No. 417.
Mr. Marsh
to Mr. Evarts.
Rome, July 20, 1880. (Received August 9.)
Sir: The Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Parliament having postponed the question of electoral reform until the next session, and passed the financial bills proposed by the ministry, including that for the abolition of the grist tax, adjourned, or rather somewhat irregularly closed the session, for want of a quorum, on the 17th instant. The Senate continued to sit; and, at length, though reluctantly, adopted the principal House bills, and thus the great relief measure of the abolition of a tax felt to be specially oppressive to the laboring poor has been accomplished. The opposition party predicts that the reduction of the revenue by so considerable a sum as that yielded by the “maccinato” will seriously embarrass the national exchequer, and that none of the measures proposed by the ministry will aid materially to supply the deficit. I trust that these prophecies will be disappointed, and that this important step is but the first in a series of measures specially directed to the relief and elevation of the classes least favored by fortune, the amelioration of whose national as well as moral condition seems to me indispensable not only to sound national progress, but to the continued maintenance of social order in Italy.
I am, &c.,