MODERN ITALY

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21084, 8 February 1934, Page 6

MODERN ITALY

TO Tlld EDU'OLt 01' TUB I'lKAii. Sir,—After reading Signor Flocchini's answer to my detailed facts against Fascism, your readers must now be convinced that the only thing Signor Flocchini was driven to do was to attack me personally, as my accusations were unanswerable. Signor Flocchini accuses me of anti-patriotism, for which compliment I must thank him, for it places me in the company of the great ones. Dante, Mazzini. Garibaldi, Galileo—these fighters oi tyranny were one and all accused and condemned as enemies of their cowitrv Signor Flocchini said that Italy was not arming, but he could not deny that Italy had not one but two armies, both equipped for war! Signor Flocchini could not deny my detailed facts that the political fixing of the lira at 03 victimised the poor m favour of the rich, as proved by the latest official statistics of bankruptcies for the first nine months of 19.iJ, which gives the official figures of bankruptcies as 16,538! "Luke" makes a great song about Mussolini building a village on marsny ground, when New Zealanders have built cathedral cities, and not villages on what was nothing but ponds and marshes, and when nearly all the Italian cities were built on marshes, and when our Italian forefathers built the pearl of the Adriatic, Venice, not on marshy ground, but right out at sea. Let Mussolini do that. When Mussolini was boasting about the motoring roads he, and not the Italian nation, built, "The Times," London, suitably answered, "We in Ensland have built three times the amount and length of roads as Italy. Ours are better built roads, and we say nothing about it!" But then vanity and dignity never go together! To those of your readers who still think that Fascism is a good thing, f have only to quote the opinions of men like Mr Baldwin, who pleaded with Englishmen to save England from the tyranny and danger. of Fascism, Mr H. G. Wells, who spoke against the criminality of Fascism, and Mr Winston Churchill, who spoke of the Fascist state as one where the nation is used for the benefit of cliques, and that is just what it is.—Yours, etc.. UMBERTO COLONNA. February 7, 1934.