ITALY: Roughshod Rotation

(2 of 2)

The motto of the Mosconi is Ever Prospering by God's Grace, and their ancient coat of arms displays two black two-headed eagles and two gold one-headed lions rampant, while from each of the six mouths of these four angry creatures darts a crimson tongue, barbed at the tip.

Briefly, Senator Mosconi, who assumed the portfolio of Finance, last week, is typical of the old, feudal aristocracy of Italy, whose descendants Commoner Mussolini constantly rallies to his own essentially feudal standard—a standard now ascendant over the Throne, as not a few were in feudal times.

Senator Mosconi is not, like his predecessor, a self made man or a titan of private finance. But he has served the new Feudal Duce with ready obedience as Prefect of Triest; and he was recently Royal Commissioner to the Venetian province ceded to Italy by Austria-Hungary, after the War—a province wherein the Mosconi were granted lands and certain Hungarian titles in the 16th Century.

Further "rotation" of the Mussolini Cabinet, last week, resulted in the appointment of another feudal scion, Professor-Deputy Alessandro Martelli to be Minister of National Economy.

Professor Martelli's predecessor, Signor Giuseppe Belluzzo was "rotated" over to be Minister of Public Instruction, while the former incumbent of that post, Signor Pietro Fedele, was sacked.

Signor Belluzzo was in Sardinia on a tour of inspection last week, when informed by cable, of his "rotation" and peremptorily ordered to return to Rome. Count Volpi left his office in the Ministry of Finance for the last time without a word to subordinates.