WHO GOT THE MONEY?

Southland Times, Issue 18965, 12 June 1923, Page 13

WHO GOT THE MONEY?

FASCISTS AND THE ITALIAN WAR SCANDAL. The scandals which have come out with regard to the sale of war materials continue to occupy public attention, in spite of Mussolini’s appeal to the Press to drop the subject as it is now in the hands of justice (says the Rome correspondent of the London Observer on April 8). The Court of Enquiry found that Professor Bazzi, editor of the Fascist paper, Il Nuovo Paese, acting on behalf of the “Sindacato Naxionale delle Co-operative,” had obtained the handing over of the vast surplus of war material accumulated at Turin and Milan, on the pretext that the syndicate was largely composed of ex-Service men. It now transpires that the "Sindacato Nazionale” did not exist as a legally constituted body, and that when the contract with the Government was signed only sixteen of the three thousand syndicates supposed to form part of the National Syndicate were represented. The sixteen syndicates had no organisation capable of dealing with so vast an amount of stuff, and after a period of hopeless mismanagement and waste the lot was sold in November, 1921, to Kirchen, the "Rumanian Nabob,” for 25,792.890 lire. Kirchen resold it at a profit of 13,244,569 lire, and paid Professor Bazzi a sum of 4,247,600 lire for arranging the sale. Only the crumbs seem to have gone to the Cooperatives. Professor Bazzi defends himself in his paper by declaring that the money was spent in financing the Fascist march on Rome last October. The secretary of the National Fascist Party has made the following statement:—(l) The National Syndicate of Co-operatives spoken of in the Commission of Enquiry, and of which Profesor Bazzi was the figure-head, has nothing whatever to do with the Fascist National Syndicate of Co-operatives. (2) The march on Rome was not financed by the National Syndicate of Co-operatives, and the Political Secretary of the Fascist Party is ready to prove it. Gabriele D’Annunzio, in a letter to the Press, states that the National Syndicate of Co-operatives furnished goods to the Fiume Command to the value of 400,000 lire. The syndicate retorts' that it has, up till now, not received a penny of the money. It looks as though someone were being thrown overboard. The better element in the Fascist Party, outraged by the revelations, demands that full justice be meted out, whoever may be implicated.