Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/346

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ITALY.

The actual expenditure for the year 1868 amounted to 46,919,001/., thus exceeding the estimates by 7,000,443/., while the actual receipts were to the amount of 1,835,521/. below those calculated upon.

The budget estimates for the year ending December 31, 1869, were calculated upon a total ordinary and extraordinaiy revenue of 999,472,619 lire, or 39,978,905/., and a total expenditure of 1,074,183,493 lire, or 42,967,339/., leaving a deficit of 74,710,874 lire, or 2,988,434/. The actual receipts in 1869 amounted, ex- clusive of loans, to 34,420,000/., and the actual disbursements to 46,030,000/.

The financial accounts relating to expenditure divide all dis- bursements, besides the ' Parte ordinaria ' and ' Parte straordinaria,' into permanent and administrative expenditure. Under the head of permanent expenditure are comprised the charges of the public debt, the civil list, pensions, and guaranteed interest of railways and other public undertakings, while the administrative expenditure embraces the cost of the general government, including the charges for the maintenance of the army and navy. During the eight years 1862-69, the so-called permanent expenditure showed a constant tendency towards increase, while the administrative expenditure went gradually declining, as will be seen from the following table :—

Years

Permanent Expenditure

Administrative Expenditure

1862

9,572,000

27,268,000

1863

10,971,000

24,931,000

1864

14,100,000

27,224,000

1865

20,088,000

22,570,000

1866

19,842,000

29,384,000

1867

21,349,000

23,354,000

1868

22,374,000

24,545,000

1869

24,250,000'

21,780,000

The ever-recurring deficits of recent years, produced by the vast increase of expenditure, but slightly covered by augmented revenue, were met partly by loans, and partly by the sale of state property, and monopolies. In 1867, when the financial pressure attained) dimensions not known before, the Government, by consent of the Chamber of Deputies, levied the sum of 600 millions of lire, orl 24,000,000/., on ecclesiastical property, and two years later, in 1868,1 the State monopoly on tobacco was made over to a French company! in consideration of a loan of 180,000,000 lire, or 7,200,000/., pay-J able in gold, in six months' instalments. The State railways were! also sold, in 1864, for a sum of 200,000,000 lire, or 8,000,000/.