BACK TO BARBARISM.

Auckland Star, Volume 304, Issue 304, 23 December 1926, Page 14

BACK TO BARBARISM.

IHETHODS OF FASCISM. *- _____ . HICIOTTI GARIBALDI AGAIN. INVOKE THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 17. The rule of Mussolini, II Duce, established to save Italy from the terrors of Bolshevism, appears to be on the verge of plunging that country into worse terror. For what else can one call a < regime which prescribes that not only : those who speak against Fascism in Italy < r.tself. but also any Italian subject i " abroad, and any foreigner abroad—an j -Englishman in England, an Americal in j a German in Germany—who ] lan any way speaks or writes ill of the ' (Fascist regime or spreads damaging ■ .reports of that regime, will be tried in 1 Ahis absence by a Fascist court, and may 1 'iie liable to from five to fifteen years' } 'penal servitude, with loss of property. ' Probably the great majority of tourists 1 in Italy would fall under this charge. ' The Paris "Temps" points out this < provision is incompatible with the most J i elementary principles of international ' 'law. "Pertonax," in the "Echo de Paris," ' •pleads earnestly as a friend of Fascism ' 'that this particular law should be modi- , lied, and quotes Palmerston's doctrine of •the right of nationals abroad to the .pro- . . tection of their Government. The result of a similar policy in Russia, he adds, ' £has been the complete suppression of the . '-foreign element in the population-. ■ The suppression of free speech in the j [Italian Press is now well established, but 'this new step is an outrage to civilisa- j tion. The extraordinary state of affairs \ in Italy, the revelations in the examination of Colonel Riciotti Garibaldi, inevitably turn the student of foreign affairs ■*o the French Revolution to find a jwirallel. The methods of the Convention resemble Fascism in the plan of > jgiving vague and comprehensive defini,tiona of crime, in the treatment of per- , sons who are suspect on account of poli- ' . tical ideas that they or their friends may :2_old or may have held in the past, the device for stimulating and organising (spies and informers, the us_ of special tribunals which are under the control of (the political authorities. Under the new bill adopted by Mussoflini's Cabinet it is a crime punishable with death to plot against the independence and unity of the State;, it is a ■"cnnie punishable with fifteen years' imprisonment to spread false and exaggerated new. concerning the internal }condition of the country; it is a crime I punishable with five years' imprisonment 5. to make propaganda for ideas repreV sented by an association that has been t dissolved, a category that includes f every association that has criticised -the "' Government. This would be bad enough if these tribunals were independent. Even in the French Revolution the tribunals set up . by Danton were independent, and it was only when he withdrew from Paris to his country home that they gradually \ deteriorated until in Robespierre's hand they became the instrument of the. worst period of the Terror, t Instead of a tribunal with judges informed at least with the principles of justice, a service of "political investigation" is to be established at the headquarters of each legion of Fascist militia, and all persons accused under theSe laws are to he tried before a special tribunal chosen by the Minister from • .' officers of the army, navy, air force, of the Fascist militia, and the procedure to be followed is- that of a court-martial in time of war. Italy, in fapt, is under '< court-martial law, and that a Fascist ' court-martial! The recent attempts on Mussolini's ' life, loudly stigmatised in Italy as conceived and stimulated in France, the .anti-French campaign in the Riviera, --which has gone to such extremes that II Duce has apologised to the French Government,' has now its anti-climax in the revelations made owing to the arrest of Colonel Riciotti Garibaldi, nephew of the famous Italian. This scion of a family, the name of jwhich is associated with the highest ipatriotism, turns out to he an agent in the pay of the Fascists. iHe is accused of having lured Garibaldi .and other anti-Fascists into the Fascist Lnet, and, having provoked, at the' in•.ietance of the Fascist police, attempts upon Signor Mussolini's life, as was the case tvith Scivoli. Garibaldi, too, was "on intimate terms with Zaniboni, whose I attempt some months ago upon Signor .{Mussolini, was at once denounced by j the French Radical Press. and that of 'other countries as an obvious, piece of police intrigue. As the "Intransigeant" says:— ': "It shows not only that while in his ; ambiguous role Colonel Garibaldi was a Republican march upon Italy, and a Spanish raid into Catalonia, hut that he was 'provoking' the Italian . police investigation, plots against Signor Mussolini and arranging at the. same time for 'ther betrayal of'the would-be assassins to Fascist reprisals. Italian --{Fascism complains that the murder plots originate in France. Yet it is fascism itself that prepares and subsidises .these plots." ) Opinion in France naturally runs high. j__v_n such organs of the Right which 'regarded Fascism as a species of antiJBolshevism and supported the Duee's 'regime, now talk in a different vein. iThe. "Quotidien," for example, accuses jSignor Mussolini himself of being aware ,ond responsible for all this monstrous (business. It accuses him of deliberately using the agent provocateur for Fascist purposes. "Now that he has : been caught in the act it is a duty to denounce him." t But the panic measures actually idopted by the Roman Government are «mic__ more serious than these sporadic outbreaks of the spirit of Fascism. By a simple resolution Mussolini has this expelled all the Opposition memJers from the legislature—thus depriving hem of their constitutional "immunity" rom ordinary arrest. He has also ■ introduced several new laws. One of /them makes treason against himself (or a capital offence—capital /punishment having hitherto been tunknown in modern Italy.. Another for every Italian citizen being obliged to carry an identity £card. But the most serious of all establishes a new form of "justice" under gwhich all offences, or alleged offencea, of ga political character are to be tried, not ribefore ordinary judges or legal courts. |lmt by courts-martial composed of mili£tary and naval officers, from whose verj 'diets there is to be no appeal save tc rFasci-fc headquarters. Here we have th. "Revolutionary Tribunal of the Paris oi J. 1793 or the "Cheka" of post-war Lenin V grad. We know of no other parallels One. of the leading Fascist organs ii Rome has declared this week in so mam swords that only faithful Fascists mus" *he allowed to judge who are the enemie ;_|'of ■ the Fatherland, and that the accusei fought not to he allowed the legal assis •"■ tance of counsel.