If the industrial conditions in Italy were so bad as we
compassionate outsiders have been taught to suppose, this financial
change is one of the most important events accomplished in Europe since
the great era of the racial unifications began. No one will pretend that
there have not been great errors of administration in Italy, but
apparently the Italians have known how to learn wisdom from their folly.
There has been a great deal of industrial adversity; the cost of living
has advanced; the taxes are very heavy, and the burdens are unequally
adjusted; many speculators have been ruined, and much honestly invested
money has been lost. But wages have increased with the prices and rents
and taxes, and in a country where every ounce of coal that drives a
wheel of production or transportation has to be brought a thousand miles
manufactures and railroads have been multiplied.
The state has now taken over the roads and has added their cost to that
of its expensive army and navy, but no reasonable witness can doubt that
the Italians will be equal to this as well as their other national
undertakings.
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