e
piece or of the maligned heroine, or a secret society or a gold mine,
or a pestilence or a delusion--the name of the _Banca Commerciale
Italiana._

Banking in a country undergoing so rapid and vigorous an economic
development as Italy is very different from the banking we simple
English know of at home. Banking in England, like land-owning, has
hitherto been a sort of hold up. There were always borrowers, there were
always tenants, and all that had to be done was to refuse, obstruct,
delay and worry the helpless borrower or would-be tenant until the
maximum of security and profit was obtained. I have never borrowed but
I have built, and I know something of the extreme hauteur of property of
England towards a man who wants to do anything with land, and with
money I gather the case is just the same. But in Italy, which already
possessed a sunny prosperity of its own upon mediaeval lines, the banker
has had to be suggestive and persuasive, sympathetic and helpful. These
are unaccustomed attitudes for British capital. The field has been far
more attractive to the German banker, who is less of a proudly impassive
usurer and more of a partner, who demands less than absolute security
because he investigates more industriously and intelligently. This great
bank, the Banca Commerciale Italiana, is a bank of the German type: to
begin with, it was certainly dominated by German directors; it was a
bank of stimulation, and its activities interweave now into the whole
fabric of Italian commercial life. But it has already liberated
itself from German influence, and the bulk of its capital is Italian.
Nevertheless I found discussion ranging about firstly what the Banca
Commerciale essentially _was_, secondly what it might _become_, thirdly
what it might _do_, and fourthly what, if anything, had to be done to
it.

It is a novelty to an English mind to find banking thus mixed up with
politics, but it is not a novelty in Italy. All over Venetia there are
agricultural banks which are said to be "clerical." I grappled with this
mystery. "How are they clerical?" I asked Captain Pirelli. "Do they lend
money on bad security to clerical voters, and on no terms whatever
to anti-clericals?" He was quite of my way of thinking. "_Pecunia non
olet_," he said; "I have never yet smelt a clerical fifty lira note."...
But on the other hand Italy is very close to Germany; she wants easy
money for development, cheap coal, a market for various products