Italy would consolidate the prestige she began to acquire when Cavour succeeded in sending a handful of troops to the Crimea eleven years ago; she would at once take a high position as a European Power--provided always that the smouldering republican element should not break out in opposition to the constitutional monarchy.

But Rome would be ruined.

She is no longer the geographical capital of Italy--she is not even the largest city; but in the course of a few years, violent efforts would be made to give her a fictitious modern grandeur, in the place of the moral importance she now enjoys as the headquarters of the Catholic world.

Those efforts at a spurious growth would ruin her financially, and the hatred of Romans for Italians of the north would cause endless internal dissension.

We should be subjected to a system of taxation which would fall more heavily on us than on other Italians, in proportion as our land is less productive.