¹ The South comprises the provinces of Abruzzi and Molise, Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia. The Center includes Tuscany, Umbria, Marche, and Lazio. The North is composed of Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Trentino and Upper Adige, Venetia, Venetia Julia, and Emilia. The territory actually contained in the three sections has changed through time because of frontier alterations. For a detailed description of the regions and changes effected since unification in 1861, see Statistiche sul Mezzogiorno d'ltalia, 1861–1953 (Rome: Svimez, 1954), p. xi.Google Scholar

² See Tagliacarne, Guglielmo, “Calcolo del Reddito del Settore Privato e della Pubblica Amministrazione nelle Province e Regioni d'ltalia nel 1953 e Indici di Alcuni Consumi e del Risparmio Bancario e Postale,” Moneta e Credito, VII, No. 26 (1954), 165–212Google Scholar; and Cusimano, G., “Di Alcuni Criteri Metodologici per la Ripartizione del Reddito Nazionale fra le Regioni Italiane,” Rivista ltaliana di Economia, Demografia, e Statistica (January-June 1954), VIII, 58–104.Google Scholar

³ Some efforts were made earlier, as we shall see, but they were not continued long enough. Recent governmental action has been in the form of public works programs, loans to enterprisers who located in the South, and tax relief during the early years of a business. See I Finanziamenti all'lndustria del Mezzogiorno, Svimez, September 1952, and Cassa per il Mezzogiorno, Bilanci, 1951–1952 and years following. Government expenditures for economic development are much higher in proportion to government tax revenues in the South than in the North. Statistiche sul Mezzogiorno, p. 1002.

⁴ Horsepower in the South was, however, 28.2 per cent of the total. This was because of the installations in the sulphur mines, an industry without a future because of American competition from about 1908 onward.

⁵ See Ellena, Vittorio, La Statistica di Alcune Industrie haliane (2d ed.; Rome: Botta, 1880)Google Scholar, passim. There was considerable household and artisan production in the South, which was to disappear very largely with the development of machine production in the North. At least, the South had, in 1876, 46 per cent of all household looms in the country.

⁶ See Annuario Statistico Italiano. Anno 1881 (Rome: Botta, 1881).Google Scholar

⁷ For the railways see Ministero delle Comunicazioni, Ferrovie dello stato, Sviluppo delle Verrovie Italians dal 1836 al 1926 (Rome, 1926).Google Scholar For roads see Correnti, Cesare and Maestri, Pietro, Annuario Statistico Italiano, 1864 (Turin: Tipografia Letteraria, 1864), p. 694.Google Scholar

⁸ In the sixty years prior to World War II, world manufacturing increased sevenfold. In this period Italy's share of world manufacturing remained fairly steady at about 2.5 per cent of the total. League of Nations, Industrialization and World Trade (Princeton, 1945), p. 13.Google Scholar

⁹ Compendio Statistico Italiano, 1954 (Rome: Institute Poligrafico dello Stato, 1954).Google Scholar Tables 17 and 303. See also “II Piano Vanoni,” supplement to Mondo Economico (January 15, 1955), p. 3.Google Scholar

¹⁰ For a recent statement of the Southern interpretation, see de Meo, G., “Aspetti Quantitativi dell'Economia Italiana,” La Disoccupazione in Italia (Rome: Camera dei Deputati, 1953–1954), Vol. IV, Part 3.Google Scholar See also Croce, Benedetto, Storia d'ltalia (Bari: Laterza, 1929), pp. 60–61Google Scholar, and Fortunate, Giustino, II Mezzogiorno e lo Stato Haliano (2 vols.; Florence: Vallecchi, 1926).Google Scholar Critical of this position are Luzzatto, Gino, Storia Economica (Padua: Cedam, 1952), p. 396Google Scholar, and Fossati, Antonio, Lavoro e Produzione in Italia (Turin: Giappicelli, 1951), pp. 212 ff.Google Scholar

¹¹ It should be added that the fertility of the soil in the Po Valley is to be accounted for in part by the “plowing back” of earnings into farming. The North had small, low-grade deposits of coal in Tuscany; the South similar mines in Sardinia.

¹² In 1876 the South had only a half of one per cent of the metallurgical workers in Italy. Ellena, La Statistica di Alcune Industrie Italiane, pp. 139–41.

¹³ The Naviglio Grande or Grand Canal from Pavia to near Milan is an example of this network. It was built in the twelfth century and hence as early as canals in the Netherlands.

¹⁴ E. Tarlé, Le Blocus Continental et le Royaumc d'ltalie (Paris: Allan, 1928).Google Scholar One should not forget that Naples had contacts with England and France in this period, as is witnessed by the long stay there of Lord Nelson and the founding of the first Jacobin Clubs in Italy at Naples. Such relations had little to do with economic growth except perhaps in the case of Marsala wine in Sicily. Here such English companies as Woodhouse and later Ingham and Whitaker and Co. “manufactured” Marsala wine to compete with port and sherry in the English market. See also Carano-Dovito, G., L'Economia Meridionals Prima e Dopo il Risorgimento (Florence: Valleechi 1928).Google Scholar

¹⁵ This tunnel was begun in 1857 and finished in 1871.

¹⁶ This was the case with Cavour. He studied at Geneva, Paris, and London. See Camozzini, F., Cavour Economista (Turin: Lattes, 1926)Google Scholar; Prato, G., Fatti e Dottrine Economiche alla Vigilia del 1848 (Turin: Bocca, 1920)Google Scholar; and Michels, Roberto, “Torino e il Piemonte Economico-Sociale nella Luce dei Viaggiatori Stranieri del Passato,” Onore e Ricordi di G. Prato (Turin: R. Istituto Superiore di Scienze Economiche e Commerciali, 1931), pp. 627–46.Google Scholar

¹⁷ See, for example, the case of the shipbuilding and armaments concern of Ansaldo in Gazzo, Emanuele, I Cento Anni dell'Ansaldo, 1853–1953 (Genova: Ansaldo, 1953).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Falck. Uffici Studi. lmprese Lombarde nella Storia della Siderurgia Italiana. Il Contributo dei Fratelli Falck., 1833–1913 (1952).

¹⁹ Frattini, G., Storia e Statistica della Produzione Manifatturiera (Milan: Bernardoni, 1857).Google Scholar

²⁰ See on this subject the illuminating study by Greenfield, Kent Roberts, Economics and Liberalism in the Risorgimento (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1934).Google Scholar

²¹ The estates in the South were no greater than they were in Tuscany. One of the major differences was that as a rule the owners in Naples and Sicily actually managed large-scale agricultural operations on their lands, while in Tuscany estates were divided into small parcels and rented for a share of the crops or for money. See Costituente, Assemblea. Rapporti delle Commissioni all'Assemblea Costituente. Commissione Economica Agricoltura. Relazione (Rome: Instituto, Poligrafico dello Stato, 1946).Google Scholar

²² Southerners were notorious for being tardy in meeting their business obligations. In 1878, although banks in the South did but 5.2 per cent of the nation's lending, they had 27 per cent of the country's “past due” but still collectible paper. Alfredo Salvatore, Le Casse di Risparmio in Italia dal 1822 al 1904 (Rome: Ministry of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce, 1906), p. 20.Google Scholar In the South, too, people were more given to lawsuits than in the North. See Niceforo, A., Italiani del Nord e Italiani del Sud (Florence: Tipografio Cooperativa 1900), pp. 328–36.Google Scholar There was also less regard for public authority in the South than in the North, as was seen by the existence of La Mafia in Sicily and La Camorra in Naples.

²³ This information is taken from the following works:Annuario del Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio (Turin: Dalmazzo, 1863), Vol. I, pp. 550–624Google Scholar; Cesare, Carlo De, Il Sindacato Governativo, le Società Commerciali e gli Istituti di Credito nel Regno d'ltalia (Florence: Pellas, 1869), pp. 126–81Google Scholar; Ministero d'Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio, Elenco Generate e Classificazione degli Istituti di Credito e Società Anonime ed in Accomandita per Azioni, Nazionali ed estere, Operanti nel Regno al 31 Dicembre 1872 (Rome: Stampa Reale, 1874)Google Scholar; Idem for 1876 (Rome: Botta, 1877)Google Scholar; Idem for 1887 (Rome: Botta, 1888)Google Scholar; Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria e Commercio, Divisione Industria, Commercio e Credito, le Società Cooperative di Credito e Banche Populari, le Società Ordinarie di Credito, le Società ed Istituti di Credito Agrario, e gli Istituti di Credito Fondiario nell’ Anno 1887 (Rome: Botta, 1889).Google Scholar

²⁴ Ministero di Agricoltura, Industria, e Commercio, Bolletino Bimestrale del Risparmio, No. 6, Appendix.

²⁵ Statistiche sul Mezzogiorno d'Italia, 1861–1953, pp. 580, 686. Public investments in this year were so distributed that the South got 37.7 per cent of them.

²⁶ League of Nations, Industrialization and World Trade (1945), passim.

²⁷ Gini, Corrado, “Cause Apparenti e Cause Effettive della Prosperitá Americana,” Scritti di Sociologia e Politico in Onore di Luigi Sturzo (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1953).Google Scholar

²⁸ Statistiche sul Mezzogiorno, pp. 770, 790, 115.