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So far so good, but some German Fascists have talked of nationalizing private property and other measures smacking of Bolshevism (TIME, Aug. 25, 1930). Prophesying what would happen when he achieved power, Herr Hitler himself said little more than a year ago, "Heads will roll in the sand!" (TIME, Oct. 6, 1930). Last week he said: "It is ridiculous of the German parties now in power to accuse us of wishing to expropriate private property. . . . Ours is the only party that has not compromised with the Communists. Five thousand, five hundred members of our party have been killed or wounded in clashes with Communists in the last year. The decisive battle against Bolshevism will be fought in Germany . . . and . . . we ... will win it!"
By just such talk Benito Mussolini won support and cash from Italian bankers and industrialists, suppressed Italian Socialism and Italian Communism, then hitched both banking and industry to the chariot wheel of his Fascist State.
French reaction to the Hitler blast last week was to take extremely seriously the Fascist Leader's boast that he will be German Chancellor before long. "There is only one harmless," way of grimly rendering observed the Paris' semi Hitlerites official Journal des Débats, "and that is to face them with force. . . . We are going to have to do with a Germany more dis quieting for Europe than the Germany of 1914."
* Sessions of the new Young Plan committee to re-examine German capacity to pay Reparations and repay her short-term credits began this week at Basle with Alfredo Beneduce, its Italian member, presiding. Special problems arising from German short-term credits are to be studied simultaneously in Berlin by a "Bankers' Committee" on which Banker Wiggin looms biggest.