Italian Dictator Dismisses Ministers of Popular Party

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 27, 12 July 1923, Page 35

Italian Dictator Dismisses Ministers of Popular Party

DON STURZO AND OPPOSITION, CLAIMS. ■V; ■ Following are extracts from the Manchester Guardian for April 27 : a The four members of the Italian Cabinet belonging to the Catholic Popular party have been dismissed by Signor ' v Mussolini. .'■.-.' I Last week a meeting of the Parliamentary group of the /■• Popular party adopted a resolution, brought forward by I Don Sturzb, the leader of the party, advocating loyal colV laboration with the Government, which the resolution recognised as being the protector of moral and religious principles. At the same time the party reaffirmed their independence as a political party, stating they would contest - any radical change in proportional voting. The resolution was sent to Signor Mussolini by Signor Cavazzone, Minister for Social Welfare, who is a member of the Papular party. Signor Mussolini replied: "Dear Cavazzone,—The ceremonies of the last few days will explain to you my delay in replying to your letter and to the resolution voted by the Parliamentary group of the Popular party. If times were as they used to be, that is to say, if my Government were the result of one of the customary and traditional Parliamentary crises, the resolution voted by your party might have in some degree satisfied me. To-day it does not, and you can easily understand the reasons. I consider it is not worth my while to undertake the difficult task of interpreting a resolution which was voted by the-most violent elements of the Left party. I asked for an explanation, and find myself confronted with a rather obscure document which does not modify the substance of the vote taken by the Congress of Turin which, according to the evidence of the Popular deputies who took part in it. was essentially an anti-Fascist gathering. I thank you and your colleagues for the sympathy which you have up to the present shown for my efforts, and' I accept your resignation and those of your colleagues." The Grand Council of Fascists has unanimously adopted a resolution approving Mussolini's letter accepting the resignation of the Popularist Ministers, and declaring that Fascism is entirely independent of the consent or otherwise of any parties claiming to "monopolise the conscience of the Catholics of the country." MUSSOLINI'S DECISION. The Catholic Parliamentary group decided to agree to continue collaboration with the Fascist Government, but Mussolini has refused to accept this. On Monday he' sent a letter to Cavazzone, the Catholic Minister for Labor saying that he regarded the assurances offered by the Catholic Popular party as insufficient, as he regarded the results of the party congress at Turin as essentially hostile to Fascism. Consequently the resignations of Cavazzone and the three Popular party Under Secretaries, are accepted, and the Catholic party retires from the Cabinet. This is not of great importance to the Cabinet, since the Under Secretaryships are all shortly to be dispensed with, so that the Catholics would in any case have been left with Cavazzone as their only member in the Cabinet. , But it is of great importance to the Catholic party. The recent visit of Mgr. Seipel to Rome and his conversations with Don Sturzo showed the growing relations of that party with Austrian internal politics and the project of a Catholic White International. The episode has, however revealed divergences of view in the Catholic 'party, which, until now has been very compact and well-disciplined! The Grand Council of the Fascist party took some / important decisions concerning the internal organisation <>.. of the party on Tuesday. All the existing members of the Fascist party, numbering about half a million, are ordered to join the national Fascist militia, while, on the other hand, all admission of new members to the Fascists is plosed. Before the end of May it is expected that a process of rigorous selection from those on the lists of the Fascist party will have been completed, and that this process, together with the disciplinary obligations arising from the obligatory enlistment in the militia will have materially Wk improved the standard of the Fascists as a whole. 7 DON STURZO : MORAL COURAGE VERSUS FASCISM. Il - Far the most interesting figure in Italy at the present , moment is Don Sturzo, the leader of the Catholic Popular

party, and the only political leader in Italy who has shown' any sign of standing up to Mussolini. He is a man of brilliant intellect and a strong sense of humor. He does not claim that his party is the only one that is representative of the Italian Catholic conscience, but he maintains that they stand for certain definite political principles based upon Christianity, moral courage, and common sense, in contrast to rule by violence in a pantheistic State and the apotheosis of "the nation." At the Turin Congress he maintained the urgent need for Italy of a party normal minded, balanced, and prepared to stick to its guns, and he claimed for his party the absolute right to be master in its own house. Italy's greatest need, he said, was moral unity based on Constitutional liberty and the necessity of upholding law and order and respect for authority both at home and abroad. Don Sturzo does not mince his words. He laid stress on the Italian lack of political consciousness, which, he said, was the cause of hysterical changes of mind in politics. He recalled to the Congress how during the war Italy swayed from neutrality to intervention, from that to Caporettism, then to the final great effort to pull herself together which led to victory, and then swerved again to Bolshevism and to Fascism. . The Fascist press is in marked contrast to the moderate tone of Don Sturzo; s speech. They will have none of all this. * Commendatore Bianchi, a prominent Fascist leader, states their point of view frankly in the Giornale di Roman : _ "The present Government (he says) cannot be got rid of at any time by a Parliamentary vote because it did not come to power through Parliament— is, in a Constitutional manner. The only heir there could be to the Fascist party, either to-day or to-morrow, supposing that Fascism were suddenly overthrown, would be one that was the very opposite of our own but like ours in this, that it would be extreme in politics and utterly opposed to Parliamentary Government."