ITALY: Excuse for a Deficit

Considerable gloom tempered the Christmas festivities of Fascist officials last week. II Duce had just announced in the Senate that the budget for the first five months of fiscal 1930-31 showed a deficit of $43,700,000. Salaries of all state employes from II Duce down to the humblest postman had already just been cut 12%. To offset this 43-million loss further it was announced that $15,000,000 will be lopped from the budgets of all ministries —that is, from all but the war budget. The Italian Army will cost $156,000,000 next year; the navy, $80.923,000; the air force, $40,000.000. Two days previously Signore Mussolini forewarned the Senate of the impending cut. "But," shouted Benito to the long-faced Senators, "are there any among you who think that in this moment, when everyone else is arming powerfully by bleeding the people, it would be just for Italy to neglect its elementary and indispensable defenses and run the mortal danger of annihilation?"

If any of the salary-cropped Senators thought so, they did not say so. There of course had to be some goat to blame for this sizable deficit. Prime Minister Mussolini found a handy one in the U. S. The Wall Street crash of 1929, blamed for so much, was apparently responsible for Fascismo's troubles as well. Said he: "

Everyone knows the data of American prosperity which have become commonplace. There was one motor car for every eight inhabitants, one radio set for every four inhabitants, one telephone for every three. . . .* Suddenly this beautiful scene collapsed and we had a series of black days. . . . Black days followed black days and prosperity was replaced by long lines of unemployed waiting for soup and bread in the great American cities. . . . From that day we also were pushed into the high seas, and from that day navigation has become extremely difficult for us."