We are already a
long way from the 7s. 6d. of the Golden Age!
I am bound in justice to admit that the nation has not always been so
hardly dealt with. It was not till the reign of Pius IX. that the
taxation became insupportable. The budget of Bologna was more than
doubled between 1846 and 1858.
Something might be said, if at least the money taken from the nation
were spent for the good of the nation!
But one-third of the amount raised in taxation remains in the hands of
the officials who collect it. This is incredible, but true. The cost
of collecting the revenue amounts, if I mistake not, in England, to 8
per cent.; in France, to 14 per cent.; in Piedmont, to 16 per cent.;
and in the States of the Church, to 31 per cent.
If you marvel at a system of extravagance which obliges the people to
pay L4 for every L2. 15s. 10d. required for their mis-government, here
is a fact which will enlighten you on the subject.
Last year the place of municipal receiver was put up to auction in the
city of Bologna. An offer was made by an honourable and responsible
man to collect the dues for a commission of 1-1/2 per cent. The
Government gave the preference to Count Cesare Mattei, one of the
Pope's Chamberlains, who asked two per cent. So this piece of
favouritism costs the city L800 a year.
The following is the mode in which the revenue (after the abstraction
of one-third in the course of collecting it) is disposed of.
L1,000,000 goes to pay the interest of a continually accumulating
debt, contracted by the priests, and for the priests, annually
increasing through the bad administration of the priests, and carried
by the priests to the debit of the nation.
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