Vigilance

Slashing all government salaries 6% to 12% month ago, Benito Mussolini decreed that rents and retail prices must come down to meet the cut. Last week the faithful blackshirts saw to it that prices came down. Under orders from Achille Starace, secretary of the Fascist Party, Vigilance Committees were formed of merchants. Fascists, consumers to watch prices in village markets, check them against the price lists of the National Statistical Institute.

Within 48 hours 96 food shops were closed in southern Palermo. In northern

Savona, the president of the Fascist Federation of Commerce was expelled "for not showing the Fascist spirit." All over the peninsula warnings were issued, licenses revoked, shops temporarily closed, embattled individualists arrested.

Of all world rulers none but Il Duce would dare to attempt such wholesale deflation. But even he was having more trouble with price cuts than he had anticipated.

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