Impervious to all forms of doctrinal fundamentalism, as a liberal he assigned the State the task of making a crucial contribution to the creation of the communication infrastructures necessary for development, above all the railways, which at the time were at the frontier, if not the very symbol, of technical progress.
In the same vein, he defended the principle of State-funded support for the poor, to the extent that this did not reduce the incentives for workers to take up employment. In the field of credit, he strengthened the Banca nazionale (from which origins the Banca d’Italia later emerged), with the aim of forming the basis of the credit system and the state bank.