several occasions for the specific purpose of
influencing the political complexion of the upper chamber. In 1886
forty-one appointments were made at one stroke; in 1890, seventy-five;
and in 1892, forty-two. The Senate guards jealously its right to
determine whether an appointee is properly to be considered as
belonging to any one of the twenty-one stipulated categories, and if
it decides that he is not thus eligible, he is refused a seat. But as
long as the sovereign keeps clearly within the enumerated classes, no
practical limitation can be placed upon his power of appointment.[546]
In practice, appointment by the king has meant regularly appointment
by the ministry commanding a majority in the lower chamber; and so
easy and so effective has proved the process of "swamping" that the
legislative independence of the Senate has been reduced almost to a
nullity. In general it may be said that the body exercises the
function of a revising, but no longer of an initiating or a checking,
chamber. During the period 1861-1910 the government presented in the
Chamber of Deputies a total of 7,569 legislative proposals, in the
Senate but 598; and the number of projects of law originated within
the Senate during this same period was but thirty-nine. In volume and
range of legislative activity the nominated senate of Italy is
distinctly inferior to the elected senate of France.[547]

[Footnote 546: Of 1,528 appointments made between
1848 and 1910 but 63 were refused confirmation by
the Senate.]

[Footnote 547: It is interesting to observe that,
in the interest of governmental stability and
permanence, Cavour favored the adoption of the
elective principle in Italy. For illustrations of
the weakness of the Italian Senate see C.
Morizot-Thibault, Des droits des chambres hautes ou
senats en matiere des lois de finance (Paris,
1891), 156-175.]

*411. Projected Reform.*--Within recent years there has arisen a
persistent demand for a reform of the Senate, to the end that the
body may be brought into closer touch with the people and be (p. 374)
restored to the position of a vigorous and useful second chamber. In
the spring of 1910 the subject was discussed at some length within the
Senate itself, and at the suggestion of the m