THE BALCONY DICTATOR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 83, 22 June 1943, Page 4

THE BALCONY DICTATOR

IT will take more than the orations of a dictator to counter the hunger demonstrations said to be frequent in the industrial centres of northern Italy. Hunger and cold can sap morale quickly, and the only effective reply is food and warmth. When these are lacking then disillusionment follows immediately. In the matter of cheering words the balcony dictator, as he. has been called, has been very sparing of late. The picture that Mussolini held before the Italian people has faded badly. "War alone (he said) brings to its highest tension all human energy and puts the of nobility upon the people who have the courage to gage in it." The tension exists, especially in the centres now within range of the Allied bombers, but with the Nazi Gestapo strongly represented in the country, and German troops preparing strategic areas for defence, with their African possessions and large armies lost' to them, it may not be an easy matter for Italians to discern the stamp of nobility which this war has imprinted. Shabbily dressed hunger marchers, and delegations protesting against the war, can hardly be said to represent the peak of human energy or the glittering pomp of victorious war. Rather ara these the symptoms of a nation under great stress and the shadow of impending defeat.