CONTRASTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 28 January 1939, Page 6

CONTRASTS

ITALIAN POLITICAL CLIMATE (By Air Mad—Own CorreHpondenf 1 LONDON, sth January. On Christmas Day a letter reached me—enclosing December rose leaves—from a friend in Sicily. It is perhaps worth quoting as absolutely well-in-formed and quite unprejudiced testimony from one who was originally an enthusiastic disciple of Mussolini. "Only a few weeks ago I was sitting by a Winter fire in England. Behold me now sitting in a room which has not only no fire, but no fireplace, with the Sicilian sun streaming in so fiercely that 1 am obliged to half-close the shutters. ‘How lovely!’ you may think! Come and try it for a year or two, and you will yearn for English snow and ice. One does after a fashion accustom oneself to the physical climate, but it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile oneself to the political climate in which Italians live, Certainly they are not happy. In fact there is over all a general feeling of depression and hopelessness which ought to go a long way towards reconciling us to the tomb. But after all the individual does not count under Fascism.” Knowing the levelheaded optimism of the writer, this gloomy outlook is tremendously significant