The cause of recurrent convulsions of agitation among the working class and the slender middle class is not entirely to be attributed to the propagation of socialistic doctrines, as the government is so ready to explain it. It is all a leaven of discontent working within the population, a realization of the isolation in which they are left, of the deprivation of the rightful help and support from the government which with provident laws and measures should defend their interests, and further encourage and protect their industrial undertakings.
The various ministers, during the last thirty years of Italian political life, have done nothing that was remarkable for these Southern regions, whose economic conditions, though troublesome in the beginning, have gradually grown worse.
As a matter of fact, the recurrence of those social phenomena have given people at a distance who were inclined to turn their observation and consideration on our affairs, a different impression from that which would be gathered if the inward causes were otherwise studied, and this attests in a very considerable way the moral sentiment of our people, who, though of great sensitiveness and resentful of wrong, quietly sustain the additional adversity of being misunderstood, even when instinctively rebellious to all forms of oppressive authority.
On the day after the conflict in 1893, when the administration of that day set on foot measures to favor the Southern provinces, which should eventually alleviate the severe hardships of our condition, the universal discontent began to disappear rapidly.
The resumption of quiet was not the result of the presence of bayonets and the pronouncing of exemplary sentences from temporary tribunals, for our people fear neither, but came about through the administration’s pledging itself to help the population and hurriedly presenting to parliament new and old schemes for relief. Owing to political changes, these remained merely in their former status, that of schemes. Our people, mindful of the past, realize in the new promises of the government nothing but a quantity of pious lies, destined to deceive or satisfy, if for no other reason, with their beautiful sound and appearance. So pretences and claims on behalf of these promises are merely like bad drafts of short date, and even had the government fulfilled them it would not have been generosity, but apportioned justice.
The hardships of southern Italy—those of Sicily are common with those of the other regions—are of an economical nature, and arise from complex causes, in which are competing factors, but antique and recent, permanent and transitory, and thus inducing excessive taxes divided unjustly, agrarian and mining crises, lack of needed public works, not of merely electoral nature, but of a most necessary sort, the insufficience of roads to connect districts, and the disproportionate rates of the railroads for freight and transportation.
The first step toward a gradual reduction of these oppressive tariffs, after so many years in which there has been so much complaint, has at least been achieved in a very cautious way by the first ordinance of Minister Palenzo, which went into effect with good results at the beginning of the present month. It is to be hoped that our legislators will uphold it with additional and greater reductions.
There still remain unsolved some other notable questions, among which are the annual tithes of one-tenth taken by the Church, the system of renting piecemeal large properties on oppressive leases to the peasants, and others, all waiting these many years to be adjusted and regulated by a wise legislation. Also from the distribution and opening up for cultivation of the great demesnial estates (Church property confiscated by the governments a quarter of a century ago), Sicily and the other southern provinces could extract great benefit and profit.
The provincial evils will increase gradually, but powerfully, if radical reforms are not introduced and carried out in the matter of the existing agrarian régime, in which pauper peasants, on account of their miserable condition, are making themselves greater burden-bearers under onerous and usurious contracts, thus prostituting their industry to usury and impeding all agricultural progress.
Meanwhile the population is increasing so rapidly that the products of the soil are become insufficient for their very necessities. Prompt aid to agriculture, which is the important resource of southern Italy, is needed if the Meridionale population hope to derive any increase in benefit or profit. Only with a readjustment of the agricultural régime and the leasing of country properties may we hope for a true and healthy social revival. With the renewal of parliamentary procedures it is to be hoped that the government will seriously undertake the Southern Italian question.