ITALY: By Force

Last week portentous rumblings issued again from Fascist throats. II Benito, cheered by thousands at Vercelli, an active industrial centre, erupted into interrogatives as follows:

“What does the Opposition amount to? What do we care whether they continue their boycott* or return to Parliament? What do we care for their impotent resolutions, their slanderous falsehoods, their hates? Do they really think they can halt our impetuous advance with their fatuous paper barricades? They will never succeed!”

Meanwhile Deputy Farinacci, Secretary General of the Fascist party, speaking at Bari, scattered affirmatives from which the direction of his party’s “impetuous advance” might be charted.

Said he, with pre-honeyed menace: “Our regime, haying passed laws for its consolidation and defense, will now begin work on laws of reconstruction. . . .This phase will be perfectly peaceful if we are not disturbed, but will be pushed through by force if anyone dares to stand in our way.”

*The so-called “Aventine Opposition” abstained from voting at the last session of Parliament, as a boycott-protest against a series of laws passed to give the Fascist Government practically unbridled power (see TIME, Jan. 19).