Foreign News: Meaning of Death

Hot on the heels of Il Duce’s recent threat to punish speculators and dishonest financiers with “Death” (TIME, Oct. 13) followed, last week, drastic action —though not quite so drastic as might have been expected.

For years officials of the Ministry of Justice have been drafting a new Italian Commercial Code but Signor Mussolini, fired with his new idea, could not wait last week for his legal myrmidons to finish. Summoning his Cabinet, he slapped upon the table a decree already drafted.

Approval was instantaneous. Bang into Italy’s commercial statute books went not “Death” but the following penalties: One to Ten years imprisonment at hard labor and fines of from $500 to $5,000 for “promoters, officers and liquidators of joint stock companies” who “fraudulently damage the interests of stockholders.” Frauds specifically covered include: 1) distributing dividends unwarranted by the condition of the company; 2) false statements in balance sheets or to the public at stockholders’ meetings; 3) concealment of facts relating to economic conditions of a company.

One to Five years imprisonment at hard labor and fines of $400 to $1,000 for “persons who, for their own or others’ profit, circulate false news or by other fraudulent means create fictitious increases in the value of stocks of companies they represent.” One to Three years imprisonment at hard labor and fines of $400 to $1,000 for company officials who contract loans with their own companies.

Other Work Done at last week’s dynamic Cabinet session: Stage Censorship was removed from the discretion of local prefects, placed under that of the Minister of Interior (Benito Mussolini).

Loss of Italian Citizenship will hereafter bar the payment of any pension whatsoever from an Italian source to ex-citizens.

Up to last week only State pensions (such as those of war veterans) were thus cut off. The new Cabinet decree, sweeping, applies of course to banking and business pensions, applies even to those granted by the Royal Family, many of whose pensioned adherents are antiFascist, non-Fascist.

Two New Holidays were decreed: March 23 as the anniversary of the founding of the Fascist Party by Benito Mussolini & friends at Milan in 1919; February 11 as the anniversary of the signing of the Lateran Treaty creating the new Papal State in 1929 and cementing it in friendship with the Italian State.

Wood Alcohol or any form of methylated alcohol was barred by the Cabinet from being sold in Italy as a drink or introduced into any cosmetic or medicinal specialty.

The Italo-U. S. Treaty of Arbitration of April 19, 1928 was approved by the Cabinet for transmission to King Vittorio Emanuele III, who will most certainly sign a decree of approval.