MUSSOLINI’S POWER

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 December 1928, Page 10

MUSSOLINI’S POWER

PROBLEM ABOUT THRONE. LONDON, November 21. “Signor Mussolini has secured a new and powerful weapon against a King who dares to become recalcitrant.” This is how the Rome correspondent of the Manchester Guardian sums up the bill outlining the constitution and tho functions of the Great Fascist Council, which must be consulted in constitutional and other matters, including succession to the throne. The bill’.s preamble, tho correspondent adds, includes, a. lengthy explanation, suggesting that tho admission that a problem concerning the throne exists has only been inserted to prevent the question being raised in Parliament, but the impression exists that tho explanation is written solely for the hesitating King himself. Whisperers are asking: Why raise a. delicate question when the King and Heir Apparent are both in perfect health ? They answer their own question by declaring that the King stiil favours democracy, and he dislikes the existing regime and that he mediates abdication, by which means solely would ho bo able to show his' opposition. The new law vaguely threatens the King that if he plays the trick of abdication upon Fascism his son will not necessarily succeed him. Well-informed observers assert that tho relations between the King and Mussolini are at present not cordial. The King resents that Mussolini recently recalled that he lighted a votive lamp in the Fascisti Chapel at Bologna in memory of the “Blackshirts” who died in order to create Fascism and thereby made it impossible for the King still to profess that he remained above parties and conflicts.