BALBO'S AMBITION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 15

BALBO'S AMBITION.

SELF-SUPPORTING LIBYA. YOUNG ARAB FASCISTS. ROME. Air Marshal Ttalo Balbo is attempting to create a self-sustaining Italian colony from the desert sands of Libya. Balbo is at the start of his third year as governor of the arid territory. Ilis devotion to his mission has surprised many who forecast that the obscurity of tlie post would pall on the debonair young leader of the Italian air armada's mass (light to the United States in 1033.

Balbo Jias been pushing steadily ahead with hi* (ask to "make Libya, constantly more Italian." To inculcate Fascist doctrine he organised the "Arab Youth of Littoria." 'Phis organisation parallels the "balilla" in the Fatherland, which clothes young Italians in black shirts at six, teaches (hem to (ire miniature rillcs and machine guns and inures them to Fascist discipline.

More than f>ooo young Arabs now are enrolled. Visitors to Libya pass scores of them standing by the highways, their bare heels pressed smartly together and their brown arms raised in Fascist salute to white strangers.

Hal 1)0's administration has built a model Arab village of 000 "tukuls" outside Tripoli to remove native .residents from their squalid eity hovels. It has given them schools and hospitals, and set aside farm plots of from twelve to forty acres.