MUSSOLINI, THE MAN

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 283, 3 November 1925, Page 7

MUSSOLINI, THE MAN

SPIRIT OF FASCISM. UNITY BY AUTHORITY. There has been so much said against Mussolini as the Director of Italy that the opposite view of the man should be of general interest. And this is how Mr Harold Begbie sees the Italian Socialist and statesman: Mussolini’s achievement, separated from some of the methods of some of his followers, seems to mo incomparably the greatest act of modern statesmanship. He has destroyed cynicism in a highly civilised State and kindled the flame of idealism in an ancient people. Any mountobank can climb to power in a half-educated democracy by promising the people cakes and ale in the shape of higher wages and shorter hours. But to inspire a nation of 40,000,000 with an impassioned enthusiasm for discipline, sacrifice, and utmost hard work, this demands certain spiritual qualities of which the agitator has no knowledge, and with which even the best of our statesmen appear to be only incredulously acquainted. As a little boy Benito Mussolini, born in 1883, was irked by a feeling that many operations surrounding his village life were badly done. He was conscious of an instinctive aversion from inefficiency and incompetence, and of a conviction that he could do a groat many things better than he saw them being done. No tions of political activity, however, visited his mind. He heard his father,' who was a blacksmith, speaking of Socialism as an event of the future, and he grew up in the faith that one day all men would be Socialists. But his main concern was with scholarship. Ho loved books with the zest which is the secret of his energy. His mother, whom he adored and whose memory he reverences, told him that ono day he would be a celebrated man, prophesying that an hour would come when ho would achieve great glory as an Italian patriot. Ho did not truly believe her, he tells me, and did not certainly covet either grandeur or fame. His youth-time was consumed by the ambition to be a schoolmaster.

“You take me by surprise,” I said to him when we first met. “I expected something of a monster. You seem to be more of a poet.” “That, too, may be confessed,” lie answered with a boyish smile. “Now I play my violin; but once 1 wrote poetry.” Ho believed in his mother’s prophecy for the first time when he took the platform of Socialism. His success was instant and tremendous. He wanted a better world, and he believed earnestly that Socialism would create it. Never in his life has he acted a part. Never has he spoken with his tongue in his cheek. Never has he used the sufferings of tho poor to push his fortunes or to line his pocket. At tho fiercest time of his Socialism ho was an honest man, clean of all pretence, freo from all dishonouring hypocrisies. Sincerity told, Ho roso to leadership among Italian Socialists and was hailed by tho International as a new force. YVar came to Europe, and he saw instantly that if civilisation were to be saved Italy must fight. The brethren of universal brotherhood howled him down, crying, “Kill him! Kill him!” The preachers and prophets of millennium expelled him from thenparty. He disappeared out of Italian politics and reappeared as ah. Italian soldier.

His courage told in that testing hour. He fought like a lion, and wherever he fought men were inspired to fight like him. Ho made friendships which changed his life. He rose to be a oorporal, and went on fighting till he fell wounded in a hundred parts of the body by bursting shrapnel. Useless to tho army, apparently useless to the world, he was sent home. But Mussolini was not to stand in the gutters selling matches or singing doleful songs with his cap in hand. He had seen a vision on the battlefield which becarno to him a veritable conversion. It was the vision of national unity, expressed by courageous Youth cheerfully enduring hardships, triumphantly going out to meet death, unquestioningly accepting sacrifice as the true glory of life. He returned to find middle age complaining of inconvenience, and old age moping over the dread of ruin. In order that Italy should be saved from ignominy and ruin he formed a legion of men who had fought in the war, making each man take the sacred oath, “In the name of God and Italy, in tho name of those who have died for tho greater glory of Italy, I swear that I will consecrate myself entirely and for ever, to live for the good of Italy.” What most strikes mo in this courageous and high-minded man, apart from his charming naturalness and complete freedom from all Napoleonisms, is his extraordinary composuro. One feels that he is profoundly awaro of a power in himself which is intended for the salvation of his people. The broad forehead, the powerful chin, the curious brightness of his penetrating dark eyes, do not seem to mo to express his spirit so intimately as tho mouth, which is both beautiful and firm. 4 When he speaks, huskily and with great rapidity, tho lips are tense with energy; but when ho smiles it is as if the man of action had no existence, only tho boy who loves his violin, his poetry, and the graciousness of nature. He is at the head of four Ministries, he works for 14 hours a day, and he looks thin, pale, and tired out; yet when he speaks of the work which the spirit of Fascism is destined to do among tho nations of the earth, restoring the high places of civilisation and giving to democracy a new spiritual ideal, his face lights up, his eyes shine, and tho voice rings with youthfulness. On the central table in his room lies a full-sized model of the “fasces” carried by lictors beforo tho emperors and consuls of ancient Rome —an axe surrounded by close-banded rods. Ho laid his hand upon it and said: “A symbol! Unity by means of authority.”