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money was concerned. But he proved to be a leader of obvious
intellectual dishonesty. He was shallow measured as a statesman,
with only the most rudimentary knowledge of the grave problems
of economics and social reform. But as a politician he was a craftsman
of the first order. He had a cunning knowledge of men. If he
understood only superficially the weaknesses and evils of the social
system, he knew instinctively the frailties and vices of political
leaders. He practiced a policy of pleasing everyone. He entered office
with no settled plan of government, depending on day-to-day improvisation
to meet the multiplying difficulties. 1
A depressing fate has seemed to dog the footsteps of so-called
leftist ministries of Italy. Depretis, with fellow liberals in key positions
of his cabinet, adopted, when he came to power, the policies
of his conservative predecessors and called them his own. He increased
indirect taxation, dodged the solution of the problems he
had promised to attack by naming commissions. When he entered
office the budget was balanced. It remained so until 1884. However,
the inevitable depression arrived and Depretis, the promiser of the
better life, not knowing what else to do about it, turned to the
oldest and most reactionary device—public works financed by
government borrowing. He adopted the policy which in our own
time has been called "tax and tax, borrow and borrow, spend and
spend." The budget was thrown out of balance in 1884 and remained
so for thirteen years.
The budget had been unbalanced from 1859 to 1876, but Depretis'
predecessors had ended that condition. Depretis unbalanced the
budget in 1885-86 and now adopted this as a deliberate national
policy. Living from hand to mouth to keep himself in power, seeking
to placate groups of every sort, Depretis used the public funds
freely. Roads, new schools, canals, post offices, public works of every
sort 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 had
inherent weaknesses which robbed its liberalism of reality ... It drew its strength from
the south and the south was the home of all that was unhealthy in political life. Most of
its leaders, though patriots in a way, had small scruples as to methods." Italy Today, by
King and Okey, Nisbet & Co., London, 1909.
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