In the towns, it is not the palaces, but the houses of the middle class that are the most heavily rated. Take the palace of a nobleman in Bologna, and a small house belonging to a citizen, which adjoins it. The palace is valued at the trifling sum of £1,100, on the ground that the apartments inhabited by the owner are not included in the income. The actual rent of which the owner is in the receipt for the part left off is about £280 a year: his taxes are £18 a year. The small house adjoining is valued at £200. The rent derived from it is £10 a year, and the taxes paid on it are £3. 7s. 6d. Thus we find the palace paying something like 5s. 6d. per cent. on its income, and the small house £1 7s.
The Lombards justly excite our compassion. But the proprietors of the province of Bologna are taxed to the annual amount of £1,400 more than those of the province of Milan.
To this crushing taxation are added heavy duties on articles of consumption. All the necessaries of life are liable to these taxes, such as flour, vegetables, rice, bread, etc. They are heavier than in almost any other European city. Meat is charged at the same rate as in Paris. Hay, straw, and wood, at still higher rates.
The town dues of Lille amount to 10s. per head on the population; those of Florence, about the same; and those of Lyons 12s. 6d. At Bologna they are 14s. 2d. Observe, town dues alone. We are already a long way from the 7s. 6d. of the Golden Age!
I am bound in justice to admit that the nation has not always been so hardly dealt with. It was not till the reign of Pius IX. that the taxation became insupportable. The budget of Bologna was more than doubled between 1846 and 1858.
Something might be said, if at least the money taken from the nation were spent for the good of the nation!
But one-third of the amount raised in taxation remains in the hands of the officials who collect it. This is incredible, but true. The cost of collecting the revenue amounts, if I mistake not, in England, to 8 per cent.; in France, to 14 per cent.; in Piedmont, to 16 per cent.; and in the States of the Church, to 31 per cent.
If you marvel at a system of extravagance which obliges the people to pay £4 for every £2. 15s. 10d. required for their mis-government, here is a fact which will enlighten you on the subject.
Last year the place of municipal receiver was put up to auction in the city of Bologna. An offer was made by an honourable and responsible man to collect the dues for a commission of 1-1/2 per cent. The Government gave the preference to Count Cesare Mattei, one of the Pope's Chamberlains, who asked two per cent. So this piece of favouritism costs the city £800 a year.
The following is the mode in which the revenue (after the abstraction of one-third in the course of collecting it) is disposed of.