Literature itself is threatened in the most perilous and insolent manner by the following lines in Article 2 of this Crispian programme:—
‘Whosoever by means of the press, or in whatever other figurative sense (qualsiasi altro senso figurativo) instigates the military to disobey any law, or to be lacking in respect to their superiors, or to violate in any manner the duties of discipline, or the decorum of the army or of men under arms, or exposes it to the dislike or the ridicule of civil persons, shall be punished by imprisonment of a term varying from three to thirty months, and with the fine of from three hundred to three thousand francs.’
With such a comprehensive decree as this the delightful Abbozzi Militare of De Amicis might be condemned as wanting in respect, whilst Dante, were he living, would be sent much further than Ravenna.
Every one who attacks in print existing institutions is to be dragged into a criminal court, and from thence to prison; the philosophic republican, the meditative layman, who dares to bring his well-weighed thoughts to bear against existing institutions, will be set in the same dock with the thief, the forger, and the murderer, and from the dock will pass to the ergastolo, to the diet, the clothes, and the existence, of common felons.
This is a violation of intellectual and personal liberty which does not concern Italian writers alone; it is one which should rouse the alarm, the indignation and the sympathy of every thinker in every clime who from his study endeavours to enlighten and liberate the world.
Stripped of its pompous verbiage this addition to the Code will enable the government to silence and put away every public writer, orator, pressman, or deputy, who is displeasing or annoying to them. Observe the provision to treat as penal all judgments of the press passed on verdicts of the tribunals. The tribunals are at present merely held in some slight check by the expression of public opinion given in the daily press. This check is to be removed and the most conscientious, the most honourable of journalists, may be treated as a common malefactor and deprived of trial by jury. To be judged by jury has hitherto been the inalienable right of newspaper proprietors or of contributors to the press. It is impossible to exaggerate this menace to the liberties of the press. An insolent and unscrupulous minister, and a timid and servile parliament, have reduced the Italian press to the level of the Russian press.
There is scarcely any political article which the ingenuity of a public prosecutor could not twist into a criminal offence, and this project of law is so carefully worded that the meshes of its net are wide enough to entrap all expressions of opinion. Anything by its various sections may be construed into incitement to disorder or rebellion. John Bright and Stuart Mill would be condemned with Krapotkine and Tolstoï[Tolstoï]. A writer writing against conscription would be treated as equally guilty with one writing in favour of regicide.
The assassination of opinion is a greater crime than the assassination of a man. John Milton has said that, ‘It is to hit the image of God in the eye.’
The whole provisions of these new laws are no less infamous; they will legalise arbitrary and unexplained arrest, and will condemn to ‘domicilio coatto’ any deputy or citizen who may be suspected or obnoxious, and the law can be stretched to include and smite the simplest expression of individual views, the mere theory and deductions of philosophic studies.
This paper could under it be easily attacked as an apologia pro anarchia.