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    ^ • t /sfrtir »v i»n (SyrtytltHl UJ;Ol[i^»JjUlUltl|f?»

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    Untitled Article

    but wages . Of the £ 9 , 813 , 181 voted for the navy £ 2 , 794 , 738 went for stores , . £ 2 , 487 , 062 for wages to seamen and marines , and . £ 995 , 647 for provisions , leaving £ 3 , 535 , 784 devoted to the payment of the officers . This is another illustration in detail of the transfer of property from the classes living on wages to the tipper classes . We enter not into the question whether or not it is right to make these various transfers . _ Some of them , as those for payment of the National Debt , are necessary , if -we would , keep the faith the Government has pledged ; but the others rest on a totally different footing , and . ^ nust Jbe defended , if defended they can be , by their present utility .

    Into such an immense question as the utility of those services to the -labouring multitude , for which they are compelled to pay so largely , we cannot enter at the tail of a . long article . We must say , however , that many of the services for which they are compelled to pay are performed exclusively for the other classes , and are directed against themselves . At the same time , it is a matter of perfect notoriety that neither their right of property nor their right to perfect freedom is now , or ever has been ,

    protected by the Govei-nment in the same manner and degree as it has protected the property and the freedom of the tax - receiving classes . We have on this occasion no other object in view than to point . out the classes who receive the taxes ., Only a fraction of the grand total , as we have shown , is received by the class "who have no incomes but wages , and the bulk is received by the classes who are comparatively rich . For their behoof exclusively thestate seems to exist . All classes require undoubtedly to know and reflect on the fact that all taxation is a

    transfer of property from one class to another . The services for which the transfer is made are , in many cases , of very doubtful utility , especially to the labouring multitude , and what we and others complain of is , that of these servic 5 . es the bulk of the taxpayers—the unenfranchised multitudeare not allowed to judge , while they are compelled to pay for them . In our estimation this is not just . We cannot say , with this and many other similar examples of injustice in flourishing existence , that such an unjust Government , as the Times asserts , is now impossible ; but we believe that it is every day becoming more a difficulty , and will , at some time or other , be an impossibility , For that time we may all be on our guard .

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    RETROGRADE ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS . After months of hesitation and vacillation , the Congress for the discussion of Italian affairs is at length decided upon , and invitations have been issued for the meeting of the representatives of the great Powers early in January next . Meanwhile , the Governments which may be spoken of as indigenous to the Italian soil are doing their best to keep up their reputation for maladministration . In so doing they perhaps deserve the

    thanks of the friends of liberty and progress . Had they been induced by arguments of political expediency , temporarily to-modify their arbitrary , cruel and absurd enactments , and yet more arbitrary , cruel and absurd manner of carrying out those enactments , and substituted something approximating to wise regulations applied with justice and forbearance to individual cases , it might have redounded to their own interest by causing powers who are at present watching every turn taken in Italian polities to relax in their vigilance and suffer the afliiirs of the Peninsula to bo Si-ranged ,

    by those who have taken an active part in unsettling them . As it is , however , tho English , whoso influence , both direct and indireot , is so groat and important , continuo to have their feelings harrpwed and their indignation roused daily by accounts of systematic oppression and espionage and tho most reckless cruelty in tho administration of what can . only by a legal fiction bo termed justice . To take tho States of tho

    Church ns an example , and give but one case m point selected from numbers : —only the other day a soldier named VaselH was condemned , whether justly or unjustly , to befogged for some infraction of military discipline . In the execution . of this sentence the culprit ' s head was struck so that lus faoe repeatedly came into violent oontact * with tho table on whioh ho was placed . Having fainted before the conclusion of the punishment ho was raised , and Ms foce was foundf to be reduced to

    a mass of pulp , the features quite unrecognisable . - The Government of Francis II . of Naples , so far from being an improvement upon that of his predecessor , Ferdinand , proceeds daily from bad to worse . His father ' s policy was at least frank and open . He never made the least secret of his intention to keep his pSople ground down beneath his iron will , except , indeed , when cir 6 umstances now and then compelled him to make fair promises , to save his life or his throne , and pass his word to grant a constitution , or sonic other trifle , which he never , in reality , meant to concede . Upon the accession of Francis j II . to the throne , Naples conceived the ) brightest hope , from the

    sympathy which it was fancied he manifested with the war then raging in Upper Italy ; but these hopes were only conceived to be dissipated . The most moderate of the Liberal party saw in General Carlo Fiiangieri a man capable of embracing the great thought of the age , with sufficient tact to overcome any latent disinclination for progress on the part of the young sovereign , and strong enough to demolish the intrigues of the old courtiers . His elevation to the premiership , accompanied by a somewhat imposing public manifestation after the battle of Magenta , was looked upoa as a s sign that brighter days were in store for the Neapolitan kingdom . Although little faith had been placed in irilancrieri in 1848 , he was looked up to with

    confidence as able and willing to assist in promoting reforms in 1859 . A very short time , however , sufficed to show that , instead of reforming the Government and directing it according to the almost universal desire , Fiiangieri . would compelled to succumb to the old party . He wished and promised , but effected ^ nothing . The Government maintained neutrality in the war rather in appearance than in reality , since it prevented volunteers from taking up arms in the Italian cause , and persecuted those who manifested more sympathy for the Italo-French than

    for the Austrian ? . In the management of internal affairs no care was taken to remedy abuses , to restrain the police in the vexatious exercise of their functions , or to set at liberty the numbers who had long been arbitraril y left to groan in prison without examination or trial . The new ministry was composed of the most contradictory elements , none of its members were capable of looking beyondpersonal advantage . Some of the ministers of the former cabinet possessed the ear of the

    monarch ; and more than one , though deprived of his portfolio took part in the councils of State . It may readily be conceived in what an embarrassing 1 position Fiiangieri found himself . After a few months he took occasion of a slight illness to demand six weeks' leave of absence , and retired to his villa of Sorrento . At the expiration of this period , seeing things were darker and _ more threatening than ever , he asked permission to resign his presidentship of the council and of war , to

    declaring himself ready to afford Jus services the King as a soldier , but not to be responsible for the false and fatal policy of the Government . Since then Fiiangieri has exercised the functions of Minister of War , but not those of President of the Council . General Carascosa , well known for his Austro-Neupolitan principles , filled Filangieri ' s post as minister , during his absence from Naples . Upon the return of the latter , Carascosa refused to ouioiai

    append his signature to documents ot an nature . Fiiangieri also refused , because ho ^ vas no longer minister . No now president was ^ appointed , and business was loft unsettled . This stato of things had continued some weeks , when an urgent decree required , to be signed , and the signature was appended in tho following manner : —For tfie President of the Council absent ; tho Minister of Wa ?\ Prince of Satriano . From this fact an idea may be gained of tho weakness and want of order manifested in tho Neapolitan Government , and tho disaccord which reigns between tho members of the ministry . Public affairs have , no life , but are wrapped in profound mystery and thick darkness—no doubtJn part , tho eiloct of tho wunt of precision with which they are conducted .

    Franois II . issues proclamations and amncstiop , addressed to his own subjects , which can have no other end in view than to docoivo foreign nations , since they are followed by private instructions of a totally contradictory nature sent by tho dirpotor of police to the intendantu of tho several districts of the monarchy . Such has recently boon

    text arising out of personal ill-will and malice , and which well illustrates the stupid . bigotry and ignorance of the Neopolitan employes . vVe allude to the case of Fillippo de Vico , one of the clerks employed in the extensive iron-foundry of the English firm of Guppy and Patterson , at Naples . ¦ From his superior talent and industry , De vico enjoyed the confidence of his employers , and was consequently the object of envy and hatred to his fellow-workmen , who , anxious to effect his ruin , met with co-operation in their design from the priest of the parish in which the works are situated , and the celebrated commissary of police ,

    Camthe case with the amnesty granted to the attendibili , or persons exiled to some part of the kingdom remote from their homes and families , and to whom the adoption of any profession or pursuit of any calling is rendered impossible . This amnesty was intended ostensibly to improve the condition of these political and , for the most part , innocent victims , but a circular , issued . two days after , completely nullified it in every particular . A striking case has been made public within the last few days of the gross injustice with which individuals may be imprisoned on the smallest

    prepagna . c We refer our readers to the columns of one of our daily contemporaries for a description of the efforts made by Mr . Guppy , during a week , in order to rescue De Vico from imprisonment , and also for an . exemplification of the brutal ignorance in which the Neapolitans are kept , as manifested in the terror , real or assumed , occasioned by poor De Vico ' s harmless French exercises . Happily for him his case was energetically taken up by an Eng-ilishman , or he would very likely have ended his days in prison . It is utterly impossible but that

    such facts as the foregoing should tell upon the feelings of our Government and rep resentatives in the approaching Congress , and bias public opinion in England , more strongly than might otherwise have been the case , in favour of supporting those States which arc anxious to free- themselves from , the cruelty and tyranny apparently inherent in the soil of Italy proper , and only to be escaped by union with that northern portion of the Peninsula so long looked upon as a foreign land , but now regarded as the one spot of safety and independence .

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    LETTERS FROM ITALY . PiOUENCE . Things go on very quietly with us here . The English shopkeepers complain that trade is dull . The hotels are empty , or at best half full , and solitary travellers feel uncomfortable at the reflection that the whole expenses of these vast gloomy hostelries have to be provided for in some way or other , and that they themselves form the only

    ostensible sources of revenue , not to spoak ^ of profit . The carriage drivers and the flower girls of the " Cascine , " too , look anxiously for the return of the strangers on whom they live , lliese classes , however , who form tho great party of order we hoar so much about , soem to be the only discontented people Tho town itself looks wonderfully prosperous . I hardly think I ever was in a place which presented so many outward There police

    signs of good government . are no a&ut the street ,, and yet oyorytfainff w orderly and quiet . The town is but ill lighted at the best of times , and in all but the side streets tho lamps are put out by cloven o ' clock . The streets , too , like those of nil southern towns , arc very narrow , and tho houses very high , with dark , gloomy doorways-, « o that anything more desolate and deserted than tho streets of Florence late at night can hardly bo conceived . Yet , having often returned to my loduiiiffB at . i late , hour , ! have never on any occasion

    mot with the slightest annoyance . wrqnKou * u «« scorn unknown m this part of tho world , with rare exceptions . The surrounding suburbs are cultivated like gardens , and dotted with villas on every slde . As one walks on an afternoon out of the city , on any of the hill-side roads , as I am tond of doing , one moots whole strings of mules and carts , and light peasant cars , returning homewards from the town Somo one or other onco said that nil Italy might bo described in the linos of tho hymn" Whuro ovary profipoot plcauou , And niftn afono 1 » vUo . " Well , for my part I say that , ploasant as tho

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    Jfo . 506 . 'Dec . 3 , 1859 ] THE LEADEB . 1323

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 3, 1859, page 1323, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2323/page/15/