Untitled

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19204, 21 June 1924, Page 8

A PEOFOUKD sensation seems to have been created in Italy by the disappearance of Signor Matteotti, a Socialist member of the Chamber of Deputies, in circumstances which are undoubtedly calculated to stir public indignation deeply. That Signor Matteotti was kidnapped and assassinated is dear, and a motive is indicated in the suggestion that he carried on his person documents relating to financial scandals which compromised political personages. While some arrests have been made, the Rome correspondent of the Morning Post .has asserted that nobody believes that the guilt is limited to the persons who have been arrested. In the meantime the affair has had important consequences in the fact that two members of the Ministry are reported to have resigned with a view to vindicating their reputation, and that the Chief of Police at Rome has retired from office, either voluntarily or at Signor Mussolini's instigation. Fascism itself is said to bo on its trial. Signor Mussolini has declared that it is his intention to see that justice is meted out to the instigators of the outrage, and energetic action on his part may serve to mitigate the effect of the blow that the prestige of the Fascist! has suffered through the episode. The methods by which the fascists secured power were peculiar. Those by which they have retained it have not been unexceptionable. While a semblance of order exists in Italy it rests, the critics of the Fascist Government assert, on a basis of chronic lawlessness. “It would be nearer the truth,’! urges a writer in the Contemporary Review, “to say that Fascism haa dominated, and actually dominates, Italy by the use of violence. One roust not forget that Mussolini, besides controlling the police and the army, has at his command 300,000 Black Shirts, a voluntary’ army . of a political party which is maintainad wife

he money of all the taxpayers. Nor must it bo forgotten that bodily violence is always the creed and practice of the mass of the Fascists.” If Signor Mussolini has taken too lightly the task of restraining his hot-headed followers, he has reason at the present moment to regret the circumstance.

Over forty years ago the minds of Canadian people were exercised over the extent to which Chinese emigrants were entering their country. The cry of a “While Canada” was raised at that time against the Chinese, whose genius and capacity for establishing themselves in various parts of the world has Leon frequently remarked. Is there a country under the sun, it has been asked, into whose economic system they have not bored their way ? In 1904 the Canadian poll tax was raised to five hundred dollars, but the Chinese population of the dominion has been growing steadily, and now amounts to about 60,000. There are said to be sorno 20,000 Chinese in Vancouver and its vicinity alone. The antiChinese agitation has been particularly active in British Columbia. Extremists there have even gone so far as to urge the closing of all educational institutions, from public school to university, to all prospective Chinese students. In April of last year the Dominion Parliament passed a Chinese Exclusion Bill which provoked protest gnd appeal on the part of the Chinese population generally, it contained provision for the exclusion of all labourets, small traders, and students below the college grade, and for giving wide authority to tho immigration officers in determining tho qualifications for entry of a Chinese seeking admission. If tho British Columbia members o» the Dominion Parliament had had their way there would have been a genera] Oriental exclusion law in operation m Canada by this time. Tho new conditions are fairly drastic, and are resented by the Chinese themselves, for they are' preparing for the observance on July 1 of a day of humiliation, with a view to manifesting their indignation. The Chinese generally prove industrious and law-abiding members of tho communities to which they emigrate. No country, however, can afford to ignore .the racial problem.