Mussolini Recovers.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18152, 15 August 1924, Page 8

Mussolini Recovers.

A cable message from Borne which we published yesterday made it clear that the Fascists have recovered from the fright the Matteotti murder gave them. Matteotti, it will be remembered, was a Socialist Deputy whom the Fascists kidnapped and assassinated, and who proved so much more dangerous dead than alive that even Mussolini was afraid of him. But Mussolini has resumed his task of legalising the illegal. He is now, the report says, preparing a Bill for revising the Constitution, the chief changes to be a reduction in the powers of the Chamber of Deputies' (Italy's Lower House), and the creation of a new legislative body which will represent, associations and interests rather than individuals. In the provinces also local Chambers are to be established—it is not clear whether in addition to or in substitution of the Provincial Councils—and these, which it is admitted will be exclusively Fascist, will apparently give that impotence to the Provincial Councils which the creation of the new legislative body will bring upon the Chamber of Deputies. Mussolini, that is to - say, feels strong enough to tramp a little harder on the "decayed or decaying corpse'' of liberty. The Matteotti affair has neither horrified, hurt, nor humbled him. He adapted the electoral law to the needs of Fascism last November, and he proposes this November to adapt the Constitution itself. In an important j speech in the Senate on June 24th—a defence of Fascism against the charge of corruption and terrorism—he said that all his utterances for three months had been "aimed at hastening and "achieving the entry of Faseism within "the four comers of the Constitution," and this new Bill most be regarded as an attempt to convert those utterances into practical politics. For Mussolini Me the merits both of candour and of thoroughness. He knows what he wants, and he does not disguise his desires under soft words and soothing promises. The speech from which we have quoted is. perhaps the most coa-1

ciliatory contribution he has yet made to the elucidation of Fascism's political philosophy, but even in that, delivered at the height of the Matteotti crisis, he said in effect that some degree of violence was inevitable. Instead of repudiating all responsibility for the outrage, he said simply that "many of "those who had been using Signor " Matteotti'a corpse as a platform to "declaim from would be ready to in"dulge in a much worse form of " terror"—-a denial not of the deed but only of Fascism's delight in it. Of course the whole fabric of Fascism is built on a foundation that Englishmen abhor —foree and blind obedience. In a characteristic speech last year Mussolini told the Chamber of Deputies that there was "nothing to discuss on "the subject of internal policy. . . . "That which happens, happens by my "precise and direct will, and by my '•explicit orders, and those who at- " tempt to defame Fascism abroad or "to undermine it at home should know "that their deeds imply the severest "risks." No Englishman since Cromv.'ull lias dared to speak, or even think, like that, una Mussolini dares only because he iicltis all the strategic points in Parliament- and out of ir. fie is strong, he is quick, h is iiereely patriotic, and when his enemies reproach him for the violence of his methods it is a good answer to say that the Fascist revolution is not yet two years old, -while England took fi&y raid France a hundred years to adjust themselves to changes no more profound. It would, we mean, be a good answer if it were not intended to be complete, but Mussolini refuses to go on. The violence which is necessary in war he carries over into the fields of peace, and does not apologise for it. But he v.-ill not find it possible to go on for ever "absorbing illegality into the "Constitution."

Whether or not wireless equipment might have saved the Bipple, it has so often been the means of saving life at sea, that its use on all but the smallest vessels is now almost universal. • But in the last two or three years wireless lias been pressed into the sailor's service in a new direction. It is now no uncommon thing for masters, when accident or illness endangers the life of one of their crew, to obtain emergency medical advice through the nearest wireless station, or from a ship carrying a surgeon. This, of course, presupposes that all vessels carry medical stores such as are likely to be required ill the treatment of common injuries or disease. To assist masters in this it is proposed by the American Public Health Service that a standard medicine chest should be adopted by all Amecan vessels which do not carry physicians.

The department has developed the wireless medical service to such an extent that a' ship within range of the American coast lias only to call up the nearest Marine Hospital and describo tho patient's condition. Advlico is sent at once for immediate treatment, ,and if the v.epsel is inward bound and the ease an urgent one, an ambulance is waiting on the wharf to take the patient to hospital. The Health Service also conducts classes in first aid,all applicants for officers' t.kktts being required to pass an examination before they ere licensed. A certain element of danger is inevitable at sea—even the best found ship can disappear r/ithout leaving anything to tell the story of her fate—but science has at len&t greatly reduced the risk, and in. that work tho magic of wireless has played a foremost part. Those who have been wishing for longer necks this week as well as for deeper pockets will have done themselves no harm. Though the giraffe, we have been told, grew a long neck by constantly wanting to, it is not probable that any elongations will follow tho brief periods of stretching and aspiring at Eicearton and Addington—especially when most chins will sink sadly down on ehests again at tho weekend. But persons of ordinary height have, it seems, a good deal to be thankful for. The Romans, the French, tho Japanese prove that men can do great things without being great themselves, while a recent investigation carried out by some insurance companies fti New York shows that the "optimum," the stature most favourable to white longevity, lies somewhere between sixty-four and sixty-eight inches. The battle of life is so seldom to the sixfooters that the Japanese savant who claimed the discovery the other day of & medicine that would add a cubit to a man's stature will not make his fortune. The Japanese are getting on so well at sixty to sixty-four inches that they will not be willing to take the risk of lengthening their arteries. And if that were not the case—if they' added a tenth to their height and anything corresponding to their appetites —they could riot, this investigation shows, continue to find food in Nippon. And then there would be war.