Foreign News: Podesta, Consultas

Minister of Interior Luigi Federzoni, famed henchman of the Vatican (TIME, July 12), presented for the Cabinet's approval last week, a decree nearly as drastic as the deflation measure sponsored by Finance Minister Count Volpi.

Signor Federzoni proposed nothing less than to suppress electoral government in every Italian city, town and village which enjoyed that privilege last week and to set up instead over each municipality a podesta (governor) appointed by the State. Since this measure was but an extension of the laws (TIME, Dec. 7), placing the larger Italian cities under podestas, the decree obtained at once the approval of Signor Mussolini, passed the Cabinet by a routine unanimous vote.

Students of politics were intrigued by a clause in the decree providing that each podesta shall be "advised" by a consulta (council), the members of which "will not be elected but appointed by the provincial prefect, in turn appointed by the State. The terms podesta and consulta are borrowed, of course, from the political vocabulary of the Middle Ages, when the small independent communities of Italy were ruled by a podesta who was advised by a consulta representing the workers' guilds. It is Premier Mussolini's announced intent that the new consultas shall similarly represent the Fascist "unions" or "corporations."