In every case it is the chief desideratum that the administrationshould be good; but the efficiency of the administration depends onthe form of government, and that form of government is clearly thebest which most promotes the moral and material welfare and thefuture progress of any given nation.Nations have made someprogress un der all forms of government.But a high degree ofeconomical development has only been attained in those nationswhose form of government has been such as to secure to them a highdegree of freedom and power, of steadiness of laws and of policy,and efficient institutions.
Antonio Serra sees the nature of things as it actually exists,and not through the spectacles of previous systems, or of some oneprinciple which he is determined to advocate and carry out.Hedraws a comparison between the condition of the various States ofItaly, and perceives that the greatest degree of wealth is to befound where there is extensive commerce; that extensive commerceexists where there is a well-developed manufacturing power, butthat the latter is to be found where there is municipal freedom.
The opinions of beccaria are pervaded by the false doctrines ofthe physiocratic school.That author indeed either discovered, orderived from Aristotle, the principle of the division of labour,either before, or contemporaneously with, Adam Smith; he, however,carries it farther than Adam Smith, inasmuch as he not only appliesit to the division of the work in a single manufactory, but showsthat the public welfare is promoted by the division of occupationamong the members of the community.At the same time he does nothesitate, with the physiocrats, to assert that manufactures arenon-productive.
The views of the great philosophical jurist, Filangieri, areabout the narrowest of all.Imbued with false cosmopolitanism, heconsiders that England, by her protective policy, has merely givena premium to contraband trade, and weakened her own commerce.
Verri, as a practical statesman, could not err so widely asthat.He admits the necessity of protection to native industryagainst foreign competition; but did not or could not see that sucha policy is conditional on the greatness and unity of thenationality.
NOTES:
1.During a journey in Germany which the author undertook whilethis work was in the press, he learned for the first time thatDoctors Von Ranke and Gervinus have criticised Macchiavelli'sPrince from the same point of view as himself.
2.Everything that Macchiavelli has written, whether before orafter the publication of the Prince, indicates that he wasrevolving in his mind plans of this kind.How otherwise can it beexplained, why he, a civilian, a man of letters, an ambassador andState official, who had never borne arms, should have occupiedhimself so much in studying the art of war, and that he should havebeen able to write a work upon it which excited the wonder of themost distinguished soldiers of his time?
3.Frederick the Great in his Anti-Macchiavel treats of the Princeas simply a scientific treatise on the rights and duties of princesgenerally.Here it is remarkable that he, while contradictingMacchiavelli chapter by chapter, never mentions the last ortwenty-sixth chapter, which bears the heading, 'A Summons to freeItaly from the Foreigners,' and instead of it inserts a chapterwhich is not contained in Macchiavelli's work with the heading, 'Onthe different kinds of Negotiations, and On the just Reasons for aDeclaration of War.'
4.First published in the work, Pensieri intorno allo scopo diNicolo Macchiavelli nel libro 'Il Principe.' Milano, 1810.