A WANDERER’S NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 60, 4 December 1926, Page 24

A WANDERER’S NOTE BOOK

(BY

CHARLES WILSON)

xiv. » [Specially Written for The Dominion.]

SOME ITALIAN IMPRESSIONS A Close View of the Fascist!. "One of tlie very oldest of burgs,” as an American fellow tourist calls the Eternal City,*l find Rome a singularly lively place, especially on the first day of my visit, for early .on an almost too splendid summer morn an Anarchist has thrown a bomb at the car by which the great Mussolini was proceeding to the Premier's official building and even the torridity of the midday heat—phew, ’tis almost as sultry as at Colombo—cannot prevent all Rome from thronging, the main streets. The Black Shirts, the Fascist!, are soon about in their thousands, and in their noisy indignation agaipst dll who are even suspected of being opposed to their famous leader, Il Duce (the Dux) as he seems to be popularly entitled, I witHess the. smashing, by a crowd of excited young men, of a long line of windows' in a fine building which, so I am informed, is the headquarters of a big Socialist Co-operative Union. As a matter of fact,., the union is a trading snoeb rather than a political institution, but to the black-shirted, blackcapped'.young gentlemen—most of them seem to be in their elder teens, and not much more—the yery word Socialist to-day is as a red rag to a bull. The Socialists represent the ■trengest and most aggressive of the anti-Mussolini elements in present-day Italy, and so,, bang through all such windows ,as can be reached, go the long poles of the Fascisti. There is a seething, excited crowd and things begin to look rather ugly. When I see n company of soldiers arrive, with two ■ machine-guns in the rear,’ I and my ' lady companion come speedily to the conclusion that the air is scarcely healthy and we hurry into a taxi and make off to the less tempestuous atmosphere of the lounge at the comfortable- Hotel Savoia. Mussolini.

By the time lunch is over the city is, however, astonishingly quiet, and although .crowds of the Roman citadini are reading impassioned appeals to roll up . to the Piazza Coliinna at half-past five, and show their sympathy with •‘ltaly’s greatest son, and the unquestioned saviour, of., his country,” etc , etc., there appears to be no great excitement. At the Piazza I hear the great man, surrounded by a dense bodyguard of "Black Shirts,” address, the populace. Unhappily, my Italian is as, fragmentary, and, on such an occasion, as futile as Ben. Jonson's Greek, but, judging by the almost continuous "Vivas,” the Dux makes hit after hit. Next morning, in a little French sheet which is distributed at mv hotel, I read the speech, which, although replete with all the verbal flamboyance of the Latin race, is, save for an indiscreet outburst of Chauvinistic denunciation of another country, where the bomb-thrower had been living for a few months, scarcely so fiery as might have been expected. After dinner we hire one of the handy little open Victorias, which afford so cheap ‘n way of getting about the city,, and make a jog-trot tour round some of the more populous quarters. Whatever the citizens of Rome may think about the outrage, there is not much ebullience of spirit. They evidently deem it discreet in these days to keep their opinions to themselves. Whether the good folk who crowd the wineshops, or sip their coffee at the hundreds of little cafe-tables on the ' pavements, approve or disapprove of the young anarchist’s performance of

the morning, they certainly make no great outward manifestation of their feelings. A quieter city than is Rome to-night 1 never saw. “They’ll Get Him Yet.”

“He has got us under the whip, but they’ll get him yet,” is a fairly colloquial version of an opinion expressed next day by a guide, whose French I find singularly clear, and at this moment decidedly useful He is very far from being an anarchist; indeed, I scarce!' think be is even a Socialist. But he tells me, and I find the same opinion in more than one social quarter, that this man, with a chin which sticks out like the stern of a steamer, with a face hard enough, to use a vulgarism, ‘to crack stones on’ is bound to meet a violent death sooner or later Undoubt edly, Il Duce has done great things for latterday Italy, but from the rightful path of honest if most strenuous reform he has strayed away of rate into a more doubtfully wise course of unbridled dictatorship, a dictatorship which to many Italians spells little short of downright despotism Meanwhile the cost of living must be something terrible for the working classes The taxis are most oppressive and seem to be ever increasing Work is plentifulyon see no idle Italians—but the struggle for life in these days of high prices and low wages becomes for many a frightfully difficult problem. And for this the Duce is blamed. A Foot in Both Camps.

Then again there is cleatly a suspicion that politically Mussolini has "a foot in both camps ” There are those, indeed, who declare, under their breaths that he is a political double dealer, and that he is preparing for a capitulation to the clericals when it suits him. “Take it from me,” says an Italian professor, "but for God’s sake, place not my name in your articles, not even at the other end of the world. Mussolini is not to be trusted Just now, he is at the top, but wait a while and you shall see him fall. Crispi fell, and so will II Duce ” But il the Mussolini regime—for he is the real King of Italy to-day—comes to a sudden end, well, what then? To this it is difficult to get a straightout reply, but evidently a Mussolini debacle seems likely to manv seriously thinking Habans, to be followed by something akin to red revolution. In Paris, where later on I spend a fortnight, I find a grave suspicion of H Duce's wisdom and more than that: of his actual . political honesty. Unquestionably since the outrage the Italian Press has been bitterly anti-French, and what the Italian paper of to-day writes is practically what II Duce dictates. Chauvinism is a dangerous spirit to arouse in any race, especially among Latins, and although three weeks in Italy has shown me many unmistakable evidences of the great man’s energy, his courage, and—wit i certain exceptions—his general welldoing, I cannot help feeling that lie is governing more by fear than love, and that the future of Italy is none too secure. I can onlv trust this feeling of foreboding may prove unjustified. The Eternal Cify. ,

Bnt one does-not, at least I do not. come to Rome to discuss politics,, and soon I am revelling in those traditional glories of the Eternal City which not even the performances of the Black Shirts, the rise—and possibly the fall—of Mussolini, and the gradual transformation of old Rome into an over modernised, almost cosmopolitan city can displace in importance. For most of the foreign wanderers in present-day Rome, the Americans, whose name here is legion, the English, and the nordes of German tourists, who seem to nave descended upon Italv this summer like a host of locusts, Rome of to-day is still the Rome of the marvellous Basilica di San Pietro, the Rome of the great cathedral whose fame is world-wide, the