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1899.] itself expired. The new President, Sgr. Chinaglia, was not equal in energy and decision to some of his predecessors in the chair, and Sgr. Zanardelli may have recognised with some satisfaction that the post was not a sinecure. The one bright spot, however, was the financial situation. Sgr. Boselli, Minister of the Treasury, was able to announce that the Budget of 1898-9, showed a clear surplus of fifteen millions, due chiefly to an increase in the stamp revenue—in other words, to a general improvement in trade. As not unusually happened this condition was reflected in other ways. The bye-elections caused by the death or resignation of deputies, were, with the exception of those at Milan, generally favourable to the Moderates. In consequence of this altered tone of popular feeling, the Ministry decided to relax the stringency of the law, and to blot out as far as possible the memory of the riots of May, 1898, and before the year closed a general amnesty for political offences was pronounced. This act of conciliation included all offences against the law of public safety relative to public meetings, press offences, trade-union offences, assaults on public functionaries during the riots, and even attempts to organise resistance to the authorities or to overawe parliamentary freedom. At the same time the amnesty did not apply to offences against property, to persons tried and condemned in their absence who had not presented themselves to the authorities before the last day of the year. These reservations were generally disapproved, as intended to minimise the general good results expected from the act of grace.

CHAPTER II.

GERMANY AND AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

I. GERMANY.

The first subject dealt with by the German Parliament in the year was a bill for increasing the Army. By this bill the strength of the Army on a peace footing was to be increased by 26,576 men between October 1, 1899, and the close of the financial year 1902, and the strength attained in the latter year was to remain the standard for the peace footing until 1904. Like its predecessor of 1893, the bill provided for a quinquennate, or in other words for fixing the peace establishment of the Army every five years; but the increase was in this case to be gradual, and its cost was to be spread over the period during which it was to be effected instead of being demanded at once. In introducing the bill the Minister for War observed that the Eirenicon of the Czar had made it certain that Germany would not within a measurable distance of time be attacked by Russia. This consideration had materially altered the