ITALY'S INTENTIONS
By ROBERT BERNAYS, M.P.
That afternoon I came across in my tour of ancient Rome those colossal maps that Mussolini has caused to be carved in stone, illustrating the conquests of Italy down the ages. There is plenty of space for other maps. What will they contain ? Will the boys so zealously playing at soldiers now live to see the real thing and be called on for deeds of daring and endurance in fresh attempts to add to the Imperial glory ?
From all I heard and saw in a brief stay in Italy I am firmly of the belief that there will be no further imperialist adventures for at least fifteen years. For the time being, at any rate, Mussolini regards Italy as a satisfied Power. He has no illusions about the difficulties of consolidating his conquests in Abyssinia. He is seriously perturbed about the position in Addis Ababa, and fully appreciates that the task of pacifica- tion among the Amharic tribes will be a question of a decade. Nor has he any hope of immediate economic return. The extent of the mineral wealth, if any, of Abyssinia., is still undiscovered. Much is expected from the cotton crop that he intends shall be grown there, but he recognises that it will be a question of ten or fifteen years before it can be hoped that the experiment will be proved successful.
In the meantime he earnestly wants peace in Europe, and for that purpose friendship with England is essential. I heard on authority I have reason to respect that at the back of his mind he has the fear that England, brooding over the humiliation of the failure of sanctions, might one day seize an opportunity to strike back. He is convinced that the British people, at any rate, would not tolerate for many years to come a second act of unprovoked aggression. This con- viction is particularly interesting,. as it certainly is not held by a powerful section of militant Fascism. They are not in the least disturbed by British rearmament. They are openly saying that it is simply a question of money. " Britain has immense wealth," I heard an Italian General argue, " she can build tanks and aeroplanes and guns to any amount, but she cannot man them. Why, she cannot get sufficient recruits even for her tiny professional army. What she lacks is morale, staying power, the will to fight. There we can beat her every time." (I must add that these remarks were prior to the events in Spain last week-end.) But Mussolini certainly is not making the mistake of underrating Great Britain. When he said, as he did recently, that " the corner-stone of Italy's foreign policy is friendship with England," he meant it. He wants no clash in the Mediter- ranean. That is why he categorically resigned, in the Anglo- Italian agreement, all dreams of annexations in Spain. That bargain to all outward appearances is being kept. There is no evidence that any additional troops beyond those already there when the ban came into force are being sent to Spain.
The recent contretemps with regard to the invitation of Abyssinia to the Coronation was none of Mussolini's making. It was one of the rare cases under a dictatorship of a really spontaneous uprising of indignation. The Italian people really felt that it was an intolerable insult to the Italian Crown Prince that he should be expected to be in the same room with the official independent representative of a country of which his father had been declared Emperor. Mussolini himself shared none of these feelings. Like the astute and experienced politician that he is, he realised that the invitation to the Emperor had probably never come before the British Cabinet and that there was no question of an insult to Italians as such. But even he, for all his power, dared not ignore the resentment of the Italian people on the subject. It is singular, but true, that the only serious factor that he has to take into consideration is the popularity of the Italian Royal Family. He has never forgotten that even in his original march on Rome he had to recant his Republicanism and give a definite assurance that he would preserve and respect the monarchy before his movement could be assured of success. It is fear of the consequences of coming between the King and people rather than any question of pride and punctilio that induced him to make his protest about the Ethiopian invitation.
It certainly will not affect his efforts to establish cordial relations with Great Britain. After all, apart from the French, who owing to what is regarded as Laval's betrayal ' over sanctions are an object of dislike and distrust, we are his only potential real ally. The halo-German agreement rests on wholly unstable foundations. The two Dictators watch one another as suspiciously as a cat and dog. Mussolini is still fearful for the safety of his Brenner frontier. He fully understands the extent and danger of the German minority in those regions and in what perilous proximity they are to the industrial districts of Northern Italy which are the life-blood of the Fascist State. He is well aware and deeply sensitive of the contempt which the Germans have for the fighting qualities of the Italians—a contempt which will no doubt be increased by the ease with which the Government troops have put the Italian volunteers to flight in Spain.
Mussolini wants peace in Europe at almost any cost. That is why he has abandoned his attitude of friendliness towards the idea of a Hapsburg restoration. He is convinced that the return of the Archduke would entail such antagonism from Jugoslavia and Czechoslovakia as would very likely lead to war, and he is not prepared to take the risk. Less than ever perhaps in the history of the Fascist State is the economic con- dition of Italy an incentive to war. It is improving. All the prophecies of an early economic collapse have been falsified. There is now a growing trade balance. This is due to a variety of causes—the impetus to Italian tourist traffic given by devaluation, the increasing flow of remittances from Italian emigrants to America consequent on returning prosperity, an expanding carrying trade resulting from the development of shipping, increased exports with the lifting of sanctions, the growth of the fund for the purchase of foreign currencies that has accrued from the patriotic gifts of wedding rings and trinkets by the women of Italy during the Abyssinian crisis. Whatever the causes, Mussolini has found himself in a position to make known the amount of the gold reserve for the first time since the Abyssinian crisis and to insist that it is sufficiently substantial to meet all emergencies.
All this has meant that internal discontent, never very serious, is now practically non-existent. The Italian people are more submissive, more unanimous, more victims of hero- worship and mass hysteria than at any time in the history of Fascism. The minority of dissentients has ceased to count. The mass of the Italian people turn a blind eye to the horrors and injustices inseparable from dictatorship. They have made their contract with Mussolini, and they consider that the price that they have paid for it is well compensated by what he has achieved for them.
There is, moreover, a tremendously powerful vested interest behind Fascism. It lies in the thousands and thousands of officials that Mussolini has been able to create, each one of whom is dependent on Fascism for his living. I was not able to find out the exact percentage of men and women directly and indirectly in Government service, but they must form a very substantial proportion of the Italian nation.
In these circumstances it would be lunacy for Mussolini to do anything but strive to do his utmost to maintain the status quo. That in itself will tax all his energies. He cannot relax for an instant his feverish propagation of the gospel that Italy is surrounded by enemies and must prepare, at whatever sacrifice, for war. That is the explanation of his recent announcement of increases in the length of army service : military experts assert that they mean in fact very little. Mussolini cannot afford the consequences of a return to tranquillity, which would be bound to bring in their train dismissals from armament factories and wholesale releases . from army service. He wants, in short, to prepare for war but not to go to war. The situation is fraught with danger, but such is his astonishing prestige and influence that I have no fear for the moment of the little boy practising bayonet fighting on the walls of the Colosseum. All it means is that Italy is playing at soldiers and Mussolini is determined to keep her playing.
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