The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1929.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 January 1929, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1929.

ITALY AND INTERNATIONALISM. It is a pity, considers an exchange, that the story, somewhat contused though it was, which was told in one of the Sunday newspapers in London respecting the visit of a couple of Labour secretaries to Signor Mussolini has been contradicted. It is a story that seemed too good to be untrue. A great deal of assurance would have been required on the part of the secretary of the British Trade Union Congress and the secretary of the International Federation of Trade Unions il they iveie to undertake the mission upon which they were said to have been despatched. They would have needed, moreover, to possess a pretty fair conceit of their own dialectical powers to imagine seiiously that they could “persuade” Signor Mussolini to agree to a course that would he completely opposed to the policy lie has adopted. Their request, according to the story, was that the Italian workmen should he allowed to join the International Federation ol Trade Unions. Tf Signor Mussolini were to agree to any such request lie would abrogate the principles upon which the Fascist State has been organised. The rule of the Government—-

which is tin* rule of Signor .‘Mussolini—is absolute in Italy. His dictatorship eovers all forms of activity. Opposition to it lias been silenced. Tbo electoral law lias been so framed that tbo Chamber of Deputies, which is to be elected tnis year, will contain no Opposition. “Anti-Fascism” it has been said, “is anti-Italy.” It would clearly be incompatible with a regime such as has been established in Italy if the workmen’s organisations, such as exist in the country, were permitted to affiliate themselves with any international federation of trade unions, whether “red” or merely “pink.” And so any deputation that would go “secretly to Rome to persuade Signor Mussolini to allow Italy to join the federation” would invite the rehuff which it would undoubtedly receive. “You have the audacity” the story reports the Duce to have said “to ask me to delegate the rule of my workpeople to a handful of political fanatics at Amsterdam. You have wasted your time and I do not know whose money.” Any such deputation would bo fortunate if it secured the attention of Signor -Mussolini for over two hours. Most people, engaged upon a fool’s errand, would probably have I teen shown the door within two minutes.