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From The Fortnightly Review.

Crispi, the most powerful man until last

THE PRESENT POSITION OF EUROPEAN month in the opposition, and the most

POLITICS.

PART V.

ITALY.

powerful man since last month in the government, is called by those respectable politicians of the Italian Right who look upon all the southerners as bandits, and upon Signori Crispi and Nicotera as the leading brigands. While there are no true parties in the Italian Chamber, but only a number of personal groups, so, too, there are no real parties in Italy as regards foreign policy, and until a great change shall be publicly known to have taken place in the counsels of the Roman Curia, almost the whole Italian electorate will remain united in support of a pro-German

It seems to Englishmen an extraordinary fact that a ministry with a bare majority, and that majority itself disappearing so fast that Parliament had to be twice prorogued to give time for bringing new men into the Cabinet, should be able to sign a treaty of alliance involving obligations the extent of which are not fully known. This is what has been lately done in Italy, where a feeble ministry directed a falling minister to sign a treaty of strict alliance with powers so unpopular with the unrep-policy. resented mob that effigies of Prince Bis- So far as they can be said to exist at marck were carried about the streets of the Italian cities at the Carnival. This treaty was signed, too, at a moment when a majority of the principal organs in the Italian press were in favor, not of reversing the previous policy, but of keeping the hands of Italy free.

How comes it that such temerity is possible? In England it would be impossible. England is far more directly menaced in her interests, at all events in her Indian Empire, by Russia than Italy is menaced by France or Russia, yet no weak English ministry could enter in time of peace into an alliance with Austria and Germany against France and Russia, and assuredly no ministry could do so without facing Parliament. The opposition in Italy is not wanting in vigor, but it would seem at first sight as though Signor Crispi must be singularly inferior in offensive power to Lord Randolph Churchill for the conclusion of such an alliance to have been possible. It is difficult to understand the phenomenon unless we remember that weak as may have been the late government in Italy they were faced by a divided opposition, and unless, also, we trace at length the effect upon Italian foreign policy of the occupation of Rome in face of the continual protests of the Vatican. To attack the government upon their failures in Abyssinia was an easy task, but to incur the wrath of Prince Bismarck was too much for the courage even of the "Lord of the Rats and Mice," as Signor

all, the Italian parties going by the name of the Right and Left may, roughly speaking, be said to be the successors of the Cavourian and Garibaldian sections of Italian Liberals. The advocates of Italian unity having been divided into two parties, whose adherents were respectively in sympathy with constitutional monarchy under the house of Savoy and with republican institutions, the old names adopted in former days have been retained while the distinctions between Right and Left have disappeared, and are now applied to agglomerations of groups which have personal rather than political significance. For many years after the death of Cavour power continued in the hands of the moderate men who held his views. Between the Right represented by Signor Minghetti, and the extreme Left which contained the adherents of Mazzini and Garibaldi, there gradually arose a kind of third party, the Left Centre, of which Signor Rattazzi was a prominent member. From this group, when the Left itself came into power, it took the present prime minister, Signor Depretis, in whom Italy found that it had obtained a Parliamentary leader who possessed the tactical art of Parlialiamentary government in a high degree, and who has been willing to constitute at various times governments of the most diverse elements, supported in turn by every section in the Chamber, from the Right to the extreme Left. It cannot be too strongly or too often stated that in

Italy nominal adherence to the Right or | ple, when Signor Depretis first came into Left does not necessarily imply the hold-power with a Cabinet representing the ing of any definite set of views. The moderate Left, Signor Cairoli, another of Right is in general supposed to contain the leaders of the Left, saw no reason why the more Conservative politicians, but he should not make a coalition with the leaders of the Right like Signor Bonghi | Right, but finally decided to give a genhabitually describe themselves as Liber-eral support to the Depretis ministry. als, and on not a few questions are in fact After this Signor Depretis brought into more Liberal than are many members of his government representatives of the the Left. There are Unionists to be Right, and obtained the support of the found both in the Right and in the Left. greater portion of the Right, while he lost There are Federalists divided in the same the support of a large section of the Left. manner, and free traders and protection- Later again, the opposition to Signor ists are not confined to any one group. Depretis was led by the "Pentarchy," or The only section which contains a com- alliance of five leaders of the Left. This plete body of adherents to any set of views combination brought together at the head is the extreme Left, but then it is a very of the majority of the Left Signori Cairoli small section, and naturally the groups and Crispi, who had often opposed each contained in it are smaller still. The other; but later still Signor Depretis had extreme Left contains at once the uncom- taken two of the Pentarchs to his side in promising Irredentists, and the mere hand- the persons of Signori Crispi and Zanarful of peace at any price Radicals who are delli. The three other Pentarchs have their bitterest opponents. That which been considering during the last few weeks ought to be the real Right is absent from whether they shall ask for embassies as the Chamber although present in large supporters of the government (it being numbers among the town councillors of understood that Signor Cairoli would like municipalities-the Clerical Conservative to come to London), or shall lead a reconparty. The most Conservative of the stituted opposition. It will be seen that Right who sit in the Italian Chamber we in spite of the coalition between the modshould call Whigs, or high and dry doc-erate Left and the Right, which is known trinaire Liberals, and they closely resem- in Italian politics as "the transformable the Belgian Liberals, with whom many tion," the transformation of parties and of them agree in their strongly anti-cleri- party names, unfortunately for the cause cal feeling. of clearness, is not yet complete.

Much confusion is caused, of course, in It was after the fusion of the chief part foreign countries in the minds of those of the Right with that portion of the Left who attempt to follow Italian politics by which was represented in the Depretis the use of the phrase "the Left" for a ministry, that is, after the elections of body of politicians who form the vast ma- 1882, that Signor Depretis began to take jority of the Chamber, and who are in part what may be called a strongly Conservasupporters and in part opponents of the tive line, and to adopt as the cardinal present and of all recent ministries, and points of his policy those main objects who contain representatives of the most for which the Italian Right had all along opposite classes of opinion. Among the contended. These were the support of Left are to be found some Radicals, some the monarchy and of the law of papal Socialists, some Republican Anti-social- guarantees, and the maintenance of the ists, and even some Conservatives. Com- alliance with Germany and Austria. At posed as it is of heterogeneous elements, the same time, the Pentarchic Left which the Left is broken up into personal fractions, and it is high time that a new division of the Italian Chamber should be attempted. Want of distinguishing principle leads to the most curious apparent changes of personal grouping. For exam

was opposed to him, although containing elements really hostile to the monarchy and elements opposed to friendliness or neutrality towards the Church, was not willing frankly to attack Depretis on any of these grounds. We may conclude,

then, that whatever may be the party | paign. The personal nature of Italian names in Italy, the great majority of Ital- politics is clearly seen from the manner ians, or at all events the great majority of their representatives in the Chamber, are really united upon all the larger questions that are likely to come up.

in which the Italian prime minister "sheds off" his colleagues instead of making common cause with them; and Italy will never find ministerial stability until the English and Belgian system of standing or falling together is rigorously enforced. While the great majority of Italian poli

ance, for reasons which we shall presently consider, they have to face a minority which, though as small among the electors relatively as it is in Parliament, makes nevertheless a great deal of noise. The more numerous opponents of the AustroGerman alliance are those who declare for the policy of "free hands," and who are really supporters of the very "German policy" which they denounce; men, that is, who, while refraining from signing treaties in time of peace, would, were war to break out, enter for themselves into the same alliance. On the other hand, some of the young men burn Bismarck in effigy, and profess friendship for France. These are mere "savages" or "wild men," as the Germans would say, and are not worth counting, any more than are the ultra Irredentist faction, who would quarrel at one and the same time with England about Malta, with France about Savoy, with Austria about the Tyrol, with Switzerland

Along with the existence of a great and predominant mass of good sense, there is a little eccentricity in Italian politics, shown by the occasional return of swin-ticians support the Austro-German allidlers, libellers, lunatics, and murderers to sit at Montecitorio. The special local causes which tend towards these peculiar elections are aggravated by that very absence of direct party issues and of parties, in the English sense of the term, of which I have just now spoken. While parties and distinguishing principles are wanting, men are plentiful. The deaths of Minghetti and of Sella were a tremendous loss to the Right, but these statesmen left behind them Signor Bonghi, and Italy was able to find in Depretis and Magliani ministers of remarkable ability, and in Cairoli an opposition leader of high honor. The recent reconstitution of the Depretis ministry will, it is understood, make no change at the Consulta, for foreign affairs have passed into the hands of the prime minister himself, who is not likely to reverse a policy which was in fact his own. In taking back Signor Zanardelli, whom he had lost once before, his ministry may seem to have become less Con-about the Ticino, and with Turkey and servative, for when Zanardelli and Baccarini left him to become two of the Pentarchic chiefs, the former Depretis ministry was transformed into a Conservative ministry, resting upon the support of the Right and of the Conservative section of the Left; but while taking back his more advanced colleague Zanardelli, and taking Crispi from the ranks of the opposition, he has also taken in a minister of war who belongs to a very different section, so it cannot even be said to be clear that Signor Depretis has once more turned back towards that Left from which he came. The difficulties of his government before the change were caused, not by differences of opinion upon points of policy, but by the withdrawal of active support by a portion of the Right, owing to the unpopularity of the Abyssinian cam

Greece about Albania. They have received, however, few as they are, a certain amount of practical support from some opposition newspapers, which are continually asking very disagreeable questions about the amount of good which the Austro-German alliance has wrought. It is difficult to explain that, besides working good, this alliance may have prevented mischief in the past and may bring tangible benefit in the future, because it would be equally inconvenient to have to explain what had been the dangers averted and what were to be the benefits received. But besides the Austro-German alliance, there is a feeling in favor of close friendship with England which is also popular with the electorate. Lord Palmerston's assistance in the Garibaldian expedition to Sicily; England's steady friendship