DISCONTENT IN ITALY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 591, 18 February 1929, Page 9

DISCONTENT IN ITALY

FASCIST RULE UNPOPULAR IN MILAN GRAFT AND JOBBERY ALLEGED (Australian and N.Z . Press Association) LONDON, Sunday. A special correspondent of the “Daily News” says a visitor to Milan, the industrial capital of Italy, soon realises that the prestige of the Prime Minister, Signor Mussolini, is diminishing Allegations of graft and “jobbery” are freely made. It is complained that Fascist leaders practise systematised extortion.

The people of Milan are aghast at the savage punishments which Signor Starace, assistant secretary of the Rome Fascist Party, has inflicted in a special “cleansing campaign,” of which he was the organiser. All the citizens are panic-stricken. Fascist organisations are hastening to pass resolutions which palpitate with loyalty to the Duce, but discontent is spreading from the workers to financiers and businessmen. They resent the restrictions imposed on foreign travel and the high taxes which are harshly collected.

The correspondent says the disaffection has reached Turin, which the Fascist newspapers brand as a “black spot,” owing to the falling birthrate.

The Fascists are rigorously enforcing the bachelor tax. .Employers are obliged to disclose the number of single iJeople on their stall’s, and promotion is sternly refused to bachelors in Government and municipal offices.