ITALIAN CONSUL.

Otago Witness, Issue 3804, 8 February 1927, Page 17

ITALIAN CONSUL.

ARRIVAL IN WELLINGTON. WELLINGTON, January 31. A cosmopolitan with an Australian experience that should stand him in good stead in the Dominion, Commendatore Bichele Blunno arrived to-day to take up the duties of Italian Consul for New Zealand. He speaks English perfectly though he has not used it for the past seven years or so. Commendatore Blunno has had a career eminently fitting him for his new duties. For many years he was an officer of the Agricultural Department of the New South Wales Government, stationed at Sydney. From 1917 to 1918 he was analytical chemist for the Coloniel Sugar Refining Company at Suva. Returning to Italy in March, 1920, he was shortly afterwards appointed principal of the School of Commerce in his native town, San Severo, remaining in that position for some two years, when he was asked by the Emigration Department of Italy to take charge of a course to train young men for an agricultural degree in order that they might proceed to not overpopulated countries offering Italian emigrants a living on the land. Like all true Italians, Commendatore Blunno is an ardent believer in the future of the new Italy, and in the aspirations of the party of young men who do not intend that the loss of 600,000 lives and over 1,000,000 wounded and crippled in the war shall be in vain. Already their success in the campaign against rampant Bolshevism and the united front being given to national problems by capital and labour foreshadow,Tie believes, most satisfactory progress on new lines in Italy. “We aim at a real and sincere collaboration between the capitalistic and working classes,” he said, ‘"and we do not think it at all impossible. We cannot imagine the country progressing while there are continual clashes and antagonism between them. Italy is a country just a little bigger than New Zealand, yet it holds 41,000,000 people, though a large portion of the land is hilly and far from rich. We lack coal and the materials for manufactures. Italy is like a family of great traditions that has outgrown its finances. It is only by united effort that she can progress.”