It gave me great pleasure to learn, as it has been already stated, on a recent visit to Sardinia, that the administration of the law was become more pure, the police improved, outrages were less frequent, and confident hopes entertained that banditism, now confined to a small number of outlaws, would gradually die out. There is no doubt it will do so when the laws are respected as in other parts of the Sardinian dominions.
In regard to the judges and other civil functionaries, we found everywhere the deepest antipathy towards the Piedmontese. Sardinia for the Sardes, was like the cry we often hear from our own sister island. Sala treats the subject with his usual temper and good sense. He admits the advantages of an administration conducted by natives possessing a knowledge of the country, conversant with its language and customs, and of a temper more conciliatory than foreigners invested with authority are likely to exhibit. He also admits that there is extreme mediocrity, and even ignorance, in the lower class of functionaries who arrive in the island with appointments obtained in Turin or Genoa. Sala relates a ludicrous story of one of these officials, who chanced to be his companion in the steam-boat from Genoa to Cagliari, being recommended to the Intendant-General as the chief of a department under him. When half-way across, the candidate for office had yet to learn whither they were bent,—“Si fece interrogarci per dove possimo diretti.” Afterwards, says Sala, when chatting in Cagliari, he reproached the Sardes with ignorance and indolence because, though their land was surrounded by the sea, they did not know how to supply themselves with a river,—“Non sapevano formarsi un fiume;” adding, with great self-complacency,—“Li civilizzeremo, li civilizzeremo!”
Such impertinences are calculated to irritate the native Sardes against the continental officials; and they are generally detested. Our author, however, candidly allows that intrigue prevails so universally in the island, and the influences of relationship and connexions are so great, as to raise suspicions of the purity and fairness of native functionaries, especially of those who have been brought up under the old system,—a school of corruption. Signor Sala therefore suggests, that while appointments, both on the continent and the island, should be equally open to competent candidates, without respect of birth, great advantages would be obtained by this interchange. The Sardes being habituated by residence for a while, and the transaction of business, on Terra Firma; and thus withdrawn from unfavourable influences, would be prepared to fill honourably offices at home. This seems a wise and obvious mode of abating a grievance of which the Sardes not unjustly complain.
Having mentioned before the gigantic evil of the vast extent of commonage claimed and exercised throughout the island, destructive of the rights of property and quite incompatible with agricultural progress, I have only to add that measures are contemplated for facilitating and protecting inclosures where lawfully made; but so as not to injure the great interest of the proprietors of flocks and herds, the staple production of the island. In this view it is proposed to place the great domains of the communes under better management.
Among various other reforms and beneficial projects to which the attention of a more enlightened government must be directed, in order to raise Sardinia to the rank she is entitled to hold by the extent of her resources, and the intelligence of great numbers of her inhabitants, we can only enumerate, without observation, the educational system generally, including a reform of the Universities of Cagliari and Sassari,—sanitary measures tending, at least, to alleviate the insalubrity which is the scourge of the island,—improved police arrangements throughout the interior,—an increased supply of the circulating medium, the deficiency of which is represented as extreme and injurious to trade, and “Agrarian Banks;”—an entire new system of communal roads, connected with the great national highways, which roads, it is said, would double the value of property wherever they passed,—the protection and careful administration of the forests,—measures for developing the great mineral wealth of the island,—and the encouragement of the coral fisheries.
Nor have we exhausted the list; but enough has been shown to satisfy the reader who accepts the statements we have laid before him, from our own observation and from the best information of the capabilities of Sardinia and its present condition,—how much is required to place her on a footing with other European states, and with what hope of eventual success. A vast field is, indeed, open for cultivation by an enlightened and patriotic administration. Great difficulties will have to be encountered, arising mainly from the indolence, the supineness, the prejudices, the ignorance, and the poverty of the Sarde population. The progress must be gradual, but noble will be the reward earned by that exercise of vigour, discretion, and perseverance, by which the obstacles to improvement may be overcome.
There is one highly gifted man, who has long filled a distinguished place in the service of his sovereign and the eyes of the world, in whose hands the task of regenerating Sardinia, herculean as it may appear, would be not only a labour of love, but facile comparatively with any others on which it may devolve. I speak of General the Count Alberto di Marmora, known to all Europe by his Topographical Survey, and his able work, the Voyage en Sardaigne, of which two additional volumes have been recently published. But, perhaps, his devotion to the best interests of the Sarde people, his labours in that cause, and the esteem and affection with which he is universally regarded in the island are less understood. Enjoying also the confidence of the king and his ministers, General La Marmora is eminently fitted to carry out the beneficial designs which he has long conceived and furthered; but his advanced age precludes the hope of his seeing them accomplished. May his mantle fall on no unworthy successor!
One subject of special interest in connection with Sardinian progress has been reserved for a more particular notice than we have been able to afford most others, both on account of its importance, and its having much engaged the attention of the master-mind most conversant with the situation of affairs. At the outset of our rambles in Sardinia, it was observed that the Sardes are averse to maritime occupations; the Iliese of La Madelena, who are so employed to some extent, being a distinct race. Sardinia has no mercantile marine. Signor Sala states that there are only four or five vessels belonging to natives, and, of these, two are the property of the same rich owner. Considering the advantages of her position, and the products the island is capable of supplying for an active commerce, he considers the want of a mercantile marine one of Sardinia's greatest misfortunes, and treats with much good sense of the means calculated to promote its establishment.[75]
General La Marmora drew attention to the subject in a pamphlet published at Cagliari in 1850, under the title of Questioni marittimi spettanti all'isola di Sardegna; and resumed the subject in 1856, in another work, which he was so obliging as to give me, when at Cagliari, in 1857. It originated in the expected completion of the line of Electric Telegraph between Algeria, Sardinia, Corsica, and the continent of Europe; its connexion with which, and its bearings on commerce, I may have to refer to on a future occasion. The General comments on the extraordinary fact, that, in an island 800 miles in circumference, there only exist four sea-ports, properly so called. These are Cagliari, on the south coast, Terranova, on the east, Porto-Torres, on the north, and Alghero on the west. All the other villages and towns on the coast stand more or less distantly from it, and cannot be called maritime. He considers this depopulation of the coast as the deplorable consequence of the devastations of the Saracen corsairs, and the continual piracy which was carried on to a late period, and only ceased on the conquest of Algeria by the French.
It would be foreign to our province to detail the projects which General La Marmora suggests, or advocates, for giving expansion to the commerce of Sardinia,—such as the establishment of light-houses on Cape Spartivento, and other points; improvements in the harbour of Cagliari, and a better supply of the place with water. He considers the now almost deserted town and port of Terranova, at the head of the fine gulf Degli Aranci, on the north-eastern coast, to be a point of great importance from its position in face of the Italian ports, and as the proper station for the postal steamboats communicating between Genoa and the island of Sardinia. In reference to this, he mentions that the project of a law for encouraging colonisation in the island, was presented by the Minister to the Chamber of Deputies in February, 1856; the proposal being to grant 60,000 hectares of the national domains to a company formed for establishing agrarian colonies. The cabinet of Turin, then, are alive to one of the great wants of Sardinia,—an increased and industrious agricultural population. But General La Marmora desires that a part of the colonists should be maritime, drawn from La Madalena, Genoa, and other ports, and settled at the proposed new harbour of Terranova.