What will Europe ever know about the matter?
"Speech is silver, but silence is gold." Successive Finance Ministers at Rome have all adopted this device, even when they are forced to speak, they have the art of not saying the very thing the country wants to hear.
In almost all civilized countries the nation enjoys two rights which seem perfectly just and natural.

The first is that of voting the taxes, either directly or through the medium of its deputies; the second, that of verifying the expenditure of its own money.
In the Papal kingdom, the Pope or his Minister says to the citizens, "Here is what you have to pay!" And he takes the money, spends it, and never more alludes to it except in the vaguest language.
Still, in order to afford some sort of satisfaction to the conscience of Europe, Pius IX.

promised to place the finances under the control of a sort of Chamber of Deputies.

Here is the text of this promise, which figured, with many others, in the _Motu Proprio_ of the 12th of September, 1849.
"_A Consulta di Stato_ for the Finances is established.

It will be _heard_ on the estimates of the forthcoming year.