Two Italian Books
LIBERTY is not gained by many and is not kept by all those who gain it. A price has to be paid for it and the price is eternal vigilance. Such, in a sentence, is Don Sturzo's explanation of why the freedom gained by Italians at the Ilisorginaento fell before Fascism. That freedom was never, so to speak, free enough ; it was soon lost in quicksands of opportunism and selfish • personal ambition. It did not altogether deserve to survive, and Den Sturzo never loses sight of that fact when he is expressing his indignation against Signor Mussolini. The exiled leader of the People's Party, indeed, astonishes us by the dispassionate temper in which, for the most part, he analyses the tendencies and events that ended in the dictatorship. He has the true philosophic disposition. Professor Gilbert Murray, who writes a preface to the book, seems very vehement by comparison.
It is the traditional part of those who take the middle way in times of national upheaval to be ground between the upper and nether mill-stones. The ancient Romans were not wrong in believing that the middle way was in general the safe way, nor the Greeks in believing that the greatest virtue was temperance, but these things are not true in revolutions. The Girondin is always crushed between fanaticism on the one side and the stubborn inability to change on the other. Luigi Sturzo, a well-known priest, founded his party in 1919 to support a European policy that summed itself up in the League of Nations and to resist both revolution and reaction at home. He and his party failed ; he has found an asylum in England, and Professor Murray says that " he is sometimes commended by Fascist newspapers to the special attention of any assassins who happen to be idle in England." Don Sturzo in any case could not have remained in Italy. He was said to be next on the list for death after Matteotti.
The most important part of Don Sturzo's book is the review of Italian politics from the Risorgimento to the arrival of Fascism. This is masterly. He shows that Liberalism never really inspired the mass of Italian thought which long passed under the name of Liberalism. Cavour, the architect of the Risorgimento, was, of course, a Liberal, and Mazzini was more than a Liberal ; but the real motives of the mass were confined, to unity and national independence. Italians, even those of the regular political class, had not then, and did not afterwards acquire, a genuine belief in democratic methods. Forms of government which were casually acquired were all too easily abandoned. To Englishmen it seems almost incredible that men who have once tasted the liberty of the subject should let it go, but then Englishmen feel hire this largely because they think incorrigibly about other nations in terms of their -own experience. To them patriotism must be the patriotism of a free people ; they do not understand the different kind of patriotism which is ready to sink liberty in a national purpose. Just as Italizinir willingly let themselves be " Piedmontized " for unity, so now they lose democracy for a new idea.
And the new idea was, of course, accepted—or imposed— the more easily because democracy had been unreal. The sham fight of political parties in some other Latin countries, which regularly disguised accommodations as conflicts, and by arrangement let the parties enjoy the spoils of office in turn, was not a more real habit than what was called fransjormisrao in Italy. The differences between parties and principles were deliberately obliterated. The skilful Montt! carried transformismo further than ever before, even to the point of grotesqueness and scandal. Perhaps the most re- markable proof of the essential failure of constitutionalism in Italy was that during the War Parliament was almost in eclipse.
It was time for a solution of Italy's problem, and Socialism, Popularism and Fascism were all alike in this, that they • offered themselves as solutions. The Popular Party even helped Fascism at first. Signor Mussolini began with a Socialist solution and ended with a dictatorial one. The Paradox is not so great as it seems. What Signor Mussolini wants is a Straffordian policy of " ThoroUgh." Totalitaria he calls it ; Fascism is everything ; rival doctrines are
nothing. In. this fascinating book Don Sturio writes—if we may say so without egotism—like an extremely well- informed Englishman examining Italian affairs. He is reasonable and tolerant. He gives Signor Mussolini cree4- for several good results, but he concludes that the losses are
immeasurably greater than the gains. A.
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