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forming to the general pattern of Western civilization. In one otherrespect it followed that pattern. It was what is commonly called acapitalist society—a society in which the instruments of productionand distribution were owned and operated by private persons orgroups for profit and within the framework of the money economy.That is, it was like the other countries of western Europe.Of course the Italy of the Risorgimento was a more simple formof society than that of the fascist squadrons. But so also was theAmerica of the Civil War compared with the more complicatedsystem of Mr. Coolidge's New Era or Mr. Roosevelt's New Deal. AsItaly grew and the machine invaded the world, and the techniquesof corporation organization and modern finance were perfected,Italy adopted them, though less extensively than Germany or Britainsince she remained largely an agricultural country. Italy, however,developed and exhibited very quickly the characteristic defects ofher economic system. These were persisting poverty, inadequateincome, interrupted employment, crises.The men who united Italy into a nation were preoccupied notwith her economic problems, but with the dream of liberation andunity. There was a deeply rooted popular notion that Austria wasat the bottom of all Italy's troubles, including her poverty. Thecountry was supposed to be divinely favored by Providence withabundance which only the suppressive hand of Austria held awayfrom the people. "Where is there another country in the world,"said Cesare Correnti, "endowed with such smiling, well-navigatedcoastlands, with so many ports, a land so rich in every blessing ofnature, so fertile, so healthy, suitable for every form of agriculture,bearing oaks and northern trees as well as Syrian palms and othertropical plants, enlivened by a bracing, invigorating climate, bylife-giving streams, by shores rich in fish, by pastoral and woodedmountains, by lovely prospects of land, water, and sky?" 1The leaders of the Kisorgimento, knowing little of economics,believed that if a united Italy could be liberated from the Austrianyoke, she would be free to put her resources to work for a betterlife. But when the Austrian had gone and the honest PiedmonteseQuoted in Development of Political Ideas in Italy in the 19th Century, by Luigi Villari.Proceedings of the British Academy, February 17, 1926, Vol. XII.7