"Books of all kinds are taken to the land custom-house, where the _Revisore_ is stationed for books alone. The _Revisore_ speaks English tolerably well."
INFLUENCE OF ROMANISM ON TRADE--(CONTINUED).
Why does the Church systematically discourage Trade?--Railways--Much needed--Church opposes them--Could not a man take a journey of twenty or two hundred miles and be a good Catholic?--Motion is Liberty--Motion contributed to overthrow the Serfdom of the Middle Ages--Popes understand the connection between Motion and Liberty--Romans chained to the Soil--Gregory XVI. and the Iron-bridge--Gas in Rome--Spread of the Malaria--The Pontine Marshes--Neglect of Soil--Number of Paupers--How the Church prevents the Cultivation of the Campagna--Church Lands in England and Scotland--The price which Italy pays for the Papacy--Whether would the old Roman Woman or an old Scotch Woman make the better Ruler?
Let us pause here, and inquire into the cause of this most deplorable state of matters. Is not the Papal Government manifestly sacrificing its own interests? Would it not be better for itself were Italy covered with a prosperous agriculture and a flourishing trade? Were its cities filled with looms and forges, would not its people have more money to spend on masses and absolutions? and, instead of the Government subsisting on foreign loans, and being always on the eve of bankruptcy, it might fill its exchequer from the vast resources of the country, and have, moreover, the pleasure of seeing around it a prosperous and happy people.
This is all very true. None knows better the value of money than Rome; but she knows, too, the infinite hazard of acquiring it in the way of allowing trade and industry to enter the Papal States. Indeed, to do so would be to record sentence of banishment against herself. Every one must have remarked the difference betwixt the artizan of Birmingham and the peasant of Ireland. They seem to belong to two different races of men almost. The former is employed in making a certain piece of mechanism, or in superintending its working. He is compelled to calculate, to trace effects to their causes, and to study the relations of the various parts before him to the whole. In short, he is taught to think; and that thinking power he applies to all other subjects. His habits of life teach him to ask for reasons, and to accept of opinions only on evidence. The mind of the latter lies dead. Were Italy filled with a race of men like the first, the papacy could not live a day. Were trade, and machinery, and wealth to come in, the torpor of Italy would be broken up; and--terrible event to the papacy!--mind would awaken. What though the Pope reigns over a wasted land and a nation of beggars? he _does_ reign; he counts for a European sovereign; and his system continues to exist as a power. As men in shipwreck throw overboard food, jewels, all, to save life, so Romanism has thrown all overboard to save itself. Nothing could be a stronger proof of this than the fact that, as the effects and benefits of trade become the more developed, the pontifical Government tightens its restrictions. The note of Antonelli, the present ruling spirit of the papacy, was the most prohibitive ever framed against the introduction of iron, in other words, of civilization. This is the price which Italy must pay for the Pope and his religion. She cannot participate in the advantages of foreign trade; she cannot enjoy the facilities and improvements of modern times; because, were she to enjoy these, she would lose the papacy. She must be content to remain in the barbarism of the middle ages, covered with that moral malaria which has smitten all things in that doomed land, and under the influence of which, the cities, the earth itself, and man, for whom it was made, are all sinking into one common ruin.[3]
