Note (Back) — Chapter XX

405. Powers and Functions of the Crown.—On paper, the powers of the crown appear enormous; in reality they are much less considerable, as is inevitably the fact wherever monarchy is tempered by parliamentarism. In the king alone is vested, by the Statuto, the executive power, and to him alone this power, in theory, still belongs. The exercise of it, however, devolves almost wholly upon a group of ministers, who are responsible, not to the crown, but to the parliament. In no continental country has there been a more deliberate or a more unreserved acceptance of the essential principles which underlie the parliamentary system of Great Britain. No one of the three sovereigns of united Italy has ever sought for an instant to establish anything in the nature of personal government. The principle that the ministry shall constitute the working executive, and that it shall be continually responsible to the lower chamber of Parliament, has been so long observed in practice that it is now regarded as an inflexible law of the constitution. Under these limitations, however, the king approves and promulgates the laws, grants pardons and commutes sentences, declares war, commands all military and naval forces, concludes treaties, issues ordinances, creates senators, and makes appointments to all offices of state.[540] By the Statuto it is provided that treaties involving financial obligations or alterations of the territory of the state shall be effective only after receiving the sanction of the legislative chambers. In practice, treaties of all kinds are submitted regularly for such approval, save only such as comprise military conventions or foreign alliances. The power of the veto exists, but it is in practice never used. Rarely does the king attend the sessions of the cabinet, in which the policies of the government are discussed and its measures formulated and, save through the designation of the premier, in the event of a cabinet crisis, and within the domain of foreign relations, the royal power may be said to be brought to bear in direct manner upon the affairs of state only incidentally. As head of the nation, however, and visible token of its hard-won unification, the monarch fulfills a distinctly useful function. The reigning family, and especially the present sovereign, Victor Emmanuel III., is extremely popular throughout the country; so that, although in Italy, as elsewhere among European monarchies, there is an avowed republican element, there is every indication that royalty will prove an enduring institution.