e. the Left,
promising his entire devotion on such a concession. The hostility was
sullen and masked, but purely parliamentary; the country at large
would have been delighted to see the old man sweep the parliament out
of existence, and I am convinced that he might then have played the
r?le of Cromwell and received the support of nine tenths of all
Italians. The Chamber had become nauseous to the nation.
I was cool enough to see that the key of the position was finance, for
I knew that Crispi would make short work with the insurrection, and I
knew also the full value of all the possible ministers of finance
in the country, and their influence abroad. When I saw that the
constitution of the cabinet really hung on the disposition of that
portfolio, I did not hesitate to say to Crispi that, while I could not
pretend to any judgment as to the formation of the ministry at large,
I could assure him that if there was to be a rehabilitation of the
financial position of Italy abroad by his ministry, it could only be
by the appointment of Sonnino to the Treasury. I said to him in so
many words that Sonnino was as necessary to the restoration of the
credit of the financial situation as he himself was to that of order.
The pressure in the Chamber was very great to induce him to take the
finance minister from the Left and so move toward the constitution
of the government in accordance with the color of the majority, and
Crispi was urged that way by most of his oldest and most faithful
adherents, either unconscious of or indifferent to the influence of
financial opinion through Europe on the stability or success of the
ministry.
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