PARLIAMENTARY FACADE GOES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23707, 14 January 1939, Page 14

PARLIAMENTARY FACADE GOES

The Italian Chamber of Deputies has ceased to exist, notes The Times. Its place is to be taken by the Chamber of Fascios and Corporations, which with the Senate will henceforth, under —very much under —their Duce, direct the economic and political life of Italy. The passing of the Chamber of Deputies will not be greatly regretted by patriotic Italians, even by those out of sympathy with Fascist ideas. The Parliamentary system had never shown itself well adapted to the Italian character, and had exhibited long before the days of Fascism a feebleness »nd a corruption which evoked derision and contempt. The “ politicastri,” as its members used sometimes sarcastically to be called, were adepts at group-formiag, obstructionism, and intrigue—at all tne tricks, in fact, which it is essential to keep out of a healthy Parliamentary system. The earlier reforms of Signor Mussolini gave the Chamber coherence discipline, and purpose, but at the cost of the free election of its members. It had therefore quite ceased to possess the essential feature of a Parliamentary system, according to English ideas. It indulged rather more successfully in choruses than in individual speeches: and on December 14 it celebrated its own funeral by the singing of Fascist anthems.