Nelson Evening Mail MONDAY, APRIL 16, 1928 THE MILAN OUTRAGE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 16 April 1928, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail MONDAY, APRIL 16, 1928 THE MILAN OUTRAGE

THE whole civilised world will rejoice in ihi> failure of the attempt on the King ..f Italy's life, iind will deplore the fate .ii ilit! many innocent victims who have. I.e. ii killi'il «.r maimed by the miscreants who laid the plot. There will also be.

general sat ''sfnetion thai (he plot t" wreck Signor Mussolini's train was frustrated by the vigilance of those, patrolling the railway line by which lie was travelling to Milan. Wliil- there will he rejoicing that the objects of the assassins wenanil that the King and the peat Fascist leader escaped death, there is no good in ignoring the fact, that the political condition lit' Italy is Mich thai such outrage? as that which has occurred at Milan are Hist wha.. may be expected in a country which, having enjoyed constitutional •_'.i>\ eminent fin 60 years, is .suddenly dl\sfranihised. Ii the fad of Italy's disfranchiseriienl is doubled, it is enough 1., i|iinle from the decree made last. November by 111«- Fascist Ornnd Council. Tim decree included (1) Hie abolition of universal suffrage; (2) the nomination of candidates for the Chamber of Deputies bv economic guilds, subject, to revision and addition by the fJrand Council of l!ie Fascist Tarty: (3) the abolition of all other political parties: (4) the substitution r.f a single electoral constituency of l lie whole nation fur separate territorial divisions; (. r >) the reduction of (ho Chamber of Deputies from 560 members In 400. The resolutions of the Grand Fascist Council, which brought this new stale of tilings into being, read in part, as follows :

The thirteen great economic organisations which include the whole mass

of the Italian producers and workers will propose to the ('.rand Council a certain quota of candidates which will be fixed later. The Grand Conned te vises these candidates, possibly eliminating some in older to make certain that all possess a sure Fascist a faith and represent not only the specific interests (that' is. economic and industrial interests! which designated them, but th.' superior interests of the national regime, which ale only economic . . . '1 he right to vote is not conferred on all citizens accorditig to th.- old democratic svstem ol universal sull'rage. hut only on thoswho. bv paying their syndicalist dues, show they are active elements in the

lilc ■>) the nation - ■ Tins means that only Fascists will be eligible for membership r-f the Chamber ~i Dcpniies, and thai only voters approved by the Fascist Parly will be allowed to vote. Thus it necessarily follows that only Fascists will berome members <>f what is supposed to be. the popular Chamber, but which, like Mie. Senate, will consist entirely of Fascists. .Ml those who arc opposed to the Fascisl. regime are disfranchised. The Fascist Party might as well have decided to elect, its own nominees direct, to the Chamber of Deputies, but it. chose to set up a form of nomination and election which seemed to preserve in part, the principle of electoral government, whereas it. actually disfranchised a vast, portion 'if the nation. A nation which .'an onlv elect delegates of one political :vhool of thought lias lost the essence of the electoral system though it may have preserved the ghost of its form. There must, be millions oi people in Italy who thus, being out of sympathy with Fascism, are possessed of no possibility of redressing their political grievances through the voices of the deputies sent to the Chamber, and among those disfranchised millions there are hound to lio some who will seek to destroy by force a svstem which, they canno! eliminate by constitutional means: and naturally they will strike violently at those whom they imagine are mainly respon-

sible, for the existence of that regime. While the. method of assassination is to he deprecated, in any circumstances, as wicked and barbarous, yet it is sure 10 be resorted to where an attempt is made to force men into one political mould, and to insist on the suppression of all political principles except those of the petty in power. It is a fact that free electoral institutions are not suitable to every nation. It may be, as has been declared by many foreign investigators of Italy's new method of government, that Fascism is suited to the Italian temperament. It ruav be that, the Italian nation made poor use of the opportunities conferred on it by free electoral institutions. But it is certainly a fact that in a nation which has once tasted the freedom enjoyed under such institutions, there must inevitably exist many who will refuse to abandon that freedom without, resorting to every available means—including those which are most desperafe --to regain those rights of free government, of which they have been deprived. If the King of Italy had been killed at Milan, he would have been the victim not onlv of unscrupulous men made desperate by Fascism, but of the political system which he had condoned. Flow ever effective it. may be as a political system, the desperate means to which it resorts are bound to produce desperation in those whose political life it, has trampled under foot.