The Staffordshire and Potteries Examiner. — 1880-07-10 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

IMPORTANT LEGAL POINT SOLVED • AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS IN ITALY.  ---AWednesday, before Messrs. Cox, Mason, and t Stratford.on-Avon Borough Magistrates' Comt, . A Naples correspondent writes !—The Econamsts, in a very lucid article, shows that the great distress :4 adgon, Elizabeth and Emma Miller, residing to- amongst the agricultural classes in Italy is chiefly her at 236 Bagley Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, duo to the exorbitant land taxes. It may be asserted r. charged by the Guardians of the Stratfer-d-on. ! without exaggeration that 200 million francs taxes Union with neglecting to contribute towards are levied on the soil, which represent a direct tax Aso,: 1 i rt of their parents, who are in receit of of eightt francs on each one of the twenty-five milt suppop , ..on acres (more or less: at present under cultivation rhuilrelief.-3fr.Warden, clerk to theGuarthans, the resent was a test case, as it involved the in Italy. While all othsr industries enjoy the adSaid p i 'l33b.:ity of unmarried daughters to contribute to- I ventage of laws facilitating the turning-over of w.rde their ~,,,rent., minteeanee. The defend.te. capital, and benefit by the elasticity and mobility that characterise modern national economy, nothing parents raided in Ely Street, Stretford, and were in eipt of is. and three loaves weekly. About a is done for agriculture, which has been, and is now ,00nfh ago, by order of the Board, the daughters Tore than ever, embarrassed by the corn laws. s °thing has been done to render more easy the ,sere written to, and requested to contribute ls. each ..,,, week. They refused, and mid they were not transfer of Landed property, while other capital, by 'table, widow the Guardians had a law of their own, a thousand different forms of credit, may rapidly ex. They now stated that they had been advised that change hands. Indeed, the formalities accompanying Guardians could not legally compel them a transfer of land necessitate much serious expense, I coutribute.—Mr. Warden said that was tic and yet frequently fail to secure the legal acquisition ..., : solar opinion but it was erroneous. tinder on sal, of landed property. Little or nothing has 43rd Elizabeth, chap. 2, sec. 6, it was been done to effect an orderly and equable distribu. tion of taxes, or to improve Gm present very i u 'chid "the father and grandfather, and the mother ~• : zmndmothzr, and the children of every poor, imp4rfeet system of mortgages. At present eapinit ~ ...rid, lame, or impotent person, or every poor avoids agriculture, because its employment in that -ii not able to work, being of sufficient ability, industry affords only an int erect of three or four a, at their own charges, relieve and maintain Per cent. —about one half of that gained in other „nry such poor person," (Glen 's+ Poor Law trades. A capitalist wishing to inve,t in land first ;estates:l. The only question to be decided was finds it with great difficulty, and, when found, it whether the word " children " included daughters. comes to him laden with imposts exceeding ten per --The Bench eaid the natural interpretation woe that cent. The whole sum of mortgages on land in I' aia.—The Magistrates' Clerk said he could find nO Italy amounts to no less than 12 milliards and a half psoffent to go upon: but were it the reverse way, of francs, which does not represent so much capital and the defendants were inheriting property, he had employed in the improvement of the land, but, on Ifi/e doubt that they would claim tobe "children." the contrary, an enormous burden of interests and —flr. Warden mid the defendants had set the exorbitant expenses that render the soil of Italy ji,e,d at defiance, and the latter now brought the over more sterile, and the movement of agriculture saw before the Bench as a test case—The Bench impossible. A few statistics from the year lull that tho defendants were liable by law to con- 1878 will give a better idea of the effect Milne towards their parents' support, and ordered Of all this. In that year about 77,733 Italians emiewps to pay a sum of Is. per week—the amount grated, the greater number being agricultural .tal by the Guardians. —Seeing that the defendants laboarers. There were 1,159 suicides, of which tel been wrongly advised, and that it was the first 241 were attributable to privation • and the number caw that had come before the Bench, the magistrates of persons in the hospitals afflicted with pellagra was ordered the costs of the proeecution to be defrayed alarining Italy, will 29 000 millions of inhabitants, piths Board of Guardians. with a superficial area of 296,000 square kilometres, produces about 110 million bushels of wheat, 20  Million bushels of barley and oats, has 3,403,000 head of cattle, and 81 million sheep and goats; while England, with a superficial area of only 130,000 square kilometres, produces about 104 million bushels of wheat, 18.1 million bushels of barley and oats, has 8i millions of cattle nod 34 million sheep; and certainly the soil of England is by far inferior in fertility to that of Italy. The actual condition thereto of the national riches of Italy is this: Heavy imposts weighing on landed, property, and unfavourable lawn; small profits to both proprietor and labourer, leading the one to employ his capital, and the other his labour in more profitable pinatas, which results in the abandonment of agriculture, the diminution of the means of subsistence, higherpriced food, and, in specially hard times, in excessive emigration, a larger death rate, and the increase of the terrible disease, pellagra.