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Five years ago Dictator Mussolini began his economic state building by setting up a system of "corporations" to regiment practically all phases of Italian life. There are 22 separate corporations, the members appointed by Il Duce, and consisting of an equal number of representatives from syndicates of capital and labor, three members designated by the Secretary of the Fascist Party, and a number of technicians. The corporations are classified in three general sections: 1) Agricultural-Industrial-Commercial Productive Cycle (including cereals, oils, livestock, textiles); 2) Industrial-Commercial Productive Cycle (chemicals, printing, utilities, metallurgy); 3) Service-producing Activities (credit and insurance, banking, professions, the arts, sea and air transport, communication). All the corporations compose a National Council of Corporations which, acting through its central committee has in the past legislated on questions of labor and production. Its decisions—subject to the Dictator's veto—become law.
As soon as the corporations were going strong, Il Duce appointed a special commission to study the problem of using them as a basis for a new legislative body to replace the Chamber of Deputies. Last July he approved plans under which both the National Council of Corporations and the National Council of the Fascist Party (not to be confused with the Fascist Grand Council) would combine in a Chamber of Fasces and Corporations. Last October the Fascist Grand Council decreed the abolition of the old Chamber. Last December the Chamber obediently held its last session, sang Giovinezza, passed unanimously Signor Mussolini's anti-Semitic laws and cheerfully voted its own death.
Last week King Vittorio Emmanuele III inaugurated the new creation in the famed Palazzo Montecitorio, seat of the old Parliament. Accompanied by Crown Prince Umberto, six dukes and one count, and preceded by four masters of ceremonies, with tall Queen Elena and accredited diplomats looking on from balcony boxes, His tiny Majesty ascended three steps to the dais and sat on his throne. The 682 new Councilors then took their oaths collectively, after which His Majesty, producing typewritten sheets of paper from the pocket of his military tunic, read a restrained, conciliatory speech probably written for him by Il Duce. If there were fiery words to be spoken, Dictator Mussolini was reserving them for his own speech later in the week (see below).
In describing the new Chamber, Virginio Gayda, the Dictator's journalistic alter ego, called it a "new great revolutionary creation which has neither precedent nor equal in the political regime of any other country." Although in theory the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations will be able to initiate political and economic legislation, it is doubtful whether Il Duce will allow it to do much debating. Why the Dictator took all this trouble to organize a legislative body which will probably be just as much a rubber stamp as the Deputies were will probably remain a dark Fascist mystery. Perhaps Premier Mussolini was thinking of a successor who might be somewhat less a Dictator than he is.
* No curious reporter has ever had a peek at the Grand Council's list but best Rome gossip says Mussolini's successor is likely to be Signor Balbo, Governor of Libya.