Mr Wells and Signor Mussolini.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18921, 9 February 1927, Page 8

Mr Wells and Signor Mussolini.

It is kind of Mr Wells to pay so much attention to Signor .Mussolini, for a whole month now the victim of a deplorable apathy. A few weeks ago the Dictator met Mr Win-ton Churchill and had lunch with him, was even seen to *liaku the English statesman by the hand, but even in France the text of the secret treaty was not considered worth publishing. Even when Signor Mussolini announced tin; other day that Italy " must either spread or ex- " plode," there iras no shooting at. Ventimiglin. Plainly the spectacle of the Ducc, like the Scythian Tamburlaine, " threatening the world with " high astounding terms," is coming to be regarded with faint amusement. Mr Wells lias now conic to the rescue and is attempting to restore him to the sphere of serious politics. " Mur- " ders and outrages against opponents," he writes, "which lie like a trail of "blood through his record, are the "natural concomitants of leadership "by a man too afraid of sclf-rcalisa-"tion to endure the face of an an- " tagonist.'' Mr Wells here returns to the fine vigour that was his before he began to discuss himself and the Deity, and Mussolini once, more becomes a terrible and mysterious personage. But the uncharitable will probably suggest that when Mr Wells talks of a "born actor and dema"gogue," he is influenced by professional jealousy, and it would certainly be interesting to hear a debate between Mr Wells and the Ducc on the subject " Who is the Greatest Man in "the World?"