly,
nearly one-tdird of al their earnings to
the government. Hundreds and thou7
sands of TURNER'S have been ruined by
the int2lorGble burdens Of taxation.
Ono would imagine that, il taxes and
Tie cost OF living were SO high, wages
DC correspondingly high, but just
The opposite is true. Farm laborer5 get
but 20 cents q day on al average. Ar
receive from so to 40 cents q day,
and arc not regularly employed at that.
The waGS5 OF women are SO small as to
make 4 man blush to namet them. In the
rice fields of northern Italy women wade
to their Knees twelve hours at a stretch
10 cents. The straw plaiters of Fie-
sole, Prato and Leghorn make from 6 to
10 cents a day. Their poor fingers fly
ike spindles from early dawn till late
1t night. Skilled labor is better paid,
out 81 a day is considered good pay. A
workers in stone and marble,
and silver, make from IS to So
1er day.