Mussolini and His Future
Wood, L.J.S.
74 THE COMMONWEAL November i6, 1924 MUSSOLINI AND HIS...
...Summary action against individuals in the second and third categories, some of whom it must be remembered, had supported him loyally through the fighting times, might have split Fascism, broken the strength and power of the movement, made it impossible for him to carry out tbe work he had set himself to do...
...In general administration that has been done, and done wonderfully quickly and effectively...
...but the more extraordinary accident was bow in the world Hunipty Dumpty ever got on the wall...
...Mussolini and Fascism started in to clean up the mess and restore discipline and order...
...in refusal to give any credit at all to the government's declaration that its own policy was to realize those conditions, to which end it asked the aid of all good Irjians...
...How has he succeeded in the two years that have passed since the March on Rome...
...The King has laid on him the former charge...
...No one who remembers 19 12-13 will deny that the Corfu policy, or some similar pledge, was a necessity...
...There has been a political deadlock since, with four months' newspaper vituperation by extremists on each side...
...It could never have resulted in revolution, but it did bring temporary chaos...
...Thirdly, a crowd of self-seekers, some erstwhile Socialists or Communists, who joined the movement when they saw it succeeding—many of them of a better class, but without principle...
...Mussolini evidently hoped for time—for five years in government with a stable majority, obtained by the temporary expedient of the electoral law of 1923...
...For he must have known of the bad streak, even if he did not believe it capable of going to the lengths revealed by the Matteotti crime...
...The imperialistic suggestions of some previous utterances were replaced by a conception of Italy, determined, indeed, to claim the place due to her, but sincerely desirous of working for peace with her neigh...
...Under the open refusal ~vas the thinly disguked hope and aim that the moral effect of thc Matteotti rcveladons might shake the Prime Minister's position so badly as to cause his do~vnfalI and the disappearance of Fascism as a system and a power...
...During the era of "liberalism" and "democracy," the bureaucratic machine, extending from the Prime Mmis'ter down to the railway carriage cleaner and the telegraph boy, had become unwieldy, had been used for political purposes by succeeding governments...
...On the first side, administratively, there is a remarkable record of first class work done by the Prime Minister, who has also been Foreign Minister and until lately Minister of Home Affairs, and by his assistants, one or two of them men of great ability...
...If on the straight facts the fault lay with the local Greek governor, it was at the least a tactical mistake on the part of the Italian admiral...
...Moreover, thc hesitation has had the very bad moral effect of giving the evildoers the impression that they were immune from prosecution, that they could carry out violence, illegalism, with impunity...
...But that was not given him...
...But there is a blot on the pIcture...
...This political opposition culminated after thc Matteotti crime in refusal to take any further part in the work of Parliament unless certain demands formulated were complied wIth, conditions laid down realized...
...There was never, of course, any foundation for the suggestion of intention of permanent occupation of the island...
...Order is kept and first class administrative work has been done...
...those that remain, together with the unprincipled.in the' second category, forsnvthc, bat sidr of Fascism...
...Humpty Dumnpty fell by an accident...
...The bombardment was certainly open to severe criticism...
...Fascism has by no means yet got its own house in order...
...Political strikes in public services, which used to arise on the slightest pretext, are unheard of now...
...there has not been a strike of any consequence since Fascism became established...
...It is easier to start a movement, under a big spur such as patriotism, than to get order, discipline, self-sacrifice subsequently into the individuals who compose it...
...That is the good side of the work of Fascism: discipline and work replacing incapacity in administration...
...Precisely...
...and the economic budget The two most unhealthy departments, railways and posts, have been cleaned up...
...In home administration, fearless action on the part of a very capable Minister of Treasury and Finance has nearly wiped out the dangerous deficit in the financia...
...This has been seen in all departments...
...L. J. S. Wood, wit., has resided in Rome for many years and whose articles in The Tablet, The Atlantic Monthly and other periodicals have made hi,,, widely known as a thoughtful and exceptionally well-informed commentator on Italian affairs...
...and treated it a& if it implied some vast change in the character and mentality of the British electorate...
...People over here, and, in fact, cverywberc but in England itself, heralded the Labor ministry as an omen of profound significance...
...You mean," I said, "that tbe Labor Ministry owed its risc to an accident, and now its fall...
...Katherine Mansfield was one of Mr...
...A number of these have been weeded out...
...Orige's discoveries— cnlyoneol may.' Such vema writcrs~as 1kG...
...Whilc credit must be given for some really thoughtful distrust of an autocratic r6gimc which had arisen out of a movement ~vhkh might without exaggeration be called revolutionary, it has all along been obvious that the bulk of the opposition has been based on the narrowest considerations of party political interests...
...Recently a number in high places have been removed, others have been laid by the heels, local organizations have been purged of unruly elements...
...It is possible that long ago Mussolini might have felt that he had the strength needed to take extreme measures against offenders if he had had the loyal, wholehearted support of all good Italians...
...Among these, ambition and the lust for power has prevailed...
...COMMUNICATIONS THE BRITISH LABOR PARTY New York, N. Y. 370 the Editor: It will doubtless be intercsting to your readem to know that the man who some years ago created one of the most valuable, best written, stimulating and aeative literary weekly reviews of England, The New Age, is now in this country...
...Orage, "must be attached to this overwhelming defeat of the Labor Ministry at the polls ?" "Not more," Mr Orage replied, "than to the fall of Humpty Dumpty...
...They are absolutely determined that no political intrigue shall destroy their work, restore the old conditions of political degradation and administrative inefficiency which would give extreme Socialism and Communism, now cowed, the chance to lift their heads again...
...Parliament reopened on November 12, and there arc, happily, some signs that general good sense, expressed through men of moderation on each side, will by degrees soften the acuteness of the deadlock and, when the opposition return to their places, open discussion of the budget and other administrative affairs of the nation will afford an outlet, replacing acrimonious newspaper polemics...
...From which, and possibly through a new election in thc near future on a less one-party system, may issue the normalization, consticutionalization, which the opposition demands and which Mussolini and the best in Fascism would welcome—provided always that it is not shaped to the destruction of their work, of the new order in all the affairs of the nation...
...Wcll,, White Belloc, Bcrnard Shaw, Gilbert and Cecil Chesterton, Francis Grierson, and other makers and sbakers of world thought were among the wrhcrs who gladly contributed to The New Age...
...Agents arc found readily in the third category...
...That is at least an intelligible explanation of his delay, his hesitation to clean out the evildoers, to punish summarily the frequent episodes of violence in the country...
...the latter is now paying its way, the former, which had once a deficit of a milliard lire a year, should balance next year...
...One after another, individuals and bodies, whose interests were tied up with the old r6gime, went into opposition...
...These remain...
...Firstly, Mussolini and a number of determined men, many of them not in the public eye but permeating the eye of the country, earnestly intent on pulling Italy out of the mess into which it was sinking, and establishing efficient government...
...Greece had to be shown, and shown definitely and promptly, that she could not insult Italy and boast about it with impunity...
...Then it became evident that in Italy, liberalism and democracy were just words, ideas—utterly ineffective when faced by facts and acts of the sudden outburst of extreme Socialism and Communism...
...by general consent he alone had the necessary authority to carry out the latter...
...Mussolini is not a lunatic...
...The visible opposition has been that of the politicians, people and papers...
...These have gone back to their work and live their lives in peace, which is all they want to do...
...What significance," I asked Mr...
...74 THE COMMONWEAL November i6, 1924 MUSSOLINI AND HIS FUTURE By L. J. S. WOOD (The present it allan crisis gives a special interest to the study of Afu.ssohini and Fascism, i's two articles, of which this lithe second, written by Mr...
...Certainly the latter was only a wave...
...Lastly, there were numbers whot joined November ±6, 1924 THE COMMONWEAL 75 the movement as a means to put an end to the Communism which was making life impossible...
...The need of it had been seen forycars to be urgent, but untilz9n.no government had~ possessed the will or the power to tackle the problem, just as until 1922 no Finance Minister had been able to bring the required pressure, ruthless and unprejudiced by political considerations, on the vast number of tax shirkers...
...bors, her late Allies, her late enemies, everyone...
...There were four categories of individuals in the Fascist ranks in October, 1922...
...In the days of mental upset after the war, it came to look on itself as the master of the state...
...From the second category come the organizers of outrages running from trusted men in ministries to "Rasses" in the villages...
...The great thing has been the cleaning out of the unwieldy, overgrown, unhealthy bureaucracy, ruthless expurgation of parasitical, non-working dcrnents, infusion of the spirit of discipline and work...
...Orage expressed, in a conversation I had with him recently, interesting and doubtless well-informed views regarding the defeat of the labor party in England...
...As Prime Minister and Chief of Fascism, Niussolini has had, firstly to govern the country, secondly to constitutionalize the Fascist movement...
...Ii~ foreign affairs the sobering effect of responsibility was seen at once...
...It was time and more than time...
...Though declaring himself no longer interested in British politics, Mr...
...And the general record of foreign policy is one of moderation and work for agreement in the councils of the Allies— treaties of commerce—arbitration and peace with Jugoslavia, and half a dozen other powers...
...Under the editorship of A. R. Orage, an editor who possessed much of the intuitive genius displayed by William Ernest Henley in his once famous English Review, in divining and encouraging literary talent, The New Age was a bnlliant, staunch champion of the rights of the poor people of England, and opened the door to the practical study of the guilds of the Middle Ages, which study is preparing the way for real improvemeAt in the relations between the rich and the poor...
...Secondly, a certain number of men, mostly young, of equal determination and of capacity to rise to positions of responsibility, but without the solidity of tharacter to hold such positions worthily...
...The record of days lost through strikes in industry previous to the arrival of Fascism is disastrous...
Vol. 1 • November 1924 • No. 3
