ITALY: Back on Gold

Signer Benito Mussolini abandoned, last week, his most heroic financial policy: the attempt to increase the value of Italian paper money until it should stand at par (TIME, Sept. 13, 1926 et seq.). Admission that this policy is impracticable was shrewdly avoided by Il Duce up to last week, when he found a way to mask failure behind a dazzling cabinet decree. This document, issued with a triumphal flourish, establishes the lira on a gold basis— not, however, at par (five lira to the dollar), but at...