Direct Administration of the Government.
— The outward and formal affirmation of the unity of the administration is in the head of the kingdom. According to Art. 5 of the Stat utes of the Kingdom, "To the King alone be longs the executive power." Art. 5 affirms further that the king is the supreme head of the state, commands all the forces on land and sea, declares war and has control of the foreign policy of the kingdom. The king makes ap pointments to all the offices of the government and makes the decrees and ordinances for the execution of the laws (Art. 6, Stat.).
With the parliamentary form, however, of the Italian government all these prerogatives of the king are always exercised subject to the responsibility of the Ministry, either col lectively (the Cabinet), or individually accord ing to the nature of the act.
The responsible representatives of the gov ernment are therefore the Ministries; and in Italy they have a double function : constitu tional on the one hand, in which they assume the responsibility of the acts of the Crown before the Parliament ; administrative on the other hand when they take the active direction of an important branch of public administration. There are 11 branches of the Ministry in the Italian government: (1) The Ministry of the Interior, which is really the political ministry par excellence (on it are dependent the depart ments of police and of public sanitation, the local government offices, the communal administra tions the prisons, etc.) ; (2) the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; (3) the Ministry of War; (4) the Ministry of the Navy; (5) the Ministry of Public Finance; (6) the Ministry of the Exchequer (which administers the wealth of the kingdom and represents the financial econ omy of the government) • the Ministry of and d Religion (whi is supreme in all jurisdictionary and ecclesiastical matters). Then come the departments of social administration ; (8) the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce; (9) the Ministry of Public Works (which comprises also transportation and rail roads) ; (10) the Ministry of Public Instruction; (11) the Ministry of Postal Communication and Telegraphs. The supreme organ in the councils
of the government, intended to give advice to the Ministers, without, however, limiting their freedom or responsibility, is the Council of State, besides the special supreme councils which are instituted in the various Ministries for the discussion of special matters.
The direct administration of the govern ment — emanating from the ministerial centre — is felt throughout the 'whole territory of the kingdom by means of a network of local gov ernment officials, co-ordinate and subordinate. Every special administration has, naturally, its special territorial organs; but even in this dif fusion of the administrative action it has been the object to maintain a sort of sub-central unity, by the institution of a suitable official who should represent all the powers of the government within a certain extent of terri tory. This office is filled by a prefect, within a circumscribed area known as a province; the kingdom is divided into 69 prefectures. The prefect, according to Art. 3 of the Communal Law, represents the executive power in the whole province, provides for the execution of the laws, supervises the conduct of all the pub lic government offices, superintends the safety of the public, has the power to make use of the police force, and to call out the soldiery. Thus, all the provincial government officials find their unit of co-ordination in the prefect, who upholds and confirms their subordination to the managing official of the Ministry. The judicial representation of the central adminis tration is also assured in even the smallest section of territory, for in every commune the mayor (besides being the head of the com munal administration, as we have said, is also empowered to represent the government, espe cially in whatever regards public safety, the police department and local sanitation.