The Governments of Europe Part 31

[Footnote 533: King, History of Italian Unity, II., Chap. 27.]

The gain arising from the annexation of Lombardy was in a measure counterbalanced by the cession of Savoy and Nice to France, in conformity with an agreement entered into before the war. In point of fact, none the less, the benefits which accrued to Piedmont from the Austrian war were enormous. Aroused by the vigor and promise of Piedmontese leaders.h.i.+p, a large portion of central Italy broke into revolt and declared for union with Victor Emmanuel's dominion. In September, 1859, four a.s.semblies, representing the grand-duchy of Tuscany, the duchies of Modena and Parma, and the Romagna (the northern portion of the Papal States), met at Florence, Modena, Parma, and Bologna, respectively, and voted unanimously for incorporation with Piedmont. During March, 1860, the alternatives of annexation and independence were submitted to the choice of the inhabitants of each of these districts, all males of age being privileged to vote, with the result of an aggregate of 792,577 affirmative votes in a total of 807,502. Under authority conferred by the Piedmontese parliament the king accepted the territories, the formal proclamation of the incorporation of Parma, Modena, and the Romagna being dated March 18, and that of the incorporation of Tuscany, March 22. Deputies were elected forthwith to represent the annexed provinces, and April 2, 1860, the enlarged parliament was convened at Turin. Within the s.p.a.ce of a year the population of the kingdom had been more than doubled. It was now 11,000,000, or approximately half of that of the peninsula.

*399. Further Annexations: the Kingdom of Italy, 1861.*--Meanwhile the programme of Cavour and the king had been broadened to comprise a thoroughgoing unification of the entire country. With amazing rapidity the task was carried toward completion. Aided by Garibaldi and his famous Thousand, the people of Sicily and Naples expelled their Bourbon sovereign, and, at the plebiscite of October 21, 1860, they declared, by a vote of 1,734,117 to 10,979, for annexation to Piedmont. At the same time Umbria and the Marches were occupied by the Piedmontese forces, leaving to the Pope nothing save the Eternal City and a bit of territory immediately surrounding it. By votes of 97,040 to 380 and 133,077 to 1,212, respectively, these districts declared for annexation, and, December 17, 1860, a royal decree announced their final incorporation, together with that of Naples. January 27, 1861, general elections were held, and, February 18, there was convened (p. 364) at Turin a new and enlarged parliament by which, March 18, was proclaimed the united Kingdom of Italy. Over the whole of the new territories was extended the memorable _Statuto_ granted to Piedmont by Charles Albert thirteen years before, and Victor Emmanuel II. was acknowledged "by the grace of G.o.d and the will of the nation, King of Italy."[534]

[Footnote 534: King, History of Italian Unity, II., Chaps. 29-32.]

*400. The Completion of Unification, 1866-1871.*--It remained but to consolidate the kingdom and to accomplish the annexation of the two Italian districts, Venetia and Rome, which were yet in foreign hands.

Venetia was acquired in direct consequence of Italy's alliance with Prussia against Austria in 1866. A plebiscite of October 21-22, 1866, following the enforced cession of Venetia by Austria, October 3, yielded a vote of 647,246 to 47 for annexation. The union was sanctioned by a decree of November 4, 1866, and ratified by a law of July 18, 1867. The acquisition of Rome was made possible four years later by the exigencies of the Franco-German war. The conviction had been ripening that eventually Rome must be made the kingdom's capital, and when, in 1870, there was withdrawn from the protection of the papacy the garrison which France had maintained in Italy since 1849, the opportunity was seized to follow up fruitless diplomacy with military demonstrations. September 20 the troops of General Cadorna forced an entrance of the city and the Pope was compelled to capitulate. October 2 the people declared, by a vote of 133,681 to 1,507, for annexation; October 9 the annexation was proclaimed; and December 31 it was ratified by act of parliament. The guarantees of independence to be accorded the papacy were left to be determined in a subsequent statute.[535] By an act of February 3, 1871, the capital of the kingdom--already, in 1865, transferred from Turin to Florence--was removed to Rome; and in the Eternal City, November 27 following, was convened the eleventh parliament since the revolution of 1848, the fourth since the proclamation of the kingdom of Italy, the first since the completion of Italian unity.[536]

[Footnote 535: The resulting measure, the Law of Papal Guarantees, was enacted May 13, 1871. See p.

388.]

[Footnote 536: For a brief account of the final stages in the unification of Italy see Cambridge Modern History, XI., Chaps. 14, 19. The best presentation of the entire subject is that in the two volumes of King, History of Italian Unity, 1814-1871. Other works of value are W. J. Stillman, The Union of Italy, 1815-1895 (Cambridge, 1898); J.

Probyn, Italy, 1815-1890 (London, 1884); M.

Cesaresco, The Liberation of Italy (New York, 1894); P. Orsi, L'Italia moderna (Milan, 1901); F.

Bertolini, Storia d'Italia dal 1814 al 1878 (Milan, 1880-1881); and E. Sorin, Histoire de l'Italie depuis 1815 jusqu'a la mort de V. Emm. (Paris, 1910). Among biographies mention may be made of G.

G.o.dkin, Life of Victor Emmanuel II. (2d ed., London, 1880); M. Cesaresco, Cavour (London, 1898); D. Zanich.e.l.li, Cavour (Florence, 1905); B. King, Mazzini (London, 1902). A very valuable biography, which indeed comprises virtually a history of the period 1848-1861, is W. R. Thayer, Count Cavour, 2 vols. (Boston, 1911). The monumental Italian work in the field is C. Tivaroni, Storia critica del risorgimento italiano, 9 vols. (Turin, 1888-1897).

The princ.i.p.al doc.u.mentary collection is N. Bianchi, Storia doc.u.mentata della diplomazia Europea in Italia dall' anno 1814 all' anno 1861, 8 vols.

(Turin, 1865-1872). Invaluable are L. Chiala, Lettere del Conte di Cavour, 7 vols. (Turin, 1883-1887), and D. Zanich.e.l.li, Scritti del Conte di Cavour (Bologna, 1892). For full bibliography see Cambridge Modern History, XI., 908-913.]

IV. THE CONSt.i.tUTION (p. 365)

*401. The Statuto.*--The formal const.i.tution of the kingdom of Italy to-day is the _Statuto fondamentale del Regno_ granted March 4, 1848, by Charles Albert to his Piedmontese subjects. To each of the territories successively annexed to the Piedmontese kingdom this instrument was promptly extended, on the basis of popular ratifications, or plebiscites; and when, in 1861, the kingdom of Piedmont was converted into the kingdom of Italy, the fundamental law, modified in only minor respects, was continued in operation. The _Statuto_ was granted originally as a royal charter, and its author seems to have expected it to be final, at least until it should have been replaced as a whole by some other instrument. At the same time, there is little reason to doubt that from the outset there was contemplated the possibility of amendment through the agencies of ordinary legislation. In any case, there was put into the instrument no stipulation whatsoever relating to its revision, and none has ever been added. Upon a number of occasions since 1861 possible modifications of the const.i.tutional text have been suggested, and even debated, but no one of them has been adopted. But this does not mean that the const.i.tutional system of Italy has stood all the while unchanged. On the contrary, that system has exhibited remarkable vitality, growth, and adaptive capacity. In Italy, as in other states the const.i.tution as it exists in writing is supplemented in numerous important ways by unwritten custom, and Italian jurists are now substantially agreed that custom is legitimately to be considered a source of public law.

*402. Legislative Amendment.*--A more important matter, however, is the extension and the readaptation of the const.i.tution through parliamentary enactment. In the earlier days of the kingdom there was a disposition to observe rather carefully in practice the distinction between functions and powers of a legislative, and those of a const.i.tutional, character. Gradually, however, the conviction grew that the const.i.tutional system of the nation might be modified (p. 366) through the processes of ordinary legislation, and in Italy to-day the theory of parliamentary omnipotence is scarcely less firmly entrenched than it is in Great Britain. The parliamentary chambers have never directly avowed a purpose to amend a single article of the _Statuto_, but numerous measures which they have enacted have, with clear intent, taken from the instrument at some points, have added to it at others, and have changed both its spirit and its application. Care has been exercised that such enactments shall be in harmony with the public will, and in practice they are rarely brought to a final vote until the country shall have been given an opportunity to pa.s.s upon them at a general election. What has come to be the commonly accepted doctrine was stated forcefully, in the session of July 23, 1881, by Crispi, as follows: "I do not admit the intangibility of the _Statuto_. Statutes are made to prevent governments from retrograding, not from advancing.

Before us there can be nothing but progress.... If we retain immutable the fundamental law of the state, we desire immobility, and should throw aside all advances which have thus far been made by the const.i.tuted authorities. I understand that in the _Statuto_ of Charles Albert nothing is said of revision, and this was prudent. But how should this silence be interpreted? It should be interpreted in the sense that it is not necessary to the Italian Const.i.tution that a const.i.tuent a.s.sembly should be expressly convoked, but that Parliament in its usual manner of operation is always const.i.tuent and const.i.tuted. Whenever public opinion has matured a reform, it is the duty of Parliament to accept it, even though the reform may bring with it the modification of an article of the _Statuto_."[537] It is in accord with the principles here enunciated that--to mention but a few ill.u.s.trations--the law of December 6, 1865, regulating the organization of the judiciary, the Law of Papal Guarantees of 1871, and the measures of 1882 and 1895 overhauling and extending the franchise, were placed upon the statute books.

[Footnote 537: Quoted by G. A. Ruiz, The Amendments to the Italian Const.i.tution, in _Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science_, Sept., 1895, 38.]

*403. Nature of the Const.i.tution.*--The _Statuto_, in eighty-four articles, is an instrument of considerable length. It deals, successively, with the Crown, the rights and duties of citizens, the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, the Ministers, the Judiciary, and matters of a miscellaneous character. The bill of rights contained in Articles 24-32 guarantees to all inhabitants of the kingdom equality before the law, liberty of person, inviolability of domicile and of property, freedom of the press, exemption from non-parliamentary taxation and, with qualifications, freedom of a.s.sembly. It is (p. 367) constantly to be borne in mind, however, that, so overlaid is the _Statuto_ with statutory enactments and with custom, that one cannot apprehend adequately the working const.i.tution of the kingdom to-day, in respect to either general principles or specific governmental organs, through an examination of this doc.u.ment alone. In the language of an Italian publicist, the Italian const.i.tution no longer consists of the Statute of Charles Albert. This forms simply the beginning of a new order of things. Many inst.i.tutions have been transformed by laws, decrees, usages, and neglect, whence the Italian const.i.tution has become c.u.mulative, consisting of an organism of law grouped about a primary kernel which is the _Statuto_.[538]

[Footnote 538: Ruiz, Amendments to the Italian Const.i.tution, _loc. cit._, 57. The text of the _Statuto_ appears in P. Coglio e Malchiodi, Codice Politico Amministrativo. Raccolta completa di tutte le leggi e regolamenti concernenti la pubblica amministrazione nei suoi rapporti politici e amministrativi (6th ed., Florence, 1907), and in V.

Gioia, Le leggi di unificazione amministrativa precedute dalla legge fondamentale del regno, 2 vols. (Palermo, 1879). It is printed also in Lowell, Governments and Parties, II., 346-354.

There is a French version in F. R. Dareste, Les const.i.tutions modernes, 2 vols. (Paris, 1883) I., 550-560. There is an English translation in Dodd, Modern Const.i.tutions, II., 5-16, and another, by S.

M. Lindsay and L. S. Rowe, in _Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science_, Nov., 1894. The Codice Politico Amministrativo contains a good collection of statutes, ordinances, and administrative regulations. The most comprehensive work on Italian const.i.tutional law which has been written is F. Racioppi and I.

Brunelli, Commento allo statuto del regno, 3 vols.

(Turin, 1909). Among other treatises the following are of princ.i.p.al value: G. Arangio Ruiz, Storia cost.i.tuzionale del regno di Italia, 1848-1898 (Florence, 1898); E. Brusa, Das Staatsrecht des Konigreichs Italien (Leipzig, 1892), in Marquardsen's Handbuch; E. del Guerra, L'Amministrazione pubblica in Italia (Florence, 1893); and, for briefer treatment, G. Mosca, Appunti di diritto cost.i.tuzionale (Milan, 1908) and I. Tambaro, II diritto cost.i.tuzionale italiano (Milan, 1909).]

CHAPTER XX (p. 368)

THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM

I. THE CROWN AND THE MINISTRY

*404. Status of the Sovereign.*--The const.i.tutional system of Italy comprises, according to the phraseology of the _Statuto_, a "representative monarchical government." The throne is hereditary, after the principle of the Salic Law; that is, it may be inherited only by and through males. Elaborate provision is made for the exercise of regal authority in the event of the minority or the incapacity of the sovereign. During a minority (which terminates with the close of the king's eighteenth year) the prince who stands next in the order of succession, provided he be twenty-one years of age, is authorized to act as regent. In the lack of male relatives the regency devolves upon the queen-mother, and in default of a queen-mother the regent is elected by the legislative chamber.[539] Upon ascending the throne, the king is required to take an oath in the presence of the legislative chambers faithfully to maintain and observe the const.i.tution of the realm. The monarch is declared to be sacred and inviolable in his person, and there is settled upon him a civil list of 16,050,000 lire, of which amount at present, however, the sum of one million lire is repaid annually to the state. Since 1870 the royal residence has been the Palazzo del Quirinale, a palace which for generations, by reason of its elevated and healthful situation, was much frequented by the popes.

[Footnote 539: Arts. 11-17. Dodd, Modern Const.i.tutions, II., 6.]

*405. Powers and Functions of the Crown.*--On paper, the powers of the crown appear enormous; in reality they are much less considerable, as is inevitably the fact wherever monarchy is tempered by parliamentarism. In the king alone is vested, by the _Statuto_, the executive power, and to him alone this power, in theory, still belongs. The exercise of it, however, devolves almost wholly upon a group of ministers, who are responsible, not to the crown, but to the parliament. In no continental country has there been a more deliberate or a more unreserved acceptance of the essential principles which underlie the parliamentary system of Great Britain. No one of the (p. 369) three sovereigns of united Italy has ever sought for an instant to establish anything in the nature of personal government. The principle that the ministry shall const.i.tute the working executive, and that it shall be continually responsible to the lower chamber of Parliament, has been so long observed in practice that it is now regarded as an inflexible law of the const.i.tution. Under these limitations, however, the king approves and promulgates the laws, grants pardons and commutes sentences, declares war, commands all military and naval forces, concludes treaties, issues ordinances, creates senators, and makes appointments to all offices of state.[540] By the _Statuto_ it is provided that treaties involving financial obligations or alterations of the territory of the state shall be effective only after receiving the sanction of the legislative chambers. In practice, treaties of all kinds are submitted regularly for such approval, save only such as comprise military conventions or foreign alliances. The power of the veto exists, but it is in practice never used. Rarely does the king attend the sessions of the cabinet, in which the policies of the government are discussed and its measures formulated and, save through the designation of the premier, in the event of a cabinet crisis, and within the domain of foreign relations, the royal power may be said to be brought to bear in direct manner upon the affairs of state only incidentally. As head of the nation, however, and visible token of its hard-won unification, the monarch fulfills a distinctly useful function. The reigning family, and especially the present sovereign, Victor Emmanuel III., is extremely popular throughout the country; so that, although in Italy, as elsewhere among European monarchies, there is an avowed republican element, there is every indication that royalty will prove an enduring inst.i.tution.

[Footnote 540: Arts. 5-8. Dodd, Modern Const.i.tutions, II., 5. Dupriez, Les Ministres, I., 292-297.]

*406. The Ministry: Composition.*--From what has been said it follows that the ministry in Italy, as in Great Britain and France, const.i.tutes the actual executive. Nominally it consists of heads of departments, although occasionally a member is designated without portfolio. Of departments there are at present eleven, as follows: Foreign affairs; War; Marine; the Interior; Finance; the Treasury;[541] Public Instruction; Public Works; Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs; Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture; and Posts and Telegraphs. Ordinarily the premier, or "president of the council,"

occupies the portfolio of the Interior. He is named by the king, and inasmuch as, by reason of the multiplicity of Italian political (p. 370) parties, there is often no clearly distinguished "leader of the opposition," such as all but invariably stands ready to a.s.sume office in Great Britain, in the making of the appointment there is room for the exercise of considerable discretion. All remaining members of the ministry are designated by the crown, on nomination of the premier. In accordance with the provisions of a law of February 12, 1888, each minister is a.s.sisted by an under-secretary of state.

[Footnote 541: Separated from Finance in 1889.]

All ministers and under-secretaries possess the right to appear on the floor of either of the legislative chambers, and to be heard upon request; but no one of them is ent.i.tled to vote in either body unless he is a member thereof.[542] To be eligible for appointment to a portfolio or to an under-secretarys.h.i.+p it is not necessary that a man be a member of either chamber; but if an appointee is not in possession of such members.h.i.+p it is customary for him to seek the next seat that falls vacant in the Deputies, unless in the meantime he shall have been created a senator. In point of fact, the ministers are selected regularly from among the members of Parliament, and predominantly from the Chamber of Deputies. Only rarely has the premiers.h.i.+p devolved upon a senator. Ministers of war and of marine, being chosen largely by reason of technical qualifications, are frequently members of the Senate by special appointment.

[Footnote 542: Art. 66. Dodd, Modern Const.i.tutions, II., 13.]

*407. The Ministry: Organization and Functions.*--The internal organization of the ministry--the interrelations of the several departments and the relations sustained by each minister with the premier--are regulated largely by a decree of March 28, 1867, promulgated afresh, with minor modifications, August 25, 1876. Among matters which are required to be brought before the ministerial council are all projects of law which are to be submitted to the chambers, all treaties, all conflicts of administrative jurisdiction, all proposals relating to the status of the Church, pet.i.tions from the chambers, and nominations of senators, diplomatic representatives, and a wide range of administrative and judicial functionaries. By law there is enumerated further an extended list of matters which must be brought to the ministry's attention, though action thereupon is not made compulsory; and the range of subjects which, upon the initiative of the premier or that of other ministers, may be submitted for consideration is left purposely without limit. It is the business of the premier to convoke the ministers in council, to preside over their deliberations, to maintain, in respect to both administrative methods and political policy, as large a measure of ministerial uniformity and solidarity as may be; and to require from time to time from his (p. 371) colleagues full and explicit reports upon the affairs of each of the several departments. By reason, however, of the multiplicity of party groups in the chambers, the necessarily composite character politically of every cabinet, and the generally unstable political condition of the country, ministries rarely possess much real unity, and in the administration of the public business they are likely to be handicapped by internal friction. "The Italian ministry," says an able French writer, "is manifestly unable to fulfill effectively the three-fold purpose of a parliamentary cabinet. It exercises the executive power in the name, and under the authority, of the king; but it does not always know how to restrain Parliament within the bounds of its proper control, and it is obliged to tolerate the interference of deputies in the administration. Through the employment of the initiative, and of influence upon the acts of Parliament, it is the power which impels legislation; but not infrequently it is lacking in the authority essential to push through the reforms which it has undertaken, and the Chamber evades easily its control. It seeks to maintain harmony between the two powers (executive and legislative); but the repeated defeats which it suffers demonstrate to what a degree its work is impeded by the disorganization of parties."[543] For all of their acts the ministers are responsible directly to Parliament, which means, in effect, to the Chamber of Deputies; and no law or governmental measure may be put in operation until it has received the signature of one or more of the ministerial group, by whom responsibility for it is thereby explicitly a.s.sumed.

[Footnote 543: Dupriez, Les Ministres, I., 291.]

*408. The Promulgation of Ordinances.*--The administrative system of Italy is modelled, in the main, upon that of France. In the effort to achieve national h.o.m.ogeneity the founders of the kingdom indulged to excess their propensity for centralization, with the consequence that Italy has exhibited regularly an admixture of bureaucracy and liberalism even more confounding than that which prevails in the French Republic. In theory the administrative system is broadly democratic and tolerant; in practice it not infrequently lends itself to the employment of the most arbitrary devices. Abuse arises most commonly from the powers vested in the administrative officials to supplement legislation through the promulgation and enforcement of ordinances. By the const.i.tution it is stipulated that the Executive shall "make decrees and regulations necessary for the execution of the laws, without suspending their execution, or granting exemptions from them."[544] This power, however, in practice, is stretched even further than is the similar power of the Executive in France, and with the result not infrequently of the creation of temporary law, or (p. 372) even the virtual negation of parliamentary enactment. Parliament is seldom disposed to stand very rigidly upon its rights; indeed, it sometimes delegates expressly to the ministry the exercise of sweeping legislative authority. The final text of the great electoral law of 1882, for example, was never considered in the chambers at all. After debating the subject to their satisfaction, the two houses simply committed to the Government the task of drawing up a permanent draft of the measure and of promulgating it by executive decree. The same procedure has been followed in other fundamental matters. And not merely the ministers at Rome, but also the local administrative agents, exercise with freedom the ordinance-making prerogative. "The preference, indeed," as is observed by Lowell, "for administrative regulations, which the government can change at any time, over rigid statutes is deeply implanted in the Latin races, and seems to be especially marked in Italy."[545]

[Footnote 544: Art. 6. Dodd, Modern Const.i.tutions, II., 5.]

[Footnote 545: Lowell, Governments and Parties, I., 166. On the Italian executive see Dupriez, Les Ministres, I., 281-329. An essay of value is M.

Caudel, Parlementarisme italien, in _Annales des Sciences Politiques_, Sept., 1900.]

II. PARLIAMENT: THE SENATE

*409. Composition.*--Legislative power in Italy is vested conjointly in the king and Parliament, the latter consisting of two houses--an upper, the _Senato_, and a lower, _the Camera de' Deputati_. The Senate is composed entirely of members appointed for life by the crown. The body is no true sense a house of peers. Its seats are not hereditary and its members represent not alone the great proprietors of the country but a wide variety of public functionaries and men of achievement. In the making of appointments the sovereign is restricted by the necessity of taking all appointees from twenty-one stipulated cla.s.ses of citizens, and it is required that senators shall be of a minimum age of forty years. The categories from which appointments are made--including high ecclesiastics, ministers of state, amba.s.sadors, deputies of prolonged service, legal and administrative officials, men who during as much as seven years have been members of the Royal Academy of Sciences or of the Superior Council of Public Instruction--may be reduced, broadly, to three: (1) high officials of church and state; (2) persons of fame in science or literature, or who by any kind of services or merit have brought distinction to the country; and (3) persons who for at least three years have paid direct property or business taxes to the amount of 3000 lire ($600). The total number of members when the _Statuto_ was put in effect in 1848 was 78; the number in 1910 was 383. The last-mentioned number comprised the president of the Chamber of Deputies, 147 ex-deputies of six (p. 373) years' service (or men who had been elected to as many as three parliaments), one minister of state, six secretaries of state, five amba.s.sadors, two envoys extraordinary, 23 officials of the courts of ca.s.sation and of other tribunals, 33 military and naval officials, eight councillors of state, 21 provincial functionaries, 41 members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, three members of the Superior Council of Public Instruction, two persons of distinguished services to the country, 71 payers of direct taxes in the amount of 3,000 lire, and 19 other scattered representatives of several categories. The absence of ecclesiastical dignitaries is to be accounted for by the rupture with the Vatican. The last members of this cla.s.s to be named were appointed in 1866.

*410. Legislative Weakness.*--The prerogative of senatorial appointment has been exercised upon several occasions for the specific purpose of influencing the political complexion of the upper chamber. In 1886 forty-one appointments were made at one stroke; in 1890, seventy-five; and in 1892, forty-two. The Senate guards jealously its right to determine whether an appointee is properly to be considered as belonging to any one of the twenty-one stipulated categories, and if it decides that he is not thus eligible, he is refused a seat. But as long as the sovereign keeps clearly within the enumerated cla.s.ses, no practical limitation can be placed upon his power of appointment.[546]

In practice, appointment by the king has meant regularly appointment by the ministry commanding a majority in the lower chamber; and so easy and so effective has proved the process of "swamping" that the legislative independence of the Senate has been reduced almost to a nullity. In general it may be said that the body exercises the function of a revising, but no longer of an initiating or a checking, chamber. During the period 1861-1910 the government presented in the Chamber of Deputies a total of 7,569 legislative proposals, in the Senate but 598; and the number of projects of law originated within the Senate during this same period was but thirty-nine. In volume and range of legislative activity the nominated senate of Italy is distinctly inferior to the elected senate of France.[547]

[Footnote 546: Of 1,528 appointments made between 1848 and 1910 but 63 were refused confirmation by the Senate.]

[Footnote 547: It is interesting to observe that, in the interest of governmental stability and permanence, Cavour favored the adoption of the elective principle in Italy. For ill.u.s.trations of the weakness of the Italian Senate see C.

Morizot-Thibault, Des droits des chambres hautes ou senats en matiere des lois de finance (Paris, 1891), 156-175.]

*411. Projected Reform.*--Within recent years there has arisen a persistent demand for a reform of the Senate, to the end that the body may be brought into closer touch with the people and be (p. 374) restored to the position of a vigorous and useful second chamber. In the spring of 1910 the subject was discussed at some length within the Senate itself, and at the suggestion of the ministry a special commission of nine members was created to study "the timeliness, the method, and the extent" of the proposed reforms. December 5, 1910, this commission brought in an elaborate report, written princ.i.p.ally by Senator Arcoleo, a leader among Italian authorities upon const.i.tutional law. After pointing out that among European nations the reconst.i.tution and modernization of upper chambers is a subject of large current interest, the commission proposed a carefully considered scheme for the popularizing and strengthening of the senatorial body.

The substance of the plan was, in brief; (1) that the chamber henceforth should be composed of 350 members; (2) that the members.h.i.+p should be divided into three categories, designated, respectively, as officials, men of science and education, and men of political or economic status; and (3) that members of the first category, not to exceed 120, should be appointed, as are all members at present, by the crown; but members of the other two should be elected by fifteen special colleges so const.i.tuted that their members.h.i.+p would represent actual and varied groups of interests throughout the nation. The professors in the universities, for example, organized for the purpose as an electoral college, should be authorized to choose a contingent of thirty representatives. Other elements to be admitted to a definite partic.i.p.ation in the elections should include former deputies, larger taxpayers, provincial and communal a.s.semblies, chambers of commerce, agricultural societies, and workingmen's a.s.sociations. The primary idea of those who propounded the scheme was that through its adoption there would be established a more vital contact between the Senate and the varied forces that contribute to the life of the nation than can subsist under the existing order. Unfortunately, as many consider, the Senate voted not to approve the commission's project. It contented itself, rather, with a vote in favor of an enlargement of the cla.s.ses of citizens from which senators may be appointed by the king, although, in February, 1911, it went so far as to request the ministry to present new proposals, and, in particular, a proposal to vest in the Senate the choice of its presiding officer. Toward a solution of the problems involved there has been (to 1912) no further progress. It is not improbable, however, that upon some such plan of modernization as was prepared by the commission of 1910 agreement eventually will be reached.[548]

[Footnote 548: E. Pagliano, Il Senato e la nomina dei senatori (Rome, 1906); L. A. Magro, L'

aristocrazia e il Senato (Catania, 1909); I.

Tambaro, La reforme du Senat italien, in _Revue du Droit Public_, July-Sept., 1910, and Les debats sur la reforme du Senat italien, ibid., July-Sept., 1911; M. Scelle, Reforme du Senat italien, ibid., Oct.-Dec, 1911; Nazzareno, La riforma del Senato, in _Rivista di Diritto Pubblica_, III., 171. The report of the commission of 1910 is contained in Per la riforma del Senato; relazione della commissione (Rome, 1911).]

*412. Privileges and Powers.*--Within the Senate, as to-day (p. 375) const.i.tuted, the president and vice-president are named by the king; the secretaries are selected by the body from its own members.h.i.+p. The privileges of members are defined minutely. Save by order of the Senate itself, no senator may be arrested, unless apprehended in the commission of an offense; and the Senate is const.i.tuted sole judge of the alleged misdemeanors of its members--a curious duplication of an ancient prerogative of the British House of Lords. Ministers are responsible only to the lower house, and although there are instances in which a minister has retired by reason of an adverse vote in the Senate, in general it may be affirmed that the Senate's importance in the parliamentary regime is distinctly subordinate. The two chambers possess concurrent powers of legislation, except that all measures imposing taxes or relating to the budget are required to be presented first in the Deputies. By decree of the crown the Senate may be const.i.tuted a High Court of Justice to try cases involving treason or attempts upon the safety of the state, and to try ministers impeached by the Chamber of Deputies. When acting in this capacity the body is a tribunal of justice, not a political organization; but it is forbidden to occupy itself with any judicial matters other than those for which it was convened.[549]