NEW CONSUL WELCOMED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 673, 27 May 1929, Page 14

NEW CONSUL WELCOMED

ITALIAN CLUB’S WARM GREETING FASCISM’S GREAT WORK There was a most enthusiastic gathering o£ Italian subjects at the Italian Club on Saturday evening to welcome Cavaliere Giovanni Formichella, the newly-appointed Italian Consul for New Zealand and the South Seas.

Signor Campi, president of the club, introduced the consul and assured him of the loyalty of the Italians in Auckland. He was followed by Signor Burigotto, who emphatically agreed with his remarks.

Cavaliere Formichella replied, being greeted as he stood up with loud cheers and an enthusiastic Fascist salute. He thanked the club for its hospitality and kindly welcome. He described, most interestingly, the exciting events which had preceded the day when Fascism gained supreme control of modern Italy, and traced the deadly effects which Communism had had just after the Great War, and gave examples of the terrible treatment Communists had meted out to returned soldiers. Commerce had been paralysed and peaceful citizens’ lives had been in danger. Then Signor Mussolini, already a figure of national importance, had decided that “the time had come for the arrow to leave the how, or the string would break.” He organised the returned soldiers and the civilian anticommunists, and Fascism was born. “Fascism,” said the consul, “stands for the advancement of tlie spiritual, economic, moral and patriotic welfare of our beloved country.” A branch of the Fascist group should be started m Auckland so that by every means possible local Italians might become the best New Zealand citizens and thus foster good feelings between two great nations. Among other healths that were drunk was that of King George, and as the meeting broke up it returned the consul’s Fascist salute.