WAR, EUROPEAN.
Bibliography.—Annunzio, G. d', 'Per la Pill Grande Italia> (Milan 1915) ; Bainville, J, 'La guerre et l'Italie> (Paris 1916) ; Castellini, G., 'Trento e Trieste; 1' Irredentismo,> etc. (Milan 1915) ; Destree, J., 'En Italie avant la guerre,> preface de Maurice Maeterlinck (Brus sels 1915) ; Eddleston, R. H., 'Italian Neu trality> (Cambridge 1915) ; Errera, C., con fine fra Italia e Austria' (Milan 1915) •, Fer rero, G., 'La Guerra Europea> (Milan 1915) ; Guard, W. J. 'The Spirit of Italy> (New York 1916) ; Dutton, E., 'Naples and Southern Italy> (London 1915) ' • Piccoli, R., 'Italy and the War> (London 1915) ; Reggio, I., 'Storia della Grande Guerra d'Italia' (Milan 1915) ; Saint-Cyr, C. de, 'Pourquoi l' Italie est Notre Alliee (Paris 1915) ; Young, G. F., 'East and West,' etc. (4 vols., Vols. I and II, London 1916) ; Zimmern, H., 'Italian Leaders of To day> (London 1915) •, Jamison, E. M., and Y others, 'Italy> (New York 1918).
General Characteristics.— In order to under stand the political character of the administra tion in the kingdom of Italy, we must take into consideration certain essential elements of her Constitution, determined by her political history and by the manner of the formation of the Italian kingdom. The reaction against the secular division of Italy into a number of more or less insignificant states, none of them strong and all more or less at enmity with each other, determined the formation of a government that should not only be rigorously unified, but ab solutely concentrated. There should be not only one source of sovereign power, but also the greatest possible concentration of power in the central authority. Thus the original type of Italian administration was molded to a perfect similarity to that of France before Napoleon. Meanwhile, the broadly liberal spirit in which the Italian Constitution was applied and interpreted, and the domination of demo cratic influences, rapidly led to a full and ab solute adoption of the parliamentary system, by which the Cabinet is responsible in Parlia ment for the acts of the Crown, and the Parliament exercises a direct and constant in fluence on the proceedings of the public ad ministration, either in virtue of the ever-widen ing and increasing scope of its legislative functions, of the annual acceptance of the bud get, or of what, strictly speaking, may be called the function (interrogasione, interpellanza ed inektesta) and the power of censuring the Cabinet and instigating dismissal from office.
In a unified and concentrated government, which is at the same time a parliamentary government, and as such subject to the rule of the majority or of parties, the influence of politics with all its menaces and all its perils on public administration, seemed almost in evitable. The Italian government is certainly not free from this accusation. But the gravity of these dangers was fully foreseen, and deter mined a reform government with the view of avoiding or diminishing them. Corresponding to this was an ulterior phase of administrative development in the Italian government which, in the field of science, encountered the influence of the German theories on the jurisdiction of government and on the judicial auto-limita tion of the powers of the state as a guarantee not alone of political, but also of the civil, rights of the individual. Thus, while according to the statute the right of appointing or re moving officials belongs to the head of the exec utive, successive rulings gradually limited this power so as to make it little more than a formality and subordinate it to a multiplicity of limitations and privileges; thus the discre tional powers of the public administration were regulated and disciplined with great strictness; thus a series of very severe inspections in ad ministrative laws, judicial ordinances and par liamentary ordinances. Perhaps, taken alto gether, the government of Italy has to fear the dangers of weakness rather than those of violence and absolutism. The truth is that Italy has had too brief an education in the hard school of freedom; she is still passing through periods of transition, and has not yet conquered all the phases in the perfect forma tion of an administrative organization.