A correspondent of the Times draws a gloomy picture of
the Italian Parliament. He says that the "progressive womanish- ness," or liability to unreasoning emotion, which has always marked Italians after long periods of peace, is making the Chamber untrustworthy. It has actually dismissed a great Minister like Crispi for a hasty and insolent expression. Moreover, the pressure of localities on the Treasury becomes unreasonable and unbearable, and the Deputies themselves seek nothing but their private interests. He recommends universal military service as a cure, and is, we fancy, inclined at heart to welcome actual war. He is yielding too easily to the spreading pessimism about Parliaments, and forgets that every depositary of power, whether it be King or Caasar or Representative Body, has periods of relaxed fibre, and even of diminished sensitiveness of conscience. The British Parliament has seemed from time to time quite given up to faction, as it now is to "progressive womanishness;" but it has always cleaned itself again, and grown hard and sensible. The great danger of Parliaments now is lest, in their weakened moods, they should waste national resources ; but we fancy the impatience of taxation is usually developed in time. No State, except perhaps Portugal, is in. the financial slough in which we were plunging about in 1816.20.
