is course by his own watch-lights. The College of Cardinals
surrounds him, and the College of Cardinals is practically one Cardinal,
the keen scholar and the all determining Cardinal Merry del Val, whose
personality dominates the court of the Vatican. This remarkable prelate
represents the most advanced and progressive thought of the day in many
ways,--as has been noted in preceding pages,--but as a Jesuit he is
unalterably devoted to what he considers the only ideal,--the
restoration of the temporal power of the Pope. Spain revealed her
attitude when King Alphonso asked of all the monarchs of Europe that the
name of each should be borne by his infant son, the heir-apparent; and
for Italy he asked the name of the Pope and not of the King, thus
recognizing Pius X rather than Victor Emmanuel III as the head of the
nation.

That the Socialists have very logical and serious grounds for complaint
is true. That their leader, Signor Enrico Ferri, an Italian journalist
and a Senator, is one of the most able men in Italy since the time of
Cavour is equally undeniable. The Socialists are fortunate, too, in
other leading men. Turati, the editor of the _Critica Sociale_,
Pantaleoni, Colajanni, and others are absolutely the hope of Italy at
the present time in the struggle for better conditions. For the
conditions of life in Italy, as regards taxation, the problems of
transit, the government restrictions on agricultural production and on
manufactures, are absolutely intolerable and should not be endured for a
day. The taxation is so exorbitant that it is a marvel Italy is not
depopulated. On land the tax rate is from thirty to fifty per cent; the
income tax is not merely, as one would suppose, levied on a legitimate
income derived from a man's possessions, but is levied on salaries,
ranging from ten to twenty per cent of these, and also, not content with
this unheard-of extortion, the tax is levied on the nature and source
of his salary, and even the smallest wage is thus subject to an income
tax. Again, there is a most absurd tax on salt, which, like sugar and
tobacco, is held as a government monopoly. No poor person living on the
seacoast in Italy is allowed to take even a pail of water from the sea
to his house, as the government assumes that, by evaporation, it might
yield a few grains of salt. The tax on sugar effectually checks an
industry that might be made most profitable, that of putting up fruit in
jams, jellies, and compo