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Revalorization? Why do so many bambino-loving Italians find that they cannot afford to have more bambinos? Why does the Italian worker complain with justice that "prices are high and wages low"?
Answers to these and many another question about Italy are to be found in Dictator Mussolini's "successful" revalorization of the lira (TIME, Jan. 2, 1928). He took a coin quoted at 3.27¢, jacked it up to 5.26¢, and stabilized it there on a gold basis.
Unquestionably this coup dazzled the Italian populace, favorably impressed financiers abroad, and stiffened the country's fiscal backbone. But since then the road of readjustment has been hard. Prices have not fallen to anything like equibalance with the inevitable fall in wages. Paralyzing strikes have been avoided only by Fascismo's abrogation of the right to strike. It is still a question whether the Italian test tube will stand the strain of the experiment.