"With Cold Steel"

Il Re Vittorio Emanuele seized his pen and made several scatches upon a parchment which had been indorsed earlier in the week by Il Senato. His sprawling autograph placed in the hands of the Fascist Government a legal instrument so powerful that Signor Roberto De Vito, Senatorial reporter of the measure, felt obliged to explain that "it is not the Government's intention to use this law as a means of persecution, but to apply it with prudence and moderation."

The measure thus defended, signed and made operative was the much talked-of law for the control of expatriates (TIME, Nov. 30 et seq.) which gives the Government authority to deprive Italian citizens in other countries of their citizenship and to confiscate such property as they may have left behind in Italy if they commit "acts injurious to Italian prestige."

Notable anti-Fascist expatriates affected by the law: 1) Former Premier Nitti, who fled from Italy without a passport two years ago, and is supposed to be financing the anti-Fascist journal, Corriere d'ltalia, now published in France. 2) Professor Salyemini, Florentine historian and philosopher, now delivering anti-Fascist lectures in London, "because I feel safer with the waves of the Channel between me and Fascismo." 3) Former Editor Nenni of the suppressed Italian Socialist newspaper, Avanti, once edited by Premier Mussolini in his Socialist days.

All these gentlemen and many another were stigmatized by the Fascist newspaper, Impero, last week: "Nothing is bad enough for them but the ignoble death of the stiletto. We hope that the blessed hands of a few holy mad men will exterminate these traitors with cold steel."