How Far Does the North South Divide in Italy Explain the Weakness of the Liberal State in 1896-1914 (30 marks) Italy was fully unified in 1870 this was just 40 years before the first world war. The Liberal State governing it was weak for a number of reason such as several opposition groups, the North South and problems from the unification. However the most important reason was the political system itself and the actions of the liberals including the foreign policy and corruption. At the time Italy used a proportional representation (PR) voting system. This meant that every vote counted and the parliament was proportional to them.
Coal and iron deposits in the southern | The sparse population of the West did not support much industrial growth, and the economy continued to be based on natural resources. | Economic growth in both farming and manufacturing. | Population Change | There was a high population.By 1870 about 15 percent of the U.S. population was foreign born. | Many Africans Americans left to work in the North and Midwest because of the problems with race. |
But was this really a success that the Liberals stayed in power? After the Liberal landslide in 1906 the Conservatives were weak and powerless in the House of Commons, with little than a quarter seats. Therefore Balfour and Lord Lansdowne decided to use their permanent Conservative majority in the House of Lords to block new policies of the Liberal Government. The Lords vetoed their first budget in November 1909 on Lloyd George’s Peoples Budget. The Liberals needed to find £15million of extra revenue to provide for the new social services and for the construction of naval warships.
The extent of unity within Italy varied immensely between 1896 and 1914, for example in the late 1890’s the North-South divide was undeniable and acted as the socio-economic and political split that separated the country entirely and questioned any possible solidarity within Italy. Unfortunately Italy’s government was equally unstable during this time which is evident as she had 20 different Prime Ministers leading the country between 1896 and 1914; this suggested that no successful decisions could be made. Although, in 1903 this changed with the introduction of Giovanni Giolitti who brought in many reforms that made the Liberal institutions far more secure through changes such as the introduction of real wages which in turn boosted the economy. Personally, I feel that despite Italy’s political and economic growth between 1896 and 1914 the extent of the unification remained questionable, therefore in the following essay I will be examining the key features of this time period to come to a reliable conclusion. Italy was not a democracy in 1896 so the right to vote was held only by the rich due to the parliament being dominated by wealthy landowners, businessmen and professional classes; this resulted in the masses having no say in the Italian government and suggested a low level of equality which consequently led to mass levels of unrest.
For a party to form an executive (government), the party needs a majority of 1 seat over the other party’s in the legislature (parliament). The British electoral system has come under scrutiny because a majority of seats allows a party to form an executive not the overall majority of public votes. In 1945 Labour won a landslide victory in the elections and gained a 180 seat majority over the Conservative party, and a 148 seat majority overall. For each seat Labour won they had polled 30,522 votes. However in the 1951 elections Labour had polled 231,067 more votes from the general public than the Conservative party, however the Conservative party gained 26 more seats and squeezed into power.
The fact that Italy had a very limited industry and lack of an efficient infrastructure also meant that hardly any money was being created to pump into the economy to keep it running or pay for these debts. This subsequently led to high inflation, increased taxes and no money being spent on education or public services. Another major economic problem under the liberal regime was the north south divide. The fact that Italy’s economy was poor was only made worse by the north south divide in the country; this divide was to do with agriculture, industrial development and general standards of living. All of which the north fared in much better than the south.
The years of 1896 – 1914 are those of Liberal Italy, the country of ‘Italy’ as we know it today had come about roughly between the years of 1870 to 1871, the significance of this is that by 1896 the newly formed country had not been unified by any means for a great amount of time, meaning unification was likely to be strained because bringing large regions together takes time, as we see in the years prior. A great significance that did not support United Italy was language. 2% of the population at the time spoke ‘Mainstream’ Italian, which would lead to massive hold ups in any coalition. This is broken down into two problems, direct communication and problems with allegiance. Spoken communication was a small factor, as only a certain population had a large reason to speak it in the first place; lowly or poor people had little say in political matter making their language less relevant.
Firstly, Italy is a central southern European country of mountain terrain and coastal lowlands which borders France, Switzerland, Germany and is northeast of Tunisia. Italy is quite a small country however what this country lacks in size it makes up for with it’s huge population of approximately 60.4 million people. (Central Intelligence Agency , 2014). Italy’s population began to decline post World War II due to the Industrialisation of Italy from
For centuries, certain classes in society have been restricted from participating in government-related activities such as taxes, voting, education, military, jury duty, etc. Many past societies have debated on whether or not all members of society should play a role in government, including the times of the French Revolution and Absolutism. All members of society should play a role in government. Most past societies viewed that the role of citizens in government affairs is foolish and unnecessary. The French Revolution had an assembly of all the estates of France called the Estates General, where the 3 Estates were able to vote separately; however each estate only had one third of the vote.
Fascism did not rise from one single event; it grew from actions of people and groups over many years. The Unification of Italy through to the post war years of 1919 – 1922 brought constant problems within the economic, social and political levels of society which led to the Fascist regime destroying a political system that had lasted 50 years. Economic, Social and Political problems post WW1 The new state of Italy was to be dominated for the next 50 years by the Liberals. They believed that under the rule of educated, progressive men, such as themselves, Italy would become a “citizenry proud of its nationality and loyal to state. (Robson, 1992)” However, reviewing the economical, social and political issues this was not to be.