Sr. Sella produced the Italian budget on the 14th inst.
It is a very-unfavourable one, showing that the deficit for 1865 is 8,200,000/., and that for 1866 will be 4,000,000/. The total floating debt, which M. Reuter's agents persist, in spite of repeated explanations, in confounding with the deficit, will at the end of 1866 be 25,000,000/. Of this sum 8,000,000/. will have been pro- vided for by the sale of the State railways, and Sr. Sella demands authority to meet the remainder by a loan to the amount of six- teen millions sterling. At the price at which Italy is raising money this is equivalent to nearly thirty millions, but Sr. Sella proposes to increase taxation, and shows that the revenue is really increasing. The primary difficulty of Italy is to impose searching taxation on provinces like Naples and Sicily, which are half savage, or to allow one province to be taxed more than another. An income-tax would be the best remedy, but the Southern nations seem unable to bear it.
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