SIGNOR MUSSOLINI AND MR. COOK [To the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.] SIR,—You allow a place in your paper for this statement by a reviewer : " Here in England we should detest to be led by Il Duce as we would to be governed by Mr. Cook." What right has your reviewer, as passed by yourself, to speak in the name of England as to Mussolini, and to outrage decency by putting him on a level with such a senseless demagogue as Cook 7 We hear much—too, much—about the common sense of the English people., If this leads them to prefer the chaos and .dishonesty.. of Parliamentary Government, where the whole and sole duty of the Opposition (except sometimes, as on the last occasion, when the Conservatives are in that position) is, not to do the best for their country, but to prevent the Government from doing theirs, lest their credit should profit by their success—if, I say, our people prefer that sort of thing to the government of a single leader, chosen and supported by themselves, whose only aim is the welfare of their common country, well, I think we could do very much worse than borrow a little common sense from the fellow-countrymen of Mussolini, thereby to replenish our own stock of that invaluable commodity, which has got very low in these days. Liberty ? There is liberty to work in Italy now ; there is none here. All England is divided into two camps, the one consisting of those who strive to preserve the old traditions of law, order, property, authority, and patriotism, that have made us great and prosperous, the other of those who do their utmost to desfroy all these. So I, for one, repudiate any connexion with Your reviewer's We, and only wish that we had amongst us such a man as Mussolini, a man of the calibre of Cromwell or Lincoln, or that tremendous personality John Nicholson, but we have none such ; or that we were worthy of him, which (as a nation now) we are not.—I am, Sir, &c., C. R. HAINES.
[We did not attribute to Signor Mussolini and Mr. Cook any common quality except their impatience with repre- sentative Parliamentary Government.—En. Spectator.]
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