The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1929. THE FASCIST REGIME.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 September 1929, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1929. THE FASCIST REGIME.

Signor Mussolini is not as other statesmen. He has • a unique position to sustain, and he plays the part consistently. His speeches reflect his sense of peculiar responsibility—and peculiar authority. They are always in the lrgh, flamboyant vein. Having declared at the top of his voice “L’etat c'est moi,” Signor Mussolini has to go on declaring it. Probably that has now become to him as a second nature. In his latest self-reveal.ng utterance he does not shrink from a confession ol egoism that might daunt lesser spirits. “Never before,” he affirms, “have 1 felt more strongly Fascism’s reality, by which the State-is centred in one person, who is the'complete master.” To be called a Dictator rather flatters him. For he goes oil to say, “We acknowledge that it is a dictatorship, lying in the political, moral and intellectual force of the man who exercises it.” Some people regard the ' term “Dictator” as synonymous with that of tyrant, and a good deal has been heard about the tyranny of Fascism. A writer in Tfie Spectator who is a supporter of the Fas-ist regime defends the Duce and Fascism against such imputations. “A Dictatorship,” he declares, “is no' essential part of Fascism. Signor Mussolini has been the leader of a revolution in which practically the whole country supported him in overthrowing the sickly fallacies of Marxian Socialism. Ho became and remains a dictator, hut his successor may be no more or less than a Coolidge or a Hoover. What is a dictator to-day? Certainly, nob a tyrant. He is the head of an organisation dependent for its prosperity on the support of the public—a man who must be alive to every movement of opinion, tactful, versatile, quick in' forming opinions and seeing them carried out.” Rightly or wrongly the impression has been created that movements of public opinion arc not common in Italy under Fascism and that the dictator does all the thinking that is considered necessary for a people of whom we are still asked to believe that they have a gunins for governing themselves. That, as argued, a good deal of nonsense has been talked about the tyranny of Fascism may be true enough. But that there is a degree of repression, of public opinion in Italy, such as does not obtain in other countries, unless in Soviet Russia, cannot be altogether overlooked. This is, in fact, ]y illustrated in the muzzling of the press of the country. As a dictator, however. Signor Mussolini may probably be regarded, sums up the Otago Times, as a success. Italy has prospered under the Fascist regime, a new standard of efficiency see.ms to have been established in her public esrvices,

and the cred.it of the country stands well. Unfortunately f or Italy there can be no assurance respecting the succession to a dictatorship. But if, as is c. imed, a dictatorship is no essential part of Fascism, it may ue pertinently asked, Why docs Signor Mussolini play tho role so assiduously? Perhaps he does not subscribe to the claim.