The Wanganui Chronicle WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1936. MOVING TO ECLIPSE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 12, 15 January 1936, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1936. MOVING TO ECLIPSE

gUTH Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini are moving fast towards their inevitable eclipse. Signs and portents are in evidence which confirm this conclusion. Two years ago the Chronicle declared that Mussolini would probably move to the shadows in three years. The current year is his critical year. Herr Hitler will also find himself forced to face a diminishing' prestige. Time, which once ran in favour of tiiese two dictators, now runs against them. Nemesis awaits both, and at a not distant date. This confident prophecy is not based 011 anything in Old Moore’s Almanack, but upon a survey of events weighed in the light of historical experience. Mussolini usurped power, he stifled opposition, he oppressed those who differed from him. Herein he defied the first principle of life, which is interaction within the body. Just as there is within the simplest cell-form of life a duality whicli in combination brings forth fertilisation, so too, must there be Vtion and inter-action in the political entity. There is actually no such thing as an absolutist Government. The Oriental potentate whose word is law, does not represent an absolutism. He is generally removed by having his throat cut by the opposition. There may be something to be said in favour of such a method of changing the government, but the less sanguinary methods of democratic regimes have rightly or wrongly come to be regarded as the more, desirable modus operand!. But whichever means are employed, the butcher’s knife or the ballot box, the point to bear in mind is that the opposition does eventually arise and does express itself in one way or another. A Government cannot be forever strong; a time will come when cither internal or external factors will operate against it, making it weak. The Abyssinian Avar has speeded up the weakening of Mussolini’s position. There were ominous signs of a decline in the mana of II Duce in 1934. External trade was bad, the financial position was deteriorating, the budgetary situation was moving progressively in the wrong direction, while the unemployment situation showed no signs of improvement. Income remittances from Italians abroad had fallen away, and further the disturbing speeches of II Duce himself discouraged the tourist traffic upon which a large section of the populace depended. Small wonder that under such conditions criticism of the Fascist regime increased to such an exlent during 1934 that the Government determined upon taking steps to counteract this adverse influence. Belligerent speeches against France were dramatic but safe, because France had no intention of attacking Italy. To talk about “meeting the foe at the crossing” was good platform material, but it did not solve problems presented by the internal condition of Italy. Then came the Nazi Busch in Austria, and then Mussolini, remembering his misdoings against the Teutons in the Tyrol, feared to have a Nazi neighbour on his northern boundary. He thereupon turned to France, composed his differences concerning Tripoli, and then entered upon his Abyssinian adventure. This adventure has not turned out to be the spectacular success which the Dictator of Italy had anticipated. It has drained his country’s resources still further; it has weakened the power of the Government; it has made men turn their thoughts to desperate expedients because they have come to believe that any alternative would be an improvement on present conditions. Mussolini's prestige has, by the irony of fate, been damaged, not by the strength of the strong, but by the weakness of the weak. Had the Emperor of Abyssinia been strong enough to defend his own frontiers, the Italian army would probably, by this time, have administered as sound a defeat upon Haile Selassie as the British forces did against the followers of the Mahdi at Omdurnian. The weakness of the Abyssinian compelled him to refuse battle and engage in guerilla tactics. The territory in which the Avar is being waged, favours the defender, and particularly a primitive defender, and makes a slow penetration by an invading force a most expensive operation. Avhich is just the very thing which Italy cannot afford, and Avhich Mussolini desires to avoid. 11. may not be long before another example is provided of the mighty being brought low by the weak. It will probably occur Avithin tAVch’e months from now. The coming summer will tax Italy’s ingenuity and the following Avinter Avill in all probability usher in a sad and sullen night.