MACHIAVELLI'S DISCIPLE

Radio Record, Volume IX, Issue 14, 11 October 1935, Page 5

MACHIAVELLI'S DISCIPLE

HE following are some extracts from a little-known study of Mussolini, written by Sir Charles’ Fetrie, Bart, M.A., foreign editor of "The English Review": | Perhaps Mussolini’ 8s‘ most marked personal characteristic, just as his eyes are his most prominent physical one, is his extraordinary ability to dissociate in any question the important from the trivial. . If one were ‘asked what was Mussolini’ s most prominent characteristic, apart | from his genius. the. answer must be ~ his encyclopaedic knowledge : knowledge of affairs, of books. and. above all. of ‘his own fellow- countrymen. One is often asked what is the attitude of Mussolini to-. word the League of Nations, and it is a question that is easily _. During .the -celebration of the. tenth. anniversary of the advent of. Fascism to power, he referred. to the League as a very sick ‘person whose. bedside it ‘was impossible to leave, and Italy. hastalways been ready "to ‘ collaborate with other nations ‘at Geneva. So long ds‘ the League is content to be a mere. piece of. diplomatic’ ‘machin: ': ery is assured of the full ‘support, of Mussolini, but he will not tolerate for one motiient the conception: of ‘it as a super-State. National-"sovereignty ‘is to him, the: disciple, . of Machiavelli, the outward and visible sign of a country’s power, and he will not abdicate it, eee