MODERN ITALY

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21085, 9 February 1934, Page 14

MODERN ITALY

TO THB H'ITOR 0* TUB PUSS. Sir, —In Mr TJmbcrto Colonna's denunciation of all who venture to differ from him or who try to point out the hopelessly chaotic character of his polemics he confuses scoldings with argument. He is angry with Signor Flocclnni and assails him. He is angry with "Luke" and jeers at him, and as for my humble self he is so angry that I make him speechless. Now what does he say? Replying to Signor Flocchini's observations on the position of an Italian who glories in reviling his own country, his own people, his own country's government, his own neople's chosen leader, Mr Colonna recills that Dante, Mazzini, Garibaldi. Galileo were reformers who suffered for Italy, and he smugly adds Umberto Colonna to that list! But these great men have not individually or collectively done as much for Italy as Mussolini has done. Italian people almost unanimously believe that; but Umberto Colonna, of Christchurch. does not. Now is it reasonable, I ask, that we should be asked to accept Mr Colonna's word about Mussolini rather than that of the Italian people who keep him in his position, and are well content to do so? If Mr Colonna doubts, I refer him to a man on the spot—Signor Flocchini.

Getting away from Mr Colonna's irrelevancies, I would ask your readers to consider in a dispassionate manner whether Italy does not hold to-day a prouder, stronger, more prosperous position than she has held in modern times, whether her voice j does not carry greater authority than ever before in the chancelleries of the world, whether her people are not more contented, her social condition more stable and assured, her prospects more promising than ever before? The answer must be in the affirmative and the credit for such a marvellous change from the unruliness of a few years ago is due to Mussolini and almost alone to him. Let Mr Colonna deny that if he can and say that Italy is dishonoured rather than honoured, that her people are unhappy rather than happy, that disorder and discontent run riot in her borders, and that Mussolini is responsible for all that orgy of misrule.—Yours, etc., REASONABLE. February 8, 1934. |