The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II

by William James Stillman

A little later the combination was formed in the Chamber to overthrow the ministry. I had some time before befriended Monsignor X., the victim of an outrageous act of injustice on the part of the French government, and of accessory indifference on the part of the Vatican, and he had repaid me by valuable information from the Vatican from time to time. When this ministerial crisis was in progress, Monsignor X. came to me one evening to tell me that the chiefs of the factions in opposition were in conference with agents of the Vatican to support them in the overthrow of Crispi. The Vatican promised to release Catholics from the non expedit in case of the fall of the ministry and the necessity of going to the country in a general election. The ministerial combination which accepted this pact with the immitigable enemy of the unity of Italy, whose sole motive for hostility to Crispi was the latter's invincible antagonism to the temporal power and the immixtion of the Church in civil affairs, comprised a leading Republican and Radical, Nicotera, and Rudiní, the chief of the ultra-Conservative group, beside members of various groups of intervening shades of politics. Knowing little of the rottenness of the politics of Italy at that time I was amazed by the information of Monsignor X., and went at once to the Palazzo Braschi to inform Crispi and ascertain if there was positive confirmation of the information. I asked him to use his means of intelligence at the Vatican, which was always sure, and so well informed that Cardinal Hohenlohe told me one day that Crispi knew better what was passing at the Vatican than the cardinals did. On inquiry he discovered that my news was true, and for the first time he understood the full meaning of the combination against him.

That the King should have accepted Crispi's resignation under the circumstances (the adverse vote in the Chamber, being a surprise vote involving no question of policy, and, as all knew, the result of a secret combination—a conspiracy, in fact) was a grave mistake on the part of His Majesty, and opened the way to all the confusion and parliamentary anarchy which has followed, and which to-day is increasing and menaces the stability of the throne and the unity of Italy. The government of Crispi had been most successful, his attitude in the Bulgarian affair had rendered an important service to the cause of European peace, as was acknowledged by Lord Salisbury in a published dispatch, and he had strengthened the ties between England and Italy; he had maintained perfect order, and had effected economies in the national expenditure to the amount of 140,500,000 lire a year, besides suppressing some annoying taxes and without imposing any new one, and when he fell gold was practically at par and the financial position solid as it had not been since 1860. He had decided on the reform of the banking system, which would have prevented the catastrophe that fell on the succeeding ministry, and the rotten banks and the corrupt element in the Chamber which was in their pay were the leading element in the combination against him. Under these circumstances the King's duty was to support a minister who had at the grave crisis of the death of Victor Emmanuel saved the dynasty from a serious danger, who was universally known to be the only Italian statesman whose nerve was equal to any sudden emergency, and of whose devotion, as the King personally assured me later, he was absolutely certain. That no reason for the crisis existed was shown by the fact that the succeeding ministry adopted the identical measure on which Crispi was defeated. But the King (whose death has occurred while I am revising these chapters) showed on many occasions that, though loyal to his constitutional obligation so far as deference to parliamentary forms is concerned, he never had the nerve to assume a responsible attitude or maintain the authority of the throne; and, while he was ready to abdicate if popular opinion demanded it, he was unable to withstand a factious and revolutionary movement as his father had done, by calling to his support the statesmen who could maintain order when menaced. His form of constitutionality was perfectly adapted to a country where the Conservative forces were supreme and the institutions solid; but in a half-consolidated monarchy, attacked from within and without by dissolvent influences as is Italy at present, he was a cause of weakness to good government. And Rudiní assured me when I went to pay the formal visit of congratulation on his accession to power, that the King had said that he was in the position of the young Emperor of Germany when he threw off the yoke of Bismarck—he was tired of Crispi's strong hand. The King later denied the statement in an audience he gave me, but I am afraid that Rudiní was, for a novelty, nearer the truth.

Rudiní as minister of foreign affairs began with a blunder which might well have been fatal. When the murder of the Italian prisoners at New Orleans took place, he determined to show his energy and patriotic spirit, and he telegraphed to the Italian minister at Washington to demand of the federal government the immediate bringing to justice of the murderers under the alternative of sending the Italian fleet to New Orleans. This amazing display of ignorance of the situation and of geography appeared in the Roman journals of the next morning. As I knew enough of the temper of my countrymen to foresee that this demand was certain to end in war or a humiliating result to Italy, I jumped into a cab and drove over to the ministry of public instruction, the titular of which, Professor Villari, was an old friend of our life in Florence, and begged him to go at once to Rudiní and urge the countermanding of the telegram of the previous night, for, as the federal government had no jurisdiction in the case, it could not comply, and the imperious demand of the Italian government, intended for home consumption and as demonstration of the high spirit of the ministry, was certain to be peremptorily responded to, while the menace of sending the ironclad fleet to New Orleans was absurd and impossible of execution as the Mississippi did not admit ships of their draft, to say nothing of the defenses of the river and the certainty of war if the ultimatum were pushed. Vlllari at once took a cab and drove to the house of the minister, and we never heard anything more of the matter.

The presence (which nothing but the amorphous state of Italian politics could explain), in that scratch ministry, of Villari, one of the most devoted, honest and patriotic of living Italians and for years one of my best friends in Italy, secured my support of the ministry until their financial measures came on, and I was obliged to expose their specious character in the "Times," when our friendly relations ceased temporarily. Political opponents in Italy are more likely to meet with seconds than at a friendly dinner party, as used to be the case in the days of Minghetti and Sella, and this passionate personal antagonism for purely political motives which influences all political and social intercourse in Italy is one of the gravest causes of political decline.

Amongst the notable men whose friendship I gained at this period of my service was Von Keudall, the German ambassador, one of the most human diplomatists whose acquaintance I have ever made. Like Dufferin, he measured exactly the distance to which a correspondent could be treated confidentially, without encouraging him to presume on cordiality. Introduced to him by Sir John Saville Lumley, I was treated as one of the diplomatic body, with the confidence which is so important to a journalist, and as long as he remained in Rome our relations were of the most cordial and unceremonious. Wishing to make me a confidential communication one day and the coast not being clear, he asked me, in the presence of others, if I had ever seen the view from the tower of the embassy, and, as of course I had not, he invited me to come and see it, and we had our conversation on the platform of the lookout with all Rome and the Campagna spread out before us, beyond the reach of others' hearing. Von Keudall was a power in Rome, and no ambassador of any government in my time had the influence at court that he had.

During the period of Von Keudall's residence Lord Rosebery came to Rome, in an interval of being in opposition, and, as the late Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and probably a future occupant of the same post, it was important that in a brief stay he should see all the important people in the capital. Lady Rosebery, who was the most assiduous and intelligent manager possible of her husband's interests, had sent for me to ascertain who were the people whom he should know in order to learn the true condition of affairs in Italy. Chief amongst them I put Von Keudall, but, as Lord Rosebery did not know him, and the custom of Rome is that the newcomer makes the first call, Lady Rosebery was in a quandary, her ideas of the position of her husband not consenting that he should make the first call on an ambassador. At the last moment, for he was to leave Rome the midnight following, she begged me to tell her how the acquaintance could be made, without derogation of Lord Rosebery's position between two portfolios. "Give me his card," I replied, "and I will manage it." I had intended to ask Von Keudall for some information, and I made my visit, finding him engaged with a dispatch, and as I wrote a message on the business on which I had come, I added that Lord Rosebery was at the Hôtel de Rome and was leaving that night, and left his lordship's card with mine. When I got back to the hotel I found Von Keudall's carriage at the door and him closeted with Lord Rosebery. And certainly no man could then have told the English statesman the state of things in Italy so well as the large-hearted German ambassador, who enjoyed the confidence of every element in Italian politics as a sincere friend of the country. He was recalled later on account of a pique of Herbert Bismarck, whose untimely meddling with public affairs had, I believe, more to do with his father's fall than any act of the Prince. As an eminent German statesman put it, in a conversation not long after the recall of Von Keudall, "a Bismarck dynasty could not be tolerated." Von Keudall was succeeded by his antithesis, a nullity in court and country of whom even his fellow diplomats could say nothing in praise.

The Rudiní ministry had no long life and merited no more, while that of Giolitti, which followed, ended in scandal and disaster. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Brin, with whom alone I had had to do, was an honest, able, and patriotic man, and my relations with him were always excellent. The fall of that ministry coincided with the culmination of the financial and political disorders which were the direct consequence of the overthrow of Crispi and the demoralization which ensued. From the beginning of the financial embarrassment which came to its crisis during the term of Rudiní's government, I had devoted much attention to the financial situation and had predicted the crash when no one else foresaw it. But for Villari I should have been expelled from Italy on account of my letters exposing the situation, which created such a sensation that Rothschild wrote to a financial authority in Rome to inquire what truth there was in them, receiving naturally such assurances as only hid the trouble. But when the crash came people said, "How did you know? What a prophet you were!" etc., etc. Tanlongo, the director of the Banca Romana, which led off in the crash, threatened the "Times" with a libel suit, and accompanied the threat by offers to me of personal "commercial facilitations" to drop the subject. The argumentum ad hominem did not weigh, but it was desired in the office to avoid legal troubles and I was advised to keep a more moderate tone. The disaster came so soon after, however, that I got all the credit, and maintained abroad the prestige of a greater authority in Italian finance than I perhaps deserved.

It is true that honesty and courage are two things that a correspondent has no right to boast of, for honest editing and management presupposes them in him, and a conspicuous want of either cuts his career very short unless he is uncommonly clever; but as the result of my personal experience I may say that, having campaigned with many English colleagues, I have found them to be almost universally men of thorough honesty and unflinching courage. Personality aside, I think I may be permitted to say so much of a profession of whose real character and besetting temptations no one can know so much as one of themselves, and of whom the general public knows very little.

The financial authority which thus accrued to me became of not unimportant influence a little later when the second scratch ministry broke up under the financial depression, with gold at 16 premium, the scandals of the bank affair oozing into publicity, and insurrection breaking out in Sicily and Tuscany, with movements pending in the Romagna, where the spring had come late and so saved the country from a great disaster. It became so clear to even the most benighted partisan that a strong hand at the Palazzo Braschi was imperiously necessary, that even the strongest Conservatives submitted in silence to the call for Crispi which came from all parts of Italy, and no section of the Chamber except the extreme Left, who were the prime movers in the insurrectionary movement, raised the least objection to the old Sicilian's return to the position from which the most corrupt and ignoble intrigues had driven him hardly three years before, years of discredit and steady demoralization.

The disgraceful struggle for office then grown characteristic of Italian parliamentary politics now assumed the most shameful form that I have ever known. The general sentiment of the country was that Crispi should be given dictatorial powers, and one of the Venetian deputies, an ultra-Conservative, coming fresh from an audience with the King, said to me that Crispi ought to be made dictator and that the King had professed his readiness to confer that power on him; and the chiefs of all the factions that had been engaged in the conspiracy for his downfall in 1891 were among the most eager to enter his ministry, when the King finally gave him the call to form one, after having combined in the most desperate intrigues to effect some other combination. In the anteroom of the minister designate all the political world, personally or by deputy, was represented except the friends of the insurrection, who fought him by every device. I met there a Roman deputy who was one of the amphibious politicians that breed freely in Italian politics, who gave his right hand to Crispi and his left to Rudiní, and who, under the impression that I had great personal influence with the old man, begged me to urge him to offer the portfolio of Foreign Affairs to Rudiní. In fact, my defense of Crispi in the "Times" in 1891 and the fulfillment of my predictions of his inevitable and necessary return to office, at a moment when there was no one in Italy who did not consider his career at an end, gave me a purely fanciful importance as a counselor in the crisis and as having great weight with the minister.