was mad or not, only he
could extricate it from the situation into which he had drawn it. When
one senator called him a dictator, he retorted that, if Parliament
refused him its support, he should go away, which was not the habit
of dictators. But the mere threat of resignation brought the most
recalcitrant to reason. Thus he continued to obtain large sums to
carry out the works he deemed necessary, one of the greatest of which
was the transfer of the arsenal from Genoa to Spezia--a step
which angered the Genoese on one side, and on the other the old
conservatives, who asked what had little Piedmont to do with big
fleets? "But the fact was," Count Solaro said with a sneer, "the Prime
Minister had all Italy in view, and was preparing for the future
kingdom." Cavour also forced Parliament to vote the supplies required
for undertaking the boring of Mont Cenis, which most of the deputies
expected would be a total failure. In proposing this vote he declared
that they must advance or perish. He was delighted with a phrase with
which Lord Palmerston concluded a congratulatory letter sent to
the Sardinian legation in London, and written in elegant Italian:
"Henceforth no one will talk of the works of the ancient Romans." This
little episode wiped out the last traces of misunderstanding between
the two statesmen, who became again what fate had meant them to be,
friends and fellow-workers. Cavour's budgets had the inherent defect
that they continued to show increased expenditure and a deficit,
but no minister who had lacked the power and the courage to brave
criticism by a financial policy which would have been certainly
indefensible if Piedmont alone was concerned, could have done what
he did. Meanwhile, on the whole, the economic state of the country
improved in spite of heavy taxation: the exports and imports
increased; there were signs of industrial activity; agriculture
revived. Cavour was often bitterly blamed for favouring and sparing
the landowning class, though whether he did this because he had
estates at Leri, as his detractors alleged, or because agriculture
must always be the most vital of all Italian interests, need not be
discussed now. Improved education stimulated enterprise. That there
was room for improvement may be supposed, when it is known that in
1848 the number of persons who could not read was three to one to the
number of those who could.

The most severe phase in the financial difficulties was past wh