When Signor Mussolini rattles his poniard and makes large, inclusive gestures, the world makes a mental note of it and passes on, becoming less and less perturbed by each bombastic reiteration. But when he takes a definite national step, the world cocks an attentive ear. This time The Leader has planned a reduction, for the whole populace of wages and the cost of living, presumably simultaneously, both of the items to be lowered by ten or twelve per cent. Faced with severe international competition in the shrinking world market, Italy is forced, says Mussolini, to lower costs drastically. And this, thanks to Fascism, she will be able to do: there are no trade unions to block the cut in wages. Labor will take it on the jaw, and if it does not enjoy it, will at any rate accept it with the customary vivas for II Duce.

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It is perhaps significant that Mussolini has chosen this method of stimulating his export trade. Why did he not choose a mild dose of inflation instead? Was the decision a purely rational one, or did he have at heart the good of the bond-holding capitalist class? For those who believe strongly in two popular tenets, one, that inflation is by nature uncontrollable, and two, that Mussolini is a power unto himself, the second question will appear wholly gratuitous. But to the remaining minority the query will have its point. Even though the wage cutting scheme be inferior to the price-raising, alternative, II Duce might infinitely prefer to slash at the defenceless proletariat in the usual fashion rather than tread so heavily on the toes of his fixed-income supporters. Even though wage-cutting, as R. G. Hawtrey has pointed out from his eyrie in the Bank of England may not prove sufficient to increase exports to any appreciable degree in a world of incredible tariff walls, and even though, as Cassandra Keynes has warned, wage-cutting may provoke bitter retaliation by other countries, still Il Duce does not care to risk offending the class which might at some later time furnish Mussolini, 2nd. There is no gain to the all-powerful dictator in making enemies in high places when avoidable.

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The fact that this extreme move was made necessary should dispel all illusions as to Italian autarchy. The Grain War, the reclamation of swamps, and the introduction of widespread electrification may have been worthy of the New Rome, but they have not eliminated Italy's dependence on foreign markets in which to sell her products and receive supplies. Typical of many of Mussolini's brain-children, autarchy has made a better showing on paper and on the rostrum than in the drear light of economic reality. CASTOR.