Clear & Clever

Figuratively speaking, Fascist Rome fulminated, last week, at Socialist Vienna. The quarrel started last fortnight when the Chancellor of Austria, Monsignor Ignaz Seipel encouraged deputies in the Austrian Parliament to flay the alleged oppressive Italian administration now existing in the formerly Austrian province of Lower Tyrol (TIME, March 5). Last week Signor Benito Mussolini hurled back a reply from the Italian Chamber of Deputies. Cried he:

"This is the last time that I shall speak upon this theme. In the future I shall make actions do the talking. . . . The fact is that Pan-Germanism is crying out because it sees that in the face of the cold will and systematic tenacity of Fascist Italy its game is up."

Alluding scornfully to the present puny strength of Austria, Il Duce rapped: "We are not anxious about our northern frontier. Hannibal is not at our gates. Neither is Monsignor Seipel."

Picking up a sheaf of reports, Signor Mussolini then quietly settled down to quote evidence that Teutons are not being oppressed in the former Lower Tyrol, now called by Italians the Higher Adige. Declaring that 15 German language newspapers are still printed in the Higher Adige, Il Duce asked rhetorically: "Is this Fascist barbarity?"

Finally Signor Mussolini delivered a very suave but unmistakable warning to the Austrian Parliament. "A State which respects itself," he said, "cannot tolerate foreign interference. Mr. Fuller, the Governor of Massachusetts, has supplied us with a striking example on that subject."

Thus Il Duce weaseled in a reminder that Italians Sacco & Vanzetti were executed despite protests from almost every European nation. That Italy would follow in the independent lead of the U. S. in administering her internal affairs was his clear & clever implication.

Next day, two leading Viennese newspapers sounded the irrepressible retort of small Austria. The conservative Neues Wiener Tageblatt rapped: "The arguments of Il Duce are the arguments of the strong, but not strong arguments." The liberal Neue Freie Presse exclaimed rhetorically: "Your words, Signor Mussolini, can only mean that you consider yourself strong and us weak. . . . Then why refuse us the only right which the weak have--namely, the right to complain?"

Generally the speech of Il Duce was deemed "mild" in Austria where public opinion had been most uneasy.