QUIETLY RETIRED

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 381, 16 November 1932, Page 6

QUIETLY RETIRED

mussolini's way SERVICES OF SUPPORTERS SUDDENLY DISPENSED WITH. FALLEN FROM GRACE. Signor Mussolini has from time to .time dropped his most conspicuous supporters when they. were beginning to be considered as of consequence in themselves, apart from being the vehicles of his own authority says a writer in the "Manchester Guardian." The most notable drop of this sort happened in 1926, when Farinacci, the party secretary, suddenly retired into private life. Farinacci led the terrorist campaign of 1925 for the suppression of the opposition movement after the murder of Matteotti. At the moment of triumph he allowed himself to be termed the "Vice Duce," and to receive tokens of homage not usually rendered to anyone but the Duce. After the trial of the assassins of Matteotti, in which Farinacci appeared as advocate for the defence, he was instructed to consider his task as finished, and he retired into obscurity with remarkably little noise. The man who in earlier days had frequently appeared as Mussolini's rival, Luigi Federzoni, pillar of clerical Conservatism in the Fascist hierachy, was shelved a little more gently, being relegated from the Ministry of Interior via ihe Ministry of Colonies to the ornamental post of President of the Senate. Similarly, Alberto De Stefani was dropped from the Ministry of Finance, and his successor, Count Yolpi, followed him after a brief holding of office, while the general secretaryship of the party has been regularly transferred to a new holder every few months.| The same might be said of the Governorships of Rome, Milan, and other leading towns. A newspaper editorship or some other benefice is discovered for the discarded politician. Balbo Remains. Of the five Ministers who have recently retired three are conspicuous in Fascist history. But the Duce has not swept out with them the man of whom he might most easily feel jealous as a rival in the internal politics of Italy. Italo Balbo, the Air Minister, local "boss" of Ferrara, and the most adventurous of the inspirers of Fascist youth, is left behind. He would be a more dangerous adversary at large than any of the five Ministers Mussolini has dropped. All the same, Dino Grandi, now a prudent and respectabje diplomatist, has seen his stirring days. He is a "Fascist of the first hour," and as one of the rival local "bosses" of Bologna has done his bit of street warfare. More than this, ten years ago, before the complete triumph of the Fascists, he was for a short time the moral leader of the party. Mussolini, in 1921, grew tired of the civil war , and wanted to come to terms with the Socialists. Grandi opposed him, and at the critical moment ensured the continuance of the struggle till the Socialists were annihilated. Rocco is a different type. With Federzoni he represents in the Fascist party the old National party that ilourished in the days of the Tripoli War, and would have preferred to go into the Great War on the German side. Terrorist of Law. Signor Rocco is an erudite theorist of law, and has been responsible for the codification of Fascist theories in the new laws, especially the "archFascist" laws (Leggi Fascistissime) of 1926-27. He has tried more seriously than anyone else to give Fascism a consistent historical theory. A few years ago he outraged the Yatican in one of his speeches by deploring the break-up of the Roman Empire through the spread of Christianity. The third of the dismissed Ministers of some consequences is Bottai, the Minister of Corporations. This young man has had in theory the key position in the regime, since the whole of industrial and argicutural contracts are regulated by the corporations (joint associations of employers and employed) centralised at this Ministry. But the corporative state, so perfect on paper, has hardly begun to be realised in practice. Special powers are simultaneously taken out by the Government for investigating and controlling the Stock Exchange.