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great remittances of cash from her emigrant citizens who had settledin America and who kept a continuous flow of funds back to theold folks at home. That played a very great part in balancing herbudget, for there was a steady stream of emigrants leaving Italy—very poor people who contributed very little to the purchasingpower of her population and whose departure removed a considerablearmy annually from among those who stood in need of governmentassistance, draining away large numbers of the unemployablepopulation. Those who left became, by Italy's standards, heavyearners in the New World and were transformed into contributorsto her* national income rather than unproductive beneficiaries of it.The balanced budget despite this passed away definitely in 1911 notto return again until a great war and a subsequent revolution hadswept from the people of Italy their freedom. 6V · The New IndustryWE HAVE NOW SEEN that out of the chronic economic difficultiesof Italy the politicians had recourse to the practice of statespending of borrowed money. This practice could not have continuedfor so long a period as to be practically habitual without theapproval of the people. It imposed burdens because the debt servicecharges added to the tax rate of an overtaxed people. Men of allsorts grumbled at it. Politicians of all sorts disapproved it. But mostof them resorted to it as an inescapable evil. Italians were like theeconomy-minded husband who demands that his wife spend lessmoney on the household but without curtailing any of his comforts.6 Dr. Gaetano Salvemini, whose contributions to the examination of the whole fascistexperiment in Italy have been so great, makes one statement about the debt which does notcorrespond with the above account at one point. In a debate with Dr. Roselli, a fascistapologist, before the Foreign Policy Association, he said: "We were able during the fifteenyears before the war to balance the budget always with a surplus." Mr. ConstantineMcGuire gives the following figure as the over-all deficit for the years 1898 to 1914:Revenues, 31,991,000,000 lire; expenditures, 36,804,000,000, a deficit for the sixteen yearsof 4,813,000,000 lire. The budget was balanced from 1898 to 1910. But this record endedin 1911 and was not resumed for another fifteen years. In the fifteen years before Italyentered the war the budget was balanced ten times and unbalanced five times.17

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