e to comprise as its most essential features the
establishment of universal suffrage for adults of both sexes, the
payment of deputies and members of local councils, the enactment of a
more humane penal code, the replacing of the standing army by a
national militia, improved factory legislation, compulsory insurance
against sickness, the reform of laws regulating the relations of
landlords and tenants, the nationalization of railways and mines, the
extension of compulsory education, the abolition of duties on food,
and the enactment of a progressive income tax and succession duty. The
widespread dissatisfaction of Italians with the older parties, the
practical character of the socialist programme, and the comparatively
able leadership of the socialist forces have combined to give
socialism an enormous growth within the past fifteen years. In 1895
the party polled 60,000 votes and returned to the Chamber of Deputies
12 members. In 1897 it polled 108,000 votes and returned 16 members.
Thereafter the quota of seats carried at successive elections rose as
follows: 1900, 33; 1904, 26; 1906, 42; and 1909, 43.

*444. The Catholics and Politics: the Non Expedit.*--Aside from the
growth of socialism, the most important development in recent Italian
politics has been the changed attitude of the Holy See with respect to
the participation of Catholics in political affairs. The term
"Catholic" in Italy has a variety of significations. From one point of
view it denotes the great mass of the people--97.1 per cent in
1910--who are not Protestants, Greeks, Jews, or adherents of any faith
other than the Roman. In another sense it denotes that very much
smaller portion of the people who regularly and faithfully observe
Catholic precepts of worship. Finally, it denotes also the still
smaller body of men who yield the Pope implicit obedience in all
matters, civil as well as ecclesiastical, and who, with papal
sanction, are beginning to constitute an organized force in politics.
After it had become manifest that the Holy See might not hope for
assistance from the Catholic powers in the recovery of its temporal
possessions and of its accustomed independence, there was worked (p. 401)
out gradually at the Vatican a policy under which pressure was to be
brought to bear upon the Italian state from within. This policy
comprised abstention from participation in national political life on
the part of as many citizens as could be induced to admit