EMIGRATION FROM ITALY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue 67, 16 April 1880, Page 2

EMIGRATION FROM ITALY.

One of the Homan correspondents of the Pall Mall Gazette, writes : — A circular has been addressed by the Italian Home Office to the provincial authorities calling on them to use all means in their power to stop the steady flow of emigration, which drains the rural districts of all their most robust inhabitants. The Italian peasant, ignorant and credulous to an inconceivable degree, believes all the tales of emigration agents so called, and in his desire to escape from a life of hardship and taxation starts for any new country that may be proposed to him, without knowing whore it may be or how he may be adapted for life in it ; sufficient for him that he is going somewhere, and that life airy where cannot he worse than his present state. Some time ago, just after the Russian war, the rage was for emigration to Roumania ; lately it has been for Algeria; and consular reports come in', that the emigrants are theie lying about the streets, unable f o find work and t-tarv-ing, and that eventually they have to be sent home at the expense of the Government. The prefects report that they have few- applications made to them for papers by intending emigrants, and consequently the harbor authorities are instructed to be very strict in requiring all Italian subjects taking ship to show their passportsThis willingness of the Italians to emigrate distinguishes them from the other members ot the Latin race. Perhaps it is the strain of the old Roman" blood in their veins. "Whatever it may be, after English and Germans, they are the most colonising

race. South America has become almost an Italian settlement, and every month, almost every week, takes hundreds more to its shores. Alexandria and Tunis have larger colonies of Italians than, of any other nation ; while there is, moreover, a considerable Italian colony in Burmah. A note of the earnings and taxation of the Italian working man, reproduced in the Italic, from a report of Senator Pepoli, may explain in great measure his readiness to emigrate. He is said to earn on an average 669 lire a year, of which sura he has. to spend on bread alone 293 lire. The Paris workman earns 1200 francs, and his bread only costs him 188 francs. In Italy his taxes amount to 80 francs a year, in Franco to only 1 1 francs 40 centimes. In Italy the taxes on the prime necessities— as bread, salt, and meat— come to 762 francs a head ; and bread of interior quality costs the Italian workman 14 centimes a kilo more than it does his French brother. Thus the proportion of the price of his daily bread is to che Italian as 100 to 564 of his pay, while to the Frenchman it is as 100 to 1538. This is the only real argument in favor of the abolition of the " macinato;" but unfortunately the general opinion is that the Italian poor consumer is the last man who will profit by it.