there is no guarantee to the State ; there is no time limit for completion of the work. Only this is clearly determined : the right is to be enjoyed, for no consideration in return, by simple private individuals lacking any sort of title (unless, perhaps, the friendship of the Minister), of the monopoly of a work of construction of a value running into a milliard,· and capable of extension ad lib. (a right on which the concessionaires may trade, drawing sensational profits) ; and of a commission of 8 per cent. in addition to the payment of the costs of flotation and of all possible and imaginable general expenses : a small douceur of 80 millions ! Sugar. In 1922, in consideration of an exceedingly high protective duty, the sugar refiners undertook to supply the whole of the 1922-23 crop at 575 lire the quintal. The Government maintained the duty and the fixed price until the end of May, 1923, thus preventing the entry into the country of foreign sugar, which was cheap in the autumn of 1922. In May, 1923, protection had become superfluous, as foreign sugar was dearer than Italian. The Government then abolished the duty, but at the same time it arbitrarily and secretly allowed the refiners and dealers to sell their sugar at prices higher than the agreed price, on the ground that the Italian crop was insufficient for the year's consurnption. Refiners and dealers were thus enabled to dispose of some 700,000 quintals of native sugar at prices averaging 65 lire the quintal above the fixed price. The Government told the Chamber that it had helped to regulate prices by admitting German sugar on reparation account; but, as the Socialists foresaw, this sugar only began to arrive too late to be of effect. Thus, first the Governm_ent inflicted on the whole nation a loss of several millions of gold lire by preventing the admission of cheap foreign sugar into the country ; BibliotecaGino Bianco ;.,
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