Office of the Historian

No. 175.
Mr. Marsh to Mr. Evarts.

Legation of the United States,
Borne, May 8, 1877. (Received May 26.)
No. 669.]

Sir: I inclose herewith a slip and translation from the editorial columns of the Opinione, relating to the rejection of a ministerial bill for repressing the license of the clergy in public attacks upon the ecclesiastical policy of the royal government. The Opinione was the semi-official organ of the late ministry, and is supposed to express in general the sentiments of the leaders of the opposition in Parliament. It is, moreover, a journal conducted with much ability, and has a wide circulation and great influence. Although disapproving the presentation of the bill by the ministry as inopportune and impolitic, it has taken the ground that, having been presented and so amended as to render it inoffensive, its rejection by the Senate would be an error which could not but be injurious to the liberal party, and to the best interests of the state. The bill was objected to, both on account of certain features which have been removed by amendments in the Senate, and because it is a special law, not forming a part of the general code of criminal law. In its provisions it is, in the main, similar to articles introduced with general approbation into a bill for the enactment of a new criminal code, still pending in Parliament. I cannot, at this moment, inclose a copy, but will do so by an early mail. The rejection of the bill is important, not only for the reasons adduced by the Opinione, but as a rare instance of the exercise of the power of rejection of bills by the Senate, which body, as many contend, represents the ministry and the Crown, and is bound by their recommendations.

The constitutional question will now be warmly agitated, and the discussion may lead to considerable changes in parliamentary practice, and not impossibly in the ministry itself. I have no doubt the Opinione is right in thinking that the rejection of the bill will have an unfavorable effect on the liberal party. It will, at least, renew in Italy the popular agitation of the question of the legal relations between church and state, which is now exciting public feeling and acting upon public opinion in France, Belgium, and other states; it will encourage the clergy to measures of more active hostility against the state, and may thus have consequences reaching further than can now be foreseen.

I have the honor, &c.,

GEORGE P. MARSH.
[Inclosure.—Translation.]

senate of the kingdom.

[From L’ Opinione of May 8, 1877.]

After a discussion of nine days, after the withdrawal of the motion to refer the bill back to the committee, and after the adoption of a series of amendments, the Senate has, in secret ballot, rejected the amended bill by 105 out of 197 votes.

The first article, as amended, removed all danger of arbitrary action (in applying to law), and the article as modified by the amendments moved by Senators Cadorna and Lampertico, having been adopted by a vote of 103 to 93, it was generally supposed that the Senate was disposed to pass the bill. But the real import of that vote was a notice that the bill would be rejected, as in fact it was. The consequences of the rejection will not be slow in manifesting themselves in Parliament, or in the general policy of the state.