Three years ago, the present Italian parliament—Italian by courtesy—was not known in Rome. The Pope was as much a sovereign as Victor Emanuel. The withdrawal of the French troops left the Sovereign Pontiff defenceless, and let in the King of Sardinia. Unprovoked and uninvited, he took violent possession of the slender remnant of the Papal States left to the Pope, and proclaimed himself King of Italy—the Pope still remaining on the soil which his predecessors owned and governed before the race of Victor Emanuel existed. Under the Papal rule, certain religious corporations—the religious orders and societies—rented, purchased, or owned certain property. The property belonged to those corporations as surely and as sacredly as property can belong to any man or body of men. Of course, when this Italian government laid its sacrilegious hand on the domain of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, it was scarcely to be expected that, with the example of Henry VIII. of England and, more recently, of William of Prussia before its eyes, it would stop short at the property of religious corporations. Consequently, we hear of a bill for the appropriation of this private property by the state. It is debated, and, after the usual objections to what is already a foregone conclusion, the property is seized by the state, and the owners turned adrift over the world.
When men, and by no means admirable men, calling themselves governments, play thus fast and loose with every vested right, Catholics are told, because they are so bold as to defend their own, that they are and, cannot be other than disloyal to that nowadays obscure thing, a state! The Vicar of Jesus Christ lifts up his voice, and, after his many warnings, pronounces the solemn sentence of major excommunication on all who have had hand, act, or part in these sacrilegious transactions, which the science of jurisprudence itself condemns utterly—and free men, with sound ideas on the rights of property, whatever may be their opinion on the rights of religion, find in his utterances insolence or ravings.
Treasures of art, libraries that are historical relics, relics of the sainted dead, all that the monasteries and convents held, flood the Italian market, and are bought up "for a song"; while the property itself is up at auction to the highest bidder. And what has this government done for the country? Has it, in a manner, justified its seizure by improving the condition of the people?
It only needs to read any of the Roman correspondents of the English or American press to know that never did brigandage exist in a more flourishing condition in Italy than since the entry of Victor Emanuel into Rome. Many Protestant correspondents, be it remembered, intimate plainly enough that the authorities wink at the brigands. Capture, of course, is made once in a while; but so occasionally as only to serve "pour encourager les autres." But, after all, there is no barometer like a man's pocket; and the rise and fall of taxation is a very safe indicator of the state of the political mart. On this point a little comparison will be found instructive.
The New York Herald, in the spring of this year, in an article entitled "The Debts of the State—Important Questions for Taxpayers," mentions, as the revelation of "a startling fact," that "the aggregate debt of the several counties, cities, towns, and villages of the State of New York, for which the taxpayers are responsible, exceeds two hundred and fourteen million dollars. This is more than ten and a half per cent. upon the assessed valuation of all property in the State.... If to this total debt of the subdivisions of the State be added that of the State itself, ... we have as the entire corporate debt of the State $239,685,902—almost twelve per cent. of the whole assessment of property." "This is a heavy encumbrance upon every man's and every woman's estate. It has grown out of a long course of reckless abuse of power, too lightly confided to legislative and the various representative bodies which control the State in its several divisions. Lavish extravagance has been too often authorized in expenditures for the public account, by men who carefully guard their private interests and credit, and it is no secret that many of the burdens imposed upon the taxpayers have enriched those who made the appropriations. How are these onerous obligations to be met? Or are they to be paid at all?"
It is doubtful whether many of the taxpayers in New York State will feel inclined to call in question the strictures here involved. At all events, the ex-Tammany chieftain has recently been consigned to the penitentiary. Turn we now to the taxation in Rome since the commencement of the Emanuel régime. A Herald correspondent, who was despatched to describe the death of our Holy Father, and the election of his successor, and, finding his time heavy on his hands—as the Pope, in the face of an outraged world, refused to die before his Master called him—collected and sent back the following little items:
This is an increase of 32½ percent., or, not including the extra tax on mortmain property, 28½ per cent., within, at the time of writing, about two years.[178] Would the taxpayers of New York, who are presumably more wealthy than those of Rome, consider such an increase of taxation as that in two or three years "a startling fact"? And what is there to show for it? Absolutely nothing. All sorts of fine schemes for improvement of the city and such like are in existence—upon paper; unfortunately, they remain there. There is a grand new opera-house to be built, however. That is something. And then those royal visits to Austria and Germany must have cost something. And Victor Emanuel himself and his worthy son Humbert lead rather expensive lives. In the account of New Year's Day at Rome, a twelve-month since, we find the president of the chamber requesting his majesty to take more care of his health. And his majesty in response acknowledges the necessity of so doing, while he assured the president that arrangements existed which would ensure that the unity and liberty of Italy would in no case be endangered.
And here the Roman correspondent of the London Times, who, like most special correspondents of that journal, hates the Pope and the Papacy with a solid Saxon hatred that not even what is passing under his own eyes can remove, furnishes us with a little further information on the same point:
"The rigorous exaction of the taxes, referred to in former letters, has been a great element of discontent, especially in the south, which has suffered in many respects from the formation of the Italian kingdom. The only chance of rescuing the country [What country?—The exchequer of Victor Emanuel.] from its severe financial difficulties and probably from bankruptcy, was in such an exaction, but it has not the less pressed very cruelly on many needy classes. And it must be owned that, instead of seeking to soothe the sufferings of the taxpayers, Signor Sella has rather increased them by his cynical mode of treatment. People think it bad enough to be mulcted until they have scarcely enough left to live upon, and are not in a mood to be made game of also"—and much more in the same strain.[179]