Sicilian Emigration Diverted from North America
Unless the prognostication of the Italian Government goes wrong, there will be a heavy falling off in the emigration from Sicily to this country. In 1905 no fewer than 62,897 passports were issued for Sicilians coming to this country. So far this year, however, less than 18,000 passports have been issued for the same destination, while the main current has been diverted to Brazil, Argentina, Algeria, Tunis, Tripoli, and Egypt. The new immigration law and the greater stringency of medical examination here are said to be the causes.
Still, the augmentation of Sicilian emigration seriously concerns the Government of Rome, and various schemes have been devised--so far unsuccessful--to lessen it. What Italy needs is a uniform system of taxation. In Northern Italy taxation is administered by the most approved modern methods. In the South, however, the system is still mediaeval in its application and results. Here, for example, the owner of a valuable team of horses is not taxed, for his animals are not producers, while the donkey of the poor peasant is taxed because it brings its owner a profit. In Northern Italy, the deposits of savings are calculated to average 121 lire 59c. (about $25) per head of the population; while in Sicily they reach only 27 lire 85c. (about $5.50) per unit.
Although this last item cannot be taken as a sign of distress, yet the most eminent Italian statesmen are of the opinion that excesive fiscalism and high taxation are the main causes of the prevalent distress in Sicily, and hence the inspiring motive of the Sicilian to go elsewhere. The Sicilian pays on an average about 25 percent of his income in taxes, but owing to the system of fiscalism, it is not difficult to find individuals who pay considerably more than this.
One of the taxes which weighs heavily on the Sicilian is the habitation tax. In Lombardy there are 108,000 dwellings taxed to 610,000 in Sicily, while in Lombardy there are 500,000 more inhabitants than in Sicily. Sicily is clamoring for better highroads, increased railway facilities, a water supply during the dry season, safety from landslips, State purchase of privately owned railways, agrarian loans, premiums for reforesting otherwise unproductive hillsides, and their exemption from taxation for twenty years, abolition of the hearth tax, (habitation tax), including freedom from tax of all rural buildings; abolition of the agricultural cattle tax, financial assistance by the State toward municipal schools, and, above all, a rational and equitable fiscal administration. By this last the Sicilian claims that when his house is unlet, and his land devestated by drought or other calamity, or that a debt is unpaid, he shall be free from tax and endless worry of process so long as such source of income is unproductive.
