Abstract

Parliamentary Government in Italy

The article presents information on parliamentary government in Italy. The Italian Parliament, like the French, like the present German Parliament, has always labored under the fraction disease. Instead of two principal parties, as they exist in England and Belgium, there have always been five or six groups, each of which represents a minority and can only hold government as tong as the coalition lasts which brought it into office. There is, however, a very great difference between Italian and French or German fractiondom. In Italy principles have nothing to do with it; and the talent with which personal interests are disguised under the clothing of general interests is very small. From 1860 to 1870 all the different shades of the so-called right succeeded each other in office; from March, 1876, till now three different groups of the Left have alternately been in possession of power.