Part 28

There is no exact equivalent in English for _domicilio coatto_; it means the right of Government to send anyone it pleases to reside in any district it selects, for as long a period as it may choose to ordain. A journalist was the other day arrested in Rome whilst talking with a friend, his offence being the expression of republican opinions. He was ordered to reside in an obscure village where he had been born, but which he had left when in swaddling clothes; his house, family and means of livelihood were all in Rome. He had been previously domiciled in Bologna, whence he had been expelled for the same offence of opinion. The confinement of a man of this profession to an obscure and remote village is, of course, the deprivation of all his means of livelihood. There is nothing he can do in such a place; meanwhile his family must starve in Rome or wherever they go.

Another journalist, merely accused of _desiring another form of government than the monarchial_, was put in the felon’s dock, loaded with chains and surrounded by gendarmes, in the same place where Paolo Lega had been sentenced an hour before. A seller of alabaster statuettes and ornaments, though there was nothing against him except the suspicion of the police, was so harrassed by the latter in Civita Vecchia that he sold off all his stock at ruinous prices, and went towards Massa, his native place, hoping to dwell there in peace; he was, however, arrested at Corneto, on a vague charge of anarchism and flung into prison. These are only a few examples out of thousands. Can any better plan be devised for the conversion of industrious, harmless and prosperous persons into paupers and criminals?

It apparently seems a little thing to the violent old man who throughout 1894 has been unfortunately paramount in Italy, to uproot men from their homes and occupations and pitchfork them into some hamlet where they were born, or some barren sea-shore or desolate isle. But to a man who maintains himself by the work of either his hands or his brain, such deportation from the place where all his interests lie, is a sentence of ruin and starvation for him and his family; and if the Government gives him a meagre pittance to keep life in him (which it does not do unless he is actually a criminal or one condemned as such), all the women and children belonging to him must fall into complete misery, being deprived of his support. The English Press takes no notice of these seizures of citizens, and their condemnation to _domicilio coatto_, perhaps it does not comprehend what _domicilio coatto_ means; or perhaps it thinks that it would not matter at all to a journalist, a solicitor, or a merchant, living and working in York, in Exeter, or in London, to be suddenly transported thence to some obscure hamlet in Hants, in Connaught, or in Merionethshire, and ordered never to leave that place.

There is a project for deporting all those thus uprooted and condemned in Italy to ‘_domicilio coatto_,’ to an island on the Red Sea, there to rot out their wretched lives in fever and famine. On a barren shore, where not a blade of grass will grow, in face of a sun-scorched sea which no vessel ever visits save once a year, the skiffs of pearl-fishers, many of the most intelligent, the most disinterested, and the most patriotic men of Italy will be left to die by inches in the festering heat, deriving what consolation they may from the reflection that whilst honest men are thus dealt with for the sin of political opinion, the men who forged, robbed and disgraced their nation, at the Banca Romana, are set at liberty and caressed and acclaimed by the populace.

‘I hope the country will draw a parallel between Tanlungo and ourselves,’ said Dr Barbato, a man of high talent and character, who has been condemned to the agonies of solitary confinement in the prisons of Perugia for political offences; he is well known as a writer; and when the famous Liberal deputy, Cavallotti, was allowed to see him the other day, he merely said that he hoped he might be allowed more air, as the confinement to his cell made him suffer from almost continual vertigo, which prevented him from pursuing any intellectual thought.

The fortresses, prisons and penitentiaries are crowded all over Italy with prisoners, many of them as worthy of respect as Dr Barbato, as innocent as Molinari, as high-spirited and noble-hearted as De Felice. Under the additions which have been made to the Code in the last parliamentary sessions these captives will be increased by thousands.

Here is the text of some articles in the draft of the new laws recently passed at Montecitorio:—

‘Whoso uses the press to excite to crime, does not merely commit an offence of the press but commits a common felony, with the aggravation of turning to a felonious purpose an instrument designed to uphold education and instruction. Whereas the destructive aim of those who would reduce existing society to the last gasp, is above all, to inoculate the army with the passion of discord and insubordination, the army which is our joy and pride by its example of patriotism, of self-denial, and of self-sacrifice, we propose, with the second article of this projected addition to the code, a punishment for this especial offence which, as the code stands at present, escapes penal chastisement. Thus we propose that any incitement to lawlessness, any propaganda leading to insubordination and rebellion, do not cease to be felonious offences because the offender employs the medium of the press instead of that of speech, and ... this form of offence should also be raised to the honour (_sic_) of a crime meet to be judged by the assizes whenever the offender shall use for such purpose the public press, and the greater gravity of the offence shall render it more ignoble, and shall not any longer allow it to escape under an aureole of political glory.’

It then proceeds to provide that such offence shall be punishable by a term of not less than five and of not more than ten years; and it is plain with what ease this clause may be stretched to comprehend and condemn every phase of liberal opinion in any way obnoxious to the Government in power.

Literature itself is threatened in the most perilous and insolent manner by the following lines in Article 2 of this Crispian programme:—

‘Whosoever by means of the press, or in whatever other figurative sense (_qualsiasi altro senso figurativo_) instigates the military to disobey any law, or to be lacking in respect to their superiors, or to violate in any manner the duties of discipline, or the decorum of the army or of men under arms, or exposes it to the dislike or the ridicule of civil persons, shall be punished by imprisonment of a term varying from three to thirty months, and with the fine of from three hundred to three thousand francs.’

With such a comprehensive decree as this the delightful _Abbozzi Militare_ of De Amicis might be condemned as wanting in respect, whilst Dante, were he living, would be sent much further than Ravenna.

Every one who attacks in print existing institutions is to be dragged into a criminal court, and from thence to prison; the philosophic republican, the meditative layman, who dares to bring his well-weighed thoughts to bear against existing institutions, will be set in the same dock with the thief, the forger, and the murderer, and from the dock will pass to the _ergastolo_, to the diet, the clothes, and the existence, of common felons.

This is a violation of intellectual and personal liberty which does not concern Italian writers alone; it is one which should rouse the alarm, the indignation and the sympathy of every thinker in every clime who from his study endeavours to enlighten and liberate the world.

Stripped of its pompous verbiage this addition to the Code will enable the government to silence and put away every public writer, orator, pressman, or deputy, who is displeasing or annoying to them. Observe the provision to treat as penal all judgments of the press passed on verdicts of the tribunals. The tribunals are at present merely held in some slight check by the expression of public opinion given in the daily press. This check is to be removed and the most conscientious, the most honourable of journalists, may be treated as a common malefactor and deprived of trial by jury. To be judged by jury has hitherto been the inalienable right of newspaper proprietors or of contributors to the press. It is impossible to exaggerate this menace to the liberties of the press. An insolent and unscrupulous minister, and a timid and servile parliament, have reduced the Italian press to the level of the Russian press.

There is scarcely any political article which the ingenuity of a public prosecutor could not twist into a criminal offence, and this project of law is so carefully worded that the meshes of its net are wide enough to entrap all expressions of opinion. Anything by its various sections may be construed into incitement to disorder or rebellion. John Bright and Stuart Mill would be condemned with Krapotkine and Tolstoï. A writer writing against conscription would be treated as equally guilty with one writing in favour of regicide.

The assassination of opinion is a greater crime than the assassination of a man. John Milton has said that, ‘It is to hit the image of God in the eye.’

The whole provisions of these new laws are no less infamous; they will legalise arbitrary and unexplained arrest, and will condemn to ‘_domicilio coatto_’ any deputy or citizen who may be suspected or obnoxious, and the law can be stretched to include and smite the simplest expression of individual views, the mere theory and deductions of philosophic studies.

This paper could under it be easily attacked as an _apologia pro anarchia_.

The printing press may not be an unmixed good, but it is certain that the absolute freedom of its usage is its right and its necessity.

The purpose of anarchism in its outrages is no doubt to make all government impossible through terror, but they will probably only succeed in making through terror every government a tyranny. The extent to which terror can carry already existing governments is nowhere seen so conspicuously as in Italy, where reaction is violent and entirely unscrupulous in its paroxysm of fear.

It is grotesque, it is impudent, of such governments as exist at the close of this century to expect that any writer, gifted with any originality of thought and having the courage of his opinions, should be content with them or offer them any adulation. The governments of the immediate moment are conspicuous for all the defects which must irritate persons of any intelligence and independence. All have overwhelmed their nations with fiscal burdens; all lay the weight of a constant preparation for war on their people; all harass and torment the lives of men by meddlesome dictation; all patronise and propagate the lowest forms of art; all muddle away millions of the public treasure; all are opportunists with neither consistency nor continuity. There is not a single government which can command the respect of any independent thinker. Yet we are told to revere government as a sacred custodian throned upon the purity of spotless snows!

‘Two things are necessary to this country—liberty and government,’ said Casimir-Perier in his opening address. He might have added that no one has ever yet succeeded in making the two dwell in unison. Liberty and government are dog and cat; there can be no amity or affinity between them. Governments are sustained because men make a sacrifice, sometimes compulsory, sometimes voluntary, of their liberties to sustain government. What is the idea of liberty which Casimir-Perier has in his mind? This kind of nobly sounding phrase is much beloved by politicans; they usually mean nothing by them. He will certainly leave the Prefectures and all their subordinates as he finds them; he will allow the Department of Seine et Oise to be poisoned, despite its inhabitants’ piteous protests; he will sustain and probably give still more power to the police and the detective system; he will not prevent arbitrary arrests in the streets of innocent persons, nor domiciliary visits on suspicion to private houses; he certainly will not touch conscription; he in all likelihood will revive obsolete press laws, and he will without doubt harass and muzzle the socialists on every occasion; he will have his _Cabinet Noir_ and secret services like the ministers of the Empire, and he will not alter by a hair’s breadth the spoliation of the public for taxation, the worry of the citizen by bye-laws, the corruption of municipal and political elections, and the impossibility for any Royalist to obtain justice at any _mairie_, prefecture, or tribunal.

As the Republican can obtain no justice in Germany, as the Jew can obtain none in Russia, as the Ecclesiastic and the Socialist alike can obtain none in Italy, so the Royalist and the Socialist alike can obtain none in France. The same tendency to mete out justice by political weights and measures is to be observed in England, although not to so great an extent, because in England the character and position of judges and magistrates are far higher and less accessible to corruption and prejudice. Yet even there, since political bias is allowed to influence the issue of cards for State balls, and admittance to the opening of State Ceremonies, it will soon inevitably influence legal decisions in the country. Interference with the freedom of the press would not yet in a political sense be tolerated in England, but its tribunals have come grievously near to it in some recent verdicts, and the mere existence of Lord Campbell’s Vigilance Society is an invasion of the liberty of literature; whilst the steps to be taken are not many which would carry the _Times_ the _Post_ the _Standard_, and many other journals from their servile adulation of the sham Sylla of Italy to the advocacy of a similar tyranny to his over Great Britain. Neither Conservatism nor Radicalism is any protection against tyranny, _i.e._, incessant interference with the individual liberty of the citizen; and republics are as opposed to individualism as monarchies and empires.

Carnot lies dead in the Pantheon, and liberty lies dying in the world. His tender and unselfish heart would have ached with an impersonal sorrow, greater even than his grief for those he loved, could he have known that his death would have been made an excuse for intemperate authority and pusillanimous power to gag the lips and chain the strength of nations.

THE END

COLSTON AND COMPANY, LTD., PRINTERS, EDINBURGH

Transcriber’s Note

French quotations occasionally are lacking diacritical marks, but are given here as printed. ‘Tolstoï’ also appears twice as ‘Tolstoi’, which has been corrected to accommodate text searches. The word ‘eponymous’ appears only twice, both times as ‘eponymus’ and appears here as printed.

Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.

6.19 by the[ the] way Removed. 185.22 a scholar or a conno[ssi/iss]eur Transposed. 190.32 given over to the abso[ul/lu]te will Transposed. 191.23 Tolsto[i/ï] and St Paul Replaced. 220.1 Packed like[d] herrings Removed. 221.11 a hyb[ir/ri]d, self-contained opponent Transposed. 261.7 we have the ‘Good-night[’] Added. 274.25 of gastro[mon/nom]y and of sport Transposed. 300.16 will be awarded at Westmin[i]ster Removed. 314.8 i[s/n] his admirable treatise on gastronomy Replaced. 341.14 are called reaction[o/a]ry, old-fashioned Replaced. 364.22 mathemat[h]ically-measured Removed. 372.22 is justifiable in its repression[.] Added. 383.18 the coarse invective of such politic[i]ans Inserted. 393.33 of not less tha[t/n] five Replaced. 395.26 with Krapotkine and Tolsto[i/ï] Replaced. 397.18 is much beloved by politic[i]ans Inserted.