The Dominion TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 1932. MUSSOLINI AND AFTER

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 168, 12 April 1932, Page 8

The Dominion TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 1932. MUSSOLINI AND AFTER

It was reported last week that Signor Mussolini had indicated a desire to retire. Whatever truth there may be in this, the suggestion raises an interesting question as to what may happen to Italy when the strong hand that has governed that country under one of the most remarkable dictatorships in modern history is removed. In considering this question it is important to .note that whi.e Mussolini’s dominating personality and tremendous driving force were the chief factors in placing and maintaining in power the Fascist machine he created, its efficiency in government .has produced results vastly superior to those which the democratic system it usurped could possibly have achieved. With so much standing to its credit, thetefore, some may question whether the Italian people would now abandon it for one that previous experience had shown to be effete and useless. Mussolini has created a machine that, quite conceivably it is argued, could function without him if public opinion desired its continuance. . T i Mussolini himself is convinced that the Fascist system as Italy knows it, is really democratic. In an interview in 1930 Mussolini declared that, in spite of what others might think, the only Fascism that really existed was that form of it, with the inspiration behind it, that had flourished in, Italy. He declared:

I am a democrat, that is, an authoritarian democrat. We are creating moral order, not police order, anti it is our task to win everybody’s support. Of course, we can only accomplish this tnsk at. the, present time by exerting a certain amount of force. Already a certain mitigation has set in. To rule by police and machine-guns does not signify much. What we are doing is creating a State, and Italian feeling for this State. Formerly there was no united national sentiment; Each province, each community, lived for itself. Fascism brought everything together.

The final assertion in the foregoing cannot be disputed. Mussolini has not only given his country a national consciousness, _ but also a status in international affairs that 'commands respect. _ Nevertheless, Major E. W. Polson Newman, writing in the Fortnightly Review, expresses the opinion that-Fascism is losing ground. “Although Italy is truly grateful for the magnificent work done by Mussolini, and fully realises that his dictatorship has been necessary to tide bver a time of crisis, the transformation of a temporary dictatorship into a political doctrine as an.end in itself has led,”.he says, “to a reaction which cannot be ignored.” . ' , From various other witnesses the impression gained is .that there must 'inevitably come a time when what Mussolini describes as “a benevolent despotism” must either be gradually and perceptibly modified, thus paving the way for a liberal system of self-government and popular self-expression, or collapse under a sudden and violent revulsion of public feeling against it. The danger of this latter event would lie' in a swing back to the extreme left, and the return of Socialism with its inherent weaknesses.

Closely bound up with the future of Fascism is that of the Papal power itself. Under the Lateran Treaty'between the Fascist Government and the Vatican, the latter enjoys a definite security of which it would be deprived were Socialism to replace Fascism. Whatever might be the views of the Vatican concerning the scope of authority which Fascism has annexed to itself as, for example, in public education, the moral weight of its influence would most probably be on the side of the present regime. What the Vatican has to fear and also the other civil Powers for that matter, is a sudden collapse of Fascism when Mussolini leaves the stage. The forces opposed to Fascism are more likely to remember the extremes to which its vigorous authority have gone than the national benefits which have accrued from its regime, and it would be quite in accordance with human nature and the experience of history if they went too far in the opposite direction.