Parliament of Italy

“ The closing months of the last reign saw the most dangerous constitutional crisis that United Italy has known. A reactionary Government was threatening Parliamentary liberty; the Liberals and Socialists were making a desperate stand, which at all events preserved the Constitution, and perhaps saved Italy from revolution. Now the signs of danger have almost passed. The Crown is fast getting back its popularity. Parliament is asserting itself as it has not done for many years, and is able to give its time to quiet, useful work. ”

“ January 27, 1861, general elections were held, and, February 18, there was (p. 364) convened at Turin a new and enlarged parliament by which, March 18, was proclaimed the united Kingdom of Italy. Over the whole of the new territories was extended the memorable Statuto granted to Piedmont by Charles Albert thirteen years before, and Victor Emmanuel II. was acknowledged "by the grace of God and the will of the nation, King of Italy." ”

“ Why, after all, should we feel so apologetic for the voice of the piazza? All popular government, even in the limited form of a constitutional monarchy such as Italy, is a rough, uncertain affair. "The House of Savoy rules by executing the will of the Italian people." Good! But how is that popular will to be determined? Not, surely, by taking a poll of the five hundred-odd Deputies of the Italian Parliament elected two years before the world was upset by the Teuton desire to rule. ”

“ Political Rights Article 48 All citizens, male and female, who have attained their majority, are electors. The vote is personal and equal, free and secret. The exercise thereof is a civic duty. An Act of Parliament shall establish the conditions and the procedures under which Italian nationals resident abroad may exercise their right to vote in Italian elections, and shall guarantee its effectiveness. For this purpose a 'Foreign Constituency' shall be created to which Members to both Houses of Parliament shall be elected. ”

“ The pope excommunicated all who had taken part or even connived at this despoliation of Rome; but the papal bull, once so formidable a weapon, had in the course of time lost much of its early terrors. The 2nd of April witnessed the opening of the first Italian parliament, in which were representatives not only from Sardinia and Lombardy, but from Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and the Roman legations. “Our fatherland is no longer the Italy of Rome,” declared the crown speech, “nor of the Middle Ages; neither shall it be the arena wherein shall meet for combat the ambitions of all nations. ”

“ If we except the fragment of his old possessions yet held by the Pope, and the Austrian hold on Venetia, all Italy now acknowledges the rule of Victor Emanuel, who is to meet an Italian Parliament in January, 1861. No political change of our century has been more remarkable than this, whether we look to its extent, or have regard to the agencies by which it has been brought about. Two years ago, there was more reason to believe that the King of Sardinia would be an exile than that the Bourbon King of Naples would be on his travels. ”

“ Constitution and Government.—The Vatican palace itself (with St Peter’s) , the Lateran palace, and the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo have secured to them the privilege of extraterritoriality by the law of 1871. The small republic of San Marino is the only other enclave in Italian territory. Italy is a constitutional monarchy, in which the executive power belongs exclusively to the sovereign, while the legislative power is shared by him with the parliament. ”

“ In the king alone is vested, by the Statuto, the executive power, and to him alone this power, in theory, still belongs. The exercise of it, however, devolves almost wholly upon a group of ministers, who are responsible, not to the crown, but to the parliament. In no continental country has there been a more deliberate or a more unreserved acceptance of the essential principles which underlie the parliamentary (p. 369) system of Great Britain. No one of the three sovereigns of united Italy has ever sought for an instant to establish anything in the nature of personal government. ”

“ The French general, Lamoricière, in the service of the pontiff, was defeated at Castelfidardo. Garibaldi, triumphant in the Neapolitan kingdom, met Victor Emmanuel in the Abruzzi, and hailed him as "King of Italy." Naples and Sicily voted to join the kingdom of Sardinia. With the exception of Venice and the Roman Campagna, the whole of Italy was now united under the house of Savoy. On Feb. 18, 1861, the first parliament of united Italy was opened by Cavour. ”

“ My dear Panizzi,
You speak of the scanty justice done here to the cause of Italy. No doubt it is true, but something must be allowed for the imperfection of all organs contrived by men. Parliament fails, sometimes egregiously, in its duty to England. I have often thought it impenetrably hardened in injustice when the question has been about some acts of our own to Foreign Powers or countries. ”

“ The people, no longer great through the Church, fell back on the greatness which they inherited from ancient times. The spell by which the Tribune directed their palm was archaeology. In front of the Capitoline temple, near the Tapeian rock and the She Wolf's cave, he proclaimed their rights over the empire and the nations; and he invited the people of Italy to a national parliament for the restoration of Italian unity and of the ancient glory and power of Rome. ”

“ No less than twenty-two million of Italians were now united under the sceptre of Victor Emmanuel, who, in accordance with the advice of his Prime Minister, Count Cavour, dissolved the Parliament. The new election took place at the end of January, 1861. The constitution as established in Sardinia was put in force from Turin to Palermo. At the same time the King nominated, as suggested by his responsible advisers, sixty new Senators or Members of the Upper House. They were selected chiefly among the most prominent and influential men of the Provinces of Central and Southern Italy. ”

“ If Italy was to be one, all parts of it must be placed under the same laws, and that at once.
On the 11th of October the Sardinian parliament sitting at Turin passed all but unanimously the motion authorising the King's Government to accept the annexation of those Italian provinces which [Pg.322] manifested, by universal suffrage, their desire to form part of the Constitutional Monarchy. Cavour's speech on this occasion was memorable: 'Rome,' he said, 'would inevitably become the splendid capital of the Italian kingdom, but that great result would be reached by means of moral force ”

“ Article 54 All citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Republic and to uphold its Constitution and laws. Those citizens to whom public functions are entrusted have the duty to fulfil such functions with discipline and honour, taking an oath in those cases established by law.
Part 2: Organisation of the Republic Title 1: Parliament Section 1: The Houses Article 55 Parliament consists of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic. Parliament meets in joint session of the members of both Houses only in those cases established in the Constitution. ”

“ This drastic act of anti-clerical policy, which was a total repudiation by parliament of the principle of liberty of education, should have warned the authorities of the Church of the relentless attitude of the government. The most superficial observation ought to have shown them that the indifference of the nation would permit the prime minister to go to any length, and common prudence should have prevented them from affording him any pretext for more damaging measures. The President of the Republic accepted an invitation to return the visit of the king of Italy. ”

“ Party, of the purest race, who would like to reserve for Naples the fate of Palermo, and who have decided to put the whole country to fire and pillage. You see, therefore, that there are four parties, all fairly strong, and all hostile to the true National Party, which solely desires the unity of Italy under the constitutional sceptre of King Victor Emmanuel. ”

“ A will soon made itself conspicuous under that frail exterior. He applied to the consideration of every subject the ardour of an insatiable curiosity and his wish to know things correctly and thoroughly. He studied the confused conditions of Italian parliamentary life with as much perseverance as the social question. It is possible that, by democratising the monarchy, he has forestalled popular movements which, in a country so passionate in its opinions and so exuberant in its manifestations as Italy, might have caused irreparable disorders and delayed the magnificent progress of the nation. ”

“ We must establish a government which gives guarantees of liberty to the people and of severe probity to the public at large." In the succeeding days his majesty received the deputations of the newly acquired Provinces of Umbria, the Marches, Naples, and Sicily, which came to present to him officially the result of the plebiscite by which the inhabitants of those provinces declared their wish to be united to the rest of the King's dominions and so form a single Kingdom of Italy. ”

“ If Pius IX. refuses, the Italian people does not therefore draw back. Nothing remains to the free people of Italy, except to unite in one constitutional kingdom, founded on the largest basis; and if the chief who, by our assemblies, shall be called to the highest honor, either declines or does not answer worthily, the people will take care of itself. ”

“ However, the judicial authorities were perfectly just to the twenty-nine, and acquitting them all showed that if a police-ridden and licentious ministry was still possible in Italy, the era of partisan and corruptible magistracy was over. In 1874 the visits of the emperor of Austria to Venice and of the [626] emperor of Germany to Milan helped to distract the attention of the country from the tumult which reigned in parliamentary parties and the revolution which they were preparing. ”

“ But the actual and pressing question is, How can Italy be withdrawn from 6the designing men who have managed to get control over her political government under the cloak of Italian unity, and who are plainly leading her on towards a precipice like that of the French Revolution of 1789, to be followed by another of even more atrocious notoriety—that of 1871? He must be blind to the sure but stealthy march of events who does not see that, under the control of the present party at the head of the legislative power, Italy is rapidly approaching such a catastrophe. ”

“ A constitutional monarchy, such as Pius IX. sought so long to establish, would be the most secure and permanent guarantee for peace and liberty in the south of Europe. A remedy for present evils may also be found in a thoroughly representative system of government, which the system that prevails for the moment in Italy has no claim to be. There cannot, however, be representative government so long as the Italian people allow a reckless faction, which is only a small minority of the nation, to control the elections, monopolize the votes, and constitute themselves the legislature of the country. ”

“ He commenced his reign on the 9th of January, 1878, and proved himself one of the best sovereigns who ever governed a free people. He faithfully adhered to those principles of constitutional liberty which have delivered Italy from despotism, revolution, and foreign occupation. He placed himself above party strife and took his place as chief of the nation, leaving to it the exercise of the rights secured by its free institutions. ”

“ Whereas Italy was once a conglomeration of petty states and absolute monarchies, torn by warring factors, and her people steeped in universal illiteracy, she now, through her own efforts, under the intelligent leadership of children of her own soil, has become a constitutional monarchy with the real power legally invested in the people where it by right belongs. ”

“ During subsequent visits to Florence and San Remo he was received with demonstrations of popular respect, and at the latter place, shortly after his final retirement from office in 1866, he said, in reply to an address: ‘I thank you with all my heart for the honour you have done me. I rejoice with you in seeing Italy free and independent, with a monarchical government and under a patriotic king. The Italian nation has all the elements of a prosperous political life, which had been wanting for many centuries. ”

“ It was the misfortune of Italy at this epoch that she had not only to fight for independence, but also to decide upon the form of government which the nation should elect when it was constituted. All right-thinking and patriotic men agreed in their desire to free the country from foreign rule, and to establish national self-government. But should they aim at a republic or a constitutional monarchy? Should they be satisfied with the hegemony of Piedmont? ”

“ None the less, the status quo in Europe being hallowed must be respected under heavy pains and penalties. And the policy of the Consulta is directed to its maintenance, because any modification of it in favour of another State, great or small, would infallibly drive Italy out of her quiescence and strain her to press with all her energies and at all risks in the direction of a favourable readjustment. ”