CHAPTER XXXIX
CONCLUSION (1872-1900)
The union of Italy was so triumphant, the efforts which accomplished it so heroic, and the whole tone of Italian history throughout the Risorgimento so romantic and noble, that the period since of necessity looks flat and dull. The Italians themselves had imagined that the union of Italy would be followed by some career, political, moral, or intellectual, that would be comparable to the career of ancient Rome. A reaction was inevitable. No nation could continue at so enthusiastic a pitch. Moreover, the difficulties before it were great.
Chief of these difficulties was the persistent hostility of the Papacy. Pius IX, a kind, lovable, timid man, wholly inadequate to cope with a revolutionary situation, had passed from his early sympathy with the liberal movement to the opposite extreme, and hated it with the hatred of fear. His hatred of liberal ideas may be seen in his conduct with regard to ecclesiastical matters. He insisted upon the extremest conservative dogma, as if it were a shield to protect the Papacy, the papal city, the Papal States, and the whole Catholic world, from all assaults of Satan and his liberal crew. First he proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, next he published the "Syllabus," which is a condemnation of all those doctrines commonly embodied in Bills of Rights. Finally, he convoked the Vatican Council (1869-70), and procured a decree that the Pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals. This decree gave the death-blow to whatever remains of republicanism there were in the Church, and established the Pope as absolute monarch. An Ecumenical Council, representing the Church, had previously been the infallible head of the Church; now the Pope was substituted for the Council.
In this way the Church more and more assumed an attitude of irreconcilable hostility to the ideas that prevailed among the educated classes in Italy. After the occupation of Rome by the Italian government, Pius shut himself up in the Vatican palace and proclaimed himself a prisoner. He first advised and then commanded Catholics to stay away from the polls at national elections, and directed his foreign policy to the end of reëstablishing his Temporal Power. This policy, judged by the popular belief in the divine right of nationality and of majorities, is of course wrong; judged by one who regards the interests of the Church as paramount, it may be defended as an attempt to adhere to the old ways under which the Catholic Church had played its extraordinary part in European history. After the occupation of Rome the Italian government passed the Law of Guarantees (May 10, 1871), which guaranteed to the Pope an annual subsidy of somewhat more than 3,000,000 lire a year, and also the personal and diplomatic rights of a sovereign, such as to maintain his court, to receive ambassadors, to have separate postal and telegraph service, to keep the Vatican and Lateran palaces, etc. Pius IX refused to accept the subsidy.
Another difficulty, which has confronted the government since the union, has been the discord between the North and South. The northern provinces, especially Lombardy and Piedmont, have been making progress in manufactures and in commerce; whereas, on the contrary, the South, very ignorant and very poor, and devoted to agriculture, wine, grain, lemons, oranges, etc., without facilities for manufacture and without capacity for commerce, has made doubtful advance. Special causes have hindered it. In Sicily, in consequence of long-continued poverty, ignorance, and misgovernment, the secret societies, known as the Mafia, have overrun great parts of the island. The original cause of the Mafia was probably self-protection, the lower classes banding together to save themselves from the oppressions of the upper classes who clung to the remains of the feudal system. The landowners, for example, had used their control of the courts to maintain privileges and injustice. As a natural consequence, members of the Mafia deemed it ignoble to revenge wrongs by judicial process, and still more ignoble to give any information to any officers of the government. They settled their own disputes and righted their own wrongs. With the grant of suffrage the Mafia became a political power, and only permitted the election of such candidates as it approved.
In Naples there was also a power behind the scenes which resembled the Mafia, but in reality was totally distinct and individual. This Neapolitan power, a legacy from Bourbon times, was the Camorra, a society of criminals or ruffians on the edge of crime, organized for the purpose of levying tribute by blackmail; it was not unlike the worst municipal rings in this country, and gained its livelihood from the vicious, and from politicians who benefited by its support. Both Camorra and Mafia have been very great obstacles to social progress, and still exist.
The North, conscious of a higher standard of civilization, has wished to educate and reform the South, and also, perhaps, has not been unwilling to let taxation fall more heavily in proportion upon the agricultural produce of the South than on the manufactured products of the North. Resenting this assumption of superiority, and suspicious of unfair treatment, especially with regard to indirect taxation, the South has felt itself aggrieved; and so there have been continual misunderstanding and friction between it and the North.