HOW FASCISM WORKS

Evening Star, Issue 21013, 29 January 1932, Page 12

HOW FASCISM WORKS

AWAKENING OF ITALY SPIRIT OF YOUNG MEN “ Gone are the old dirt and smells, as is the old listlessncss of the people. Tiro streets are clean and the shops even neater and cleaner, 1 think, than in any other capital city in Europe. ’The nation has certainly awakened from its sleep of centuries, and a new spirit is evident everywhere. That is how Fascism is working now; but if you ask how it will work out ultimately—who can answer? To put supreme power over a nation’s destiny in the autocratic hands of a clever, dominant, ambitious man is a dangerous experiment that may have disastrous and farreaching results,' not only for Italy, butfor the rest of the world.” In these words Mr Robert A. Laidlaw, who returned to Auckland from an extensive world tour, summed up his impressions of modern Italy under dictatorship rule (says the Auckland ‘ Star ’). TEN YEARS. AFTER. “ Having visited Italy in 1920, just' eight weeks before the Communists took possession of Milan factories and mounted machine guns on the roof of the Fiat motor works, at a time when the whole country was drifting to anarchy,” said Mr Laidlaw, “we wore very interested to see for ourselves what had happened under Mussolini’s administration. The so-called Fascist march on Rome in 1922 and the stories of how all opposition was dragooned, shot, or castor oiled until Benito Mussolini was in absolute control are now ancient history, but Mussolini has sunvived all criticism, and to-day sits supreme over Italy. His system of organisation is simple and effective. Power is vested in the Fascist Grand Council, over which Mussolini himself rules, protected hy a standing army'of 390,000 Fascists, all of whom must take the oath ‘ I swear to obey the orders of the Duce -without discussing them, and to serve the cause of the Fascist revolution with all my strength, and if that is necessary by my Wood.’ As the King has no power over this army nor oyer the Fascist Grand Council, it is obvious Jm is nothing but a figurehead. ECONOMIC ORGANISATION. “ The economic life of the nation is organised into trade guilds and associations covering all activities, like banking, industry, commerce, transport, etc. The council of each association has on it an equal number of employers and employees, but all members must be loyal Fascists. Disputes, if not settled by the council of the association, are handed on to a Grand Economic Council selected from members of each association council, and this Grand Council is presided over by the head of the Government, Mussolini, whose decision is final, as, of course, all members of all councils, being Fascists, have taken the oath ‘ to obey the orders of the Duce without discussing them.’ “ Since 1925 a plan has been in operation by which the youngest children are initiated. Boys from six to seven enter the first degree of Fascism. At 12 years of age they enter the second degree, at 18 the third degree, and from 18 to 21 are said to be in the pre-military service. From 21 to 23 compulsory military service must be rendered by all males. Except for the compulsory military service, girls may also join similar orders of girl Fascists. ACCEPTED SACRIFICES. “ We were particularly struck with the fine type of air pilots who man Italy’s 1,200 aeroplanes, I asked one of them: 1 How many Fascists are there in Italy?’ ‘Just 1,000,000,’ came the reply. ‘ You see, we do not want numbers only. They might easily become a drag on the movement, so we accept only young men of the right type.’ ‘ Supposing,’ I continued, ‘ the recent strained relations with France had resulted in war. what would you have done with 200,000 less soldiers in your standing army than France has?’ ‘lt is the spirit of our men that counts,’ he said. ‘ Fascism is a religion, it is a dynamic force.. No other country has the same spirit as the Fascist.’ Just to try him out and see what this Fascist spirit really meant when it was tested,, I asked: ‘ Have you had your wages reduced?’ and received this surprising reply: ‘ Yes, ray wages were cut 20 per cent, last year, while others receiving less wore cut 10 per cent. You see the advantage of Fascism. You in England Have had to wait till it was long overdue and was forced upon you by economic circumstances, whereas we accepted it for the good of the cause twelve months ago.’ DEMOCRACY’S CHOICE. “It is because of the cumbersomeness of democratic control and the speed and efficiency obtainable under capable dictatorship that I heard it said in England ‘We need a Mussolini,’” added Mr Laidlaw. “ While we must admit that the democratic form of government is slow, is it not this very slowness that constitutes one of the main safeguards of the rights of the people, and is not the Order in Council method of government accepted by democracy only as an emergency measure to be dropped as soon as a return to parliamentary legislation is possible? An enlightened democracy would sooner govern itself badly by an elected Parliament than be governed well by a dictator. We British, at any rate, would feel that any dictatorship, no matter how beneficient, was a form of tyranny that to us would be intolerable, although I belieye that democracy is learning that no form of government can bring the material benefits it had hoped for, and that there is no substitute for self-reliant, hard- work and the facing of whatever sacrifices are entailed in keeping one’s personal and national expenses within one’s personal and national income.”