The Italian Tariff and the Conflict Between Agriculture and Industry: The Commercial Policy of Liberal Italy, 1860–1922

Liberal Italy, 1860–1922, has never stimulated the same interest as the Risorgimento era, which spawned the unitary state, or the Fascist experiment, which destroyed it. Admittedly a number of works have dealt with the liberal period, but these have been all too few and very general in scope. Little, for example, has been written in English about Italian economic growth during these years and even less is known about the commercial policy of the unitary Kingdom. Contemporary critics of the tariff clamored that duties were exorbitant, were politically motivated, favored the North at the expense of the South, and increased industrial profits while they burdened agriculture. But there has not been a full scholarly analysis of commercial policy which would permit an appraisal of these criticisms.