On the innovations made by Ferdinand II, Charles Alianello wrote : «He made roads, harbours, drainages, hospices and banks; he could not put up with presumptuous and greedy middle classes, the so-called learned bourgeoisie, the "gentlemen" . He tried to create a bourgeoisie with sound targets. He was not lucky, because there was no Neapolitan bourgeoisie other than that of professions and studies, “scribblers and students”, those who had thrown out his grandfather from Naples, inseparable from the foreigners due to ideological reasons that the King, as such, did not understand; and the greedy group of landowners». ». F. Durelli said that «In just four years, from 1850 to 1854, more than 108,950 modii of usurped land were restored into State Property and given to needy farmers»; Alianello wrote: «I quote from the 1854 Royal Almanac of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, after a long and detailed list of banks and charity institutes, the following remark: "Besides religious places etc., we count a total of 761 charity associations on continental dominions, more than 1131 wheat banks and other pawnbroker's, agrarian banks and kindergartens" (…) Upon the king's will, new roads were built and their extension increased from 1505 miles in 1828 to 4587 miles in 1855. And they were important roads... ». The Amalfitana, Sorrentina, Frentana, whose construction was interrupted by the arrival of the “liberation army” and completed only a hundred years later. Then the Adriatic coastal road, the Sora-Roma, Appulo-sannitica, which connected Abruzzi and Capitanata, Aquilonia, connecting the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Adriatic Sea, the Sannita, from Campobasso to Termoli. Durelli added: «In short, from '52 to '56, in just four years, 76 new royal, provincial or communal roads were built. And also many bridges, among which the one over the Garigliano river, suspended to iron chains, the first to use this structure in Italy and among the very first ones in Europe. And the drainages, the canalisation of the Pelino river, the banking up of the muddy lands of Salpi lake, the drainage of marshes in Campania (…) In 30 years, sailing vessels were doubled, steam ships created out of nothing and in 1855 the fleet had 472 ships and 108.543 tons, plus 6 paddle-steamers and 6,913 tons of other boats. And schools, nautical colleges, industries».
Marta Petrusewicz gave an overview of her kingdom and wrote «(…) the population increases, the customs and taxation systems are better organised and the government is carrying out a clever intervention of construction of roads and railroads, royal factories and modern prisons» .
To understand this King even better, let us read what the Irish Papal Zouave P.K. O’Clery wrote (out of his direct experience) in his famous work on Risorgimento . Soon after ascending the Throne, Ferdinand II granted a general amnesty and behaved as follows: «To introduce economy criteria in finances, Ferdinand reduced by a great extent his appanage, abolished some useless offices and some royal prerogatives. He streamlined the procedures in Tribunals, replaced the unpopular viceroy of Sicily and appointed his brother to hold that position and, when he travelled across the kingdom, prohibited the municipalities to prepare costly accommodations and accepted the hospitality of residents or stopped at a village inn or a Franciscan monastery. We therefore must not get surprised by the fact that he was considered a popular King». We must also mention that in 1838 he joined the French and British agreements against the Negro slave trade and in that same year he set up very severe punishments (imprisonment and expulsion from Knighthood Orders) against duels, and the punishments included also the seconds. He granted amnesty to political prisoners in Sicily and great legal and administrative autonomy to that island; he personally followed the fight against feudatories. Economy experienced a continuous growth , and merchant navy a great development .
For example, let us see what Angela Pellicciari wrote . In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the expected spending was higher that the real one; no succession duty, joint-venture and loan bank duties were paid; the national debt was low, as well as the land tax; Sicily was exempted from military service, salt tax and tobacco monopoly; moreover, Ferdinand, as reported by the magazine "L'Armonia", had «established wheat banks in the most important towns to provide farmers with wheat to sow and allow them to support their families and in so doing he also cut off usury».