CRISPY With the entry of Crispi into the Depretis cabinet as minister of the interior (April 4, 1887) an element of vigour which had long been lacking was introduced into the Government. Within four months the death of Depretis (July 29, 1887) opened for Crispi the way to the premiership. Besides assuming the presi dency of the council of ministers and retaining the Ministry of the Interior, Crispi took over the portfolio of foreign affairs. One of the first questions with which he had to deal was that of concil iation between Italy and the Vatican. At the end of May the pope, in an allocution to the cardinals, had spoken of Italy in terms of unusual cordiality, and had expressed a wish for peace. Soon afterwards a pamphlet known to represent the pope's ideas, was published by Father Tosti, a close friend and confidant of the pope, and persona grata to the Italian Government, extolling the advantages of peace between Vatican and Quirinal. Reconcilia tion seemed within sight when suddenly Tosti's pamphlet was placed on the Index. On June 4, 1887, the official Vatican organ, the Osservatore Romano, published a letter written by Tosti to the pope conditionally retracting the views expressed in the pamph let. The letter had been written at the pope's request, on the understanding that it should not be published. The dream of con ciliation was at an end, but the Tosti incident had served once more to illustrate the true position of the Vatican in Italy. It seemed clear that neither the influence of the regular clergy, of which the Society of Jesus is the most powerful embodiment, nor that of foreign clerical parties, which largely control the Peter's Pence fund, would ever permit renunciation of the papal claim to temporal power. Conciliation with Italy would expose the pope and his Italian entourage to suspicion of being unduly subject to Italian political influence—of being, in a word, more Italian than Catholic. In order to avoid this danger it was necessary to refuse all compromise, and, by perpetual reiteration of a claim incom patible with Italian territorial unity, to prove to the Church at large that the pope and the Curia were more Catholic than Italian. But such rigidity need not have been extended to the affairs of everyday contact between the Vatican and the Italian authorities, wherein, indeed, a tacit modus vivendi was easily attainable. The failure of the conciliation movement left profound irritation between Vatican and Quirinal.
The internal situation inherited by Crispi from Depretis was very unsatisfactory. Extravagant expenditure, and the over speculation in building and in industrial ventures, had combined to produce a state of affairs calling for firm and radical treatment. Crispi, burdened by the premiership and by the two most impor tant portfolios in the cabinet, was unable to exercise efficient con trol over all departments of State. Nevertheless his administration was by no means unfruitful. Zanardelli, minister of justice, se cured in June 1888 the adoption of a new penal code, and munic ipal franchise was reformed by granting what was practically manhood suffrage with residential qualification. The management of finance was scarcely satisfactory, for Giolitti, who had suc ceeded Magliani and Perazzi at the Treasury, lacked the fibre needed to deal with the huge deficit of nearly 250,000,000 lire in 5888-89, the existence of which both Perazzi and he had recog nized. The most successful feature of Crispi's term of office was his strict maintenance of order and the suppression of Radical and Irredentist agitation. So vigorous was his treatment of Irre
dentism that he dismissed without warning his colleague Seismit Doda, minister of finance, for having failed to protest against Irredentist speeches delivered in his presence at Udine. The gen eral election of 1890 gave the cabinet an almost unwieldy ma jority, comprising four-fifths of the Chamber. But an angry out burst of Crispi's against the Right in a debate on a financial bill, precipitated a division and placed the cabinet in a minority (Jan. 31, 1891). The incident brought about the resignation of Crispi. A few days later he was succeeded in the premiership by the mar quis di Rudini, leader of the Right, who formed a coalition cabinet with Nicotera and a part of the Left.
The sudden fall of Crispi wrought a great change in the char acter of Italian relations with foreign powers. His policy had been characterized by cordiality towards Austria and Germany, an un derstanding with Great Britain, in regard to Mediterranean ques tions and an apparent animosity towards France. Crispi enter tained in reality no a priori animosity towards France, but was strongly convinced that Italy must emancipate herself from the position of political dependence on her powerful neighbour which had vitiated the foreign policy of the Left. His ostentatious visit to Bismarck at Friedrichsruh, and a subsequent speech at Turin, in which he eulogized the personality of Bismarck, aroused against him a hostility on the part of the French which he was never afterwards able to allay. In such circumstances the negotiations for the new commercial treaty could but fail. The chief advantage derived by Italy from Crispi's foreign policy was the increase of confidence in her Government on the part of her allies and of Great Britain. Both Bismarck and Great Britain made it clear that if Italy were attacked by France she would not stand alone. With the instinct of a true statesman, Crispi felt the pulse of the people, divined their need for prestige, and their preference for a Government heavy-handed rather than lax. How great had been Crispi's power was seen by contrast with the policy of the Rudini cabinet which succeeded him in Feb. 1891 Crispi's so-called "megalomania" gave place to retrenchment in home affairs and to a deferential attitude towards all foreign powers. Although inclined to be friendly to France, Rudini did not intend to let the triple alliance lapse on its expiry in May 1892, and in fact, accepting proposals from Berlin, he renewed it in June 1891 for a period of 12 years. On the other hand he assured Russia in Oct. 1891 of the entirely defensive nature of Italian engagements under the triple alliance. At the same time he carried to a success ful conclusion negotiations begun by Crispi for the renewal of commercial treaties with Austria and Germany, and concluded with Great Britain conventions for the delimitation of British and Italian spheres of influence in north-east Africa. In home affairs his administration was weak and vacillating, nor did the econo mies effected in naval and military expenditure and in other de partments suffice to strengthen the position of the cabinet. He was defeated in the Chamber on May 5 and obliged to resign. Giolitti, a Piedmontese deputy, sometime Treasury minister in the Crispi cabinet, was entrusted with the formation of a ministry of the Left, which contrived to obtain six months' supply on account, and dissolved the Chamber.