SIR, —In his article Rome Bewildered in The Spectator of February
20th Mr. Godwin says he dined one night with an Italian professor, a
famous and distinguished civil engineer, who had survived Mussolini's regime solely because of his personality. This man, he says, is a Liberal who has never adhered to the " party line " and consequently has always voted against his own party or for another if it seemed to him right to do so. In conclusion, Mr. Godwin goes on, the professor has been accused of being a " bolshie," and- the paper in which his engineering articles were wont to appear will no longer accept them, so that he has to publish them in the Left-wing Press. With Mr. Godwin I ask: Where is the logic in this? But, precisely, where is the logic in the professor's story ? Who is this professor ? When and how did he happen to become a Liberal ? If he is a member of the party and always votes against it, why does he not quit the party? And if be changes his mind every now and then, it is rather peculiar that he has not yet
founded a party of his own to join the other twenty or so that we have now in Italy! But, seriously, there is something odd about this- story. That in Europe it has become a la mode to play the martyr, we all know,
but this seems to me rather sophisticated. For instance, what kind of engineering articles does this. professor write ? I am an engineer myself and I have never heard of any Left- or Right-wing technical paper in Italy or anywhere else. I do not doubt the author's good faith, but I think the professor's position should be gone into more carefully.
Anyhow, I am with Mr. Godwin on the whole when he says that Rome (and why not the rest of Italy ?) is bewildered and disillusioned. The Italian problem is still the same—too many people, now including all sorts of refugees, in a country which cannot provide work for all. Italy's future and hopes are confined to the solution of this problem.—
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