Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1892-07-18
TAXATION IN ITALY.
Government Takes Nearly One.
Third OF the Peoples EarninQa.
Low Wages and High Prices Keep tho
Working Glasses In = Perpetual state
o. POverty-F1nnncial Mis-
management.

The cities Of Italy, the communes
and the provinces are threatened with
political extinction as well as with
financial ruin, says an Italian corre-
spondent OF the New York independent,
In Naples the city treasury is not only
empty, but there is q deficit in the
municipal revenue this year of 5000, 900
or more. Rome is also in a bad way
financially, and SO are Florence, Genoa,
Milan, Turin, and other cities of tho
peninsula. In some of the cities build
ing spectators have been driven to such
desperate straits that the national gov
crnment has been forced to advance
them money in order to prevent whole
sake bankruptcy and ruin. AS q result
of all this the people arc burdcned with
, enormous taxes and debts. 1t may be
doubted whether any modern nation is
so heavily pressed as Italy. 1t would
be an 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 standstill because the
people cannot pay the costs. Some idea
Of the burdens which the people of
Italy are enduring may be gathered
from n brief glance at q few of the most
important taxes.
Income from landed estates paws a
Tax of 43 per cent. for national and local
purposes; rent on houses pays 81 per
cent; the earnings OF merchants are
taxed Ii cents on the dollar. All in
comes above $3.50 pay one-seventh of the
rmount to the government. A school
teacher receiving 5000 year has to pay
4 tax of about S27. Cab drivers and
railway employees also endure enormous
burdens To make all this worse the
government imposes heavy duty on
nearly all the nccessaries of life. There
IS a tax on imports and there is tax on
exports. 1t would look as if n man
were taxed for being taxed. The Gaty
On sugar makes that important article
IT food costs from Is to 20 cents II pound.
Tea costs from so cents to al, coffee
rom 40 to 60 cents, according to quality.
Bread is very dear, as there is duty of
20 per cent. on imported wheat. The
people pay, either directly or indirectly,
learly one-third of all their earnings to
he government. Hundreds and thou
,ands of farmers have been ruined by
| The intolcrable burdens of taxation.
One would imagine that, if take /
;hc cost of living were 50 high, wages
would be corrcspondingly high, but just
he opposite is true. Farm laborcrs get
but 20 cents n day on an average Ar
isans receive from 80 to 40 cents day,
md are not regularly employed ut that
| The wages Of women are so small rs to
/ mike n man blush To nnne them In the
ice fields of northern Italy women wade
0 their knees twelve hours at n stretch
or 10cents. The straw plaiters of Fic-
| ;ole, Prato and Leghorn make from to
0 cents day. Their poor fingers fly
ike spindles from early dawn till late
It night Skilled labor is better paid,
mt 81 day is considered good pay. A
CIV workers in stone and marble,
'ronze and silver, make from 80 to S5
! per day.