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money was concerned. But he proved to be a leader of obviousintellectual dishonesty. He was shallow measured as a statesman,with only the most rudimentary knowledge of the grave problemsof economics and social reform. But as a politician he was a craftsmanof the first order. He had a cunning knowledge of men. If heunderstood only superficially the weaknesses and evils of the socialsystem, he knew instinctively the frailties and vices of politicalleaders. He practiced a policy of pleasing everyone. He entered officewith no settled plan of government, depending on day-to-day improvisationto meet the multiplying difficulties. 1A depressing fate has seemed to dog the footsteps of so-calledleftist ministries of Italy. Depretis, with fellow liberals in key positionsof his cabinet, adopted, when he came to power, the policiesof his conservative predecessors and called them his own. He increasedindirect taxation, dodged the solution of the problems hehad promised to attack by naming commissions. When he enteredoffice the budget was balanced. It remained so until 1884. However,the inevitable depression arrived and Depretis, the promiser of thebetter life, not knowing what else to do about it, turned to theoldest and most reactionary device—public works financed bygovernment borrowing. He adopted the policy which in our owntime has been called "tax and tax, borrow and borrow, spend andspend." The budget was thrown out of balance in 1884 and remainedso for thirteen years.The budget had been unbalanced from 1859 to 1876, but Depretis'predecessors had ended that condition. Depretis unbalanced thebudget in 1885-86 and now adopted this as a deliberate nationalpolicy. Living from hand to mouth to keep himself in power, seekingto placate groups of every sort, Depretis used the public fundsfreely. Roads, new schools, canals, post offices, public works of everysort were built with public funds obtained by borrowing.Depretis now discovered he had got hold of a powerful political*Bolton King and Thomas Okey, in their excellent account of the Italy of these years,say of Depretis' government that "nominally it was more liberal than the Right, but it hadinherent weaknesses which robbed its liberalism of reality ... It drew its strength fromthe south and the south was the home of all that was unhealthy in political life. Most ofits leaders, though patriots in a way, had small scruples as to methods." Italy Today, byKing and Okey, Nisbet & Co., London, 1909.13