Jews in Italy The Pope is maintaining firmly the stand
against " exag- gerated nationalism " which has brought him into conflict with Signor Mussolini. Last Sunday he paid a special visit to the Congregation of the Propaganda Fide, and delivered a further pronouncement, admitting a place for " a just, moderate and temperate nationalism," but exhorting his hearers to " beware of exaggerated nationalism as of a real curse." Meanwhile the persecution of Italian Jews, which originally roused him to remonstrance, is going forward. A census of Jews has been held throughout the country, every family known to be even partly of Jewish blood being called on to answer the questionnaire ; and in the oversea Italian territories the same course is to be taken. Govern- ment officials of Jewish descent have already, it is said, been dismissed ; and the Jews in the various professions—law, medicine, &c.—are all faced with the near prospect of a scaling down in their numbers. At the same time an active campaign against them is pursued in the Italian Press. The policy may have two recommendations for the Fascist Government : it pleases the Arabs, on whom they rely so much in the East ; and in the event of an Italo-German alliance in a European war it would eliminate in advance from Italian public life an inevitably anti-German element. One or both of these motives must be deeply felt to override the obvious domestic drawbacks of the policy.
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