A NEW DECALOGUE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 135, 9 June 1937, Page 19

A NEW DECALOGUE

THE ITALIAN MANNER

Decalogues have grown to great

favour in this country and several have already been drawn up for those engaged in various spheres, writes the Rome correspondent of the "Christian Science Monitor." The latest decalogue or ten commandments, is that prepared for the "soldier-citizen." In Fascist Italy both terms are now inseparable. Every citizen, is a soldier. One cannot, it is claimed, be a good citizen unless he is at the same time a good soldier. The State looks after p.very man, youth, and boy, to see that he is properly trained as an efficient soldier.

In order to impress still more vividly in the mind of every soldier-citizen his military duties, the following decalogue has been widely circulated in Italy:—

1. Let duty be thy watchword and thy guide in every action.

2. Learn to love and honour thy country above every other thing.

3. Be pure as dew, solid as rock, ardent as the sun.

4. Ask Gori for strength and courage to become every day a better soldier, scholar, and citizen.

5. Let thy thoughts and thy actions be always worthy of the commission entrusted to thee.

6. Sacrifice thy life for thy Father land, King, and the Duce.

7. The future is in thy hands, the hope of all in thy youth.

8. Let thy best recompense for thy worst in the knowledge that thou hast done it well.

9. Dp not forget that discipline is the first virtue of the soldier and citizen.

10. Glory be thine if thou hast been worthy of it.

These ten commandments are inserted in the personal booklet supplied by the Government to every Italian male between the years of 11 and 32 and whose possession is made compulsory by law. This booklet is to keep a yearly record of the owner's physical condition, his fitness as a fighting soldier, his military training, his political, sporting, and -intellectual activities. DIAGRAM OF TEETH. Everything is supposed to be noted down. If a man happens to have a missing tooth—that is duly recorded. The handbook contains a diagram of a complete set of teeth, and each missing or faulty tooth must be noted in the diagram.

Each owner of the booklet must note when any member of his family dies, and state the cause.

In addition to the decalogue, the handbooks contain occasional partiotic reminders and familiar Fascist quotations. Thus when the Italian boy enters his fourteenth year, he will find in the page referring to that year this sentence: "The twentieth century beholds Rome as the centre of Latin civilisation, mistress of the Mediterranean, and a lighthoues for all peoples."

Extracts are given from the "Laws for the Military Nation" which deal with pre- and post-military instruction and military culture in general.

The scheme of which the booklet is the outward manifestation is to give every Italian man training in arms before he reaches the age of conscription, and to continue the training after he has been officially called to the colours.

The impression left by a perusal of the booklet is that with such an allrevealing document, the soldier-citizen knows exactly what he has to do in case of mobilisation, and the authorities are in possession of all information required about the military efficiency of every single soldier.

The booklet is also an indispensable document for obtaining a pest or work in Italy.