The Star. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1928. NOTES OF THE DAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18581, 2 October 1928, Page 8

The Star. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, NOTES OF THE DAY.

TF THE KING OF ITALY abdicates and Mussolini passes over the Crown Prince and enthrones the Duke of Apulia, as a Paris newspaper hints, it may be the beginning of the end of Fascism. The report is startling because, while the Dictator is regarded as the real head of the State, and the rival even of the Pope, he has not been credited with designs upon the Crown, and has professed himself the upholder of the monarchy. However, the suggestion that Mussolini should wish to place on the throne a creature of his own is the clearest possible indication that King Victor Emmanuel and the Crown Prince Humbert are not Fascists at heart, and are regarded as an obstacle to Mussolini’s ambitions. Mr H. J. Greenwall, the special correspondent of the “Daily Express,” writing this year from Rome, said:— One hears less and less of the King, whose functions to all intents and purposes have been taken over by the Dictator. Everywhere in Italy one finds on the walls of buildings stencilled pictures of Mussolini; sometimes in a shop window in Rome one sees a picture of the King or the Crown Prince. When in Rome the royal family live in the Quirinal, their palace in the centre of the city; a tunnel runs beneath the royal garden, and this is used extensively for vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The King is never seen by the Romans. He goes on tours when the Dictator wishes it. Recently he went to Tripoli, but only after Mussolini had himself visited the colony and been received in royal fashion. I am informed that the King was much shaken by the bomb outrage in Milan, though he knew for whom the bomb was intended. The same writer, discussing the relations between the HeirApparent and the Dictator, points out that the Italian newspapers were allowed to print the statement that a photo"’graph published of the Crown Prince in Fascist uniform was a fake, and that the Crown Prince will not allow the Fascist hymn to be played when lie makes official visits. The King signs all the decrees that Mussolini places before him, but the decrees that need the royal signature are becoming fewer and fewer. This must be distasteful indeed to King Victor Emmanuel, who has very conscientious ideas of the responsibility of a sovereign, and from the time of his accession would sign no act or document without the fullest explanation and consideration. The King, indeed, is a strictly constitutional monarch, and it was perhaps inevitable that he should come into sharp conflict sooner or later with so unconstitutional a figure as Benito Mussolini.

THE REQUEST of the Justice Department that newspapers should refrain from publishing the means by which suicides have been committed is based on a wrong psychology. The assumption on which the request is based is that if a depressed person reads about a suicide having been committed by some particular poison, or in some particular way, it is an incentive to the depressed person to go and do likewise. While it may be perfectly true that the mention of a particular poison will set the minds of wouldbe suicides running in the direction of that poison, and there may be an epidemic of suicides due to the same cause, it is ridiculous to suggest that the act of suicide is provoked merely by reading about a method of suicide. All that happeus is that if a man contemplates committing suicide he may select the method that he has seen described in the newspapers. The request of the Justice Department, therefore, might lend variety to the methods of those who arc tired of life, but it would not reduce their number.

THE ATTITUDE adopted by the Labour majority in the City Council in the case of ex-Councillor Hunter is an extraordinary one. They had surely everything to gain and nothing to lose by ordering the fullest inquiry into thp circumstances of Councillor Hunter’s resignation. Councillor Sullivan may have been perfectly right in saying that all the documents in the case were available for the inspection of councillors, but what he meant was all the documents in the possession of the City Council. WJicn a suggestion is made that ! men occupying public positions have been involved in transactions that arc open to question in any way, the right and proper course is to have a full public inquiry made without delay. Not otherwise can the public services of New Zealand maintain their consistently high place in the confidence of the public. Probably no country in the world has a cleaner public service than New Zealand, and that is because every hint of irregularity or impropriety has been made the subject of immediate investigation. Why the Labour councillors last night refused to follow this tradition cannot even be guessed. According to their own statements, and we accept them, they had nothing to hide. Why, then, should they have refused the public the opportunity of learning all the facts? t