machine, a pioneer of its kind, was frustrated at the close of the year by untoward weather conditions.

The long-mooted Fascist control of all municipal activity by placing both the capital and the smaller municipal areas (those under 5,000 inhabitants) in direct charge of the Executive was made effective in regard to the former by Royal Decree on August 27, through the appointment to the Governorship of Senatore Cremonesi, the Royal Commissioner who had for some years past exercised the Syndic or Mayor's powers, previous elections having been declared void. The new Governor of Rome has entire control of the municipal machinery, being assisted by a consultative body only, co-opted from the former municipal assessors. The measure was a preliminary to the institution of the office of "Podesta," an Executive official appointed for a five years' term to administer on the population basis above-mentioned-all but 500 of the seven thousand odd Italian municipalities, which are thus brought under direct Government supervision. The Fascist Grand Council met early in October during the Parliamentary recess to examine the report of the Commission of Eighteen nominated in 1924 to study the constitutional changes demanded by Fascism, primarily the relative positions of the Executive and Legislature and the proposed representation of the National Corporations or Syndicates as such in the Legislature. The Senate has been preferred for this experiment, as it already contains the present life-members nominated by the Sovereign, and so "corporation " Senators will for the present not affect its composition materially. The extension of the Prefects' powers made operative by Royal Decree on October 7 gave these officials the presidency of the Provincial Councils, which had hitherto elected their own chairman, thus effectually establishing their authority in all civil questions at issue.

The signature, on October 19, of the Locarno Pact of Security, was received with general satisfaction by the public, which discerned in it a favourable omen for the negotiations about to be opened in Washington for the funding of the Italian Debt. The Minister of Finance, Count Volpi, and his colleagues of the Delegation, reached Washington on November 1, and were not long in obtaining a settlement which reflected the greatest credit on the discernment and goodwill of both parties to the agreement. The terms included an annual payment of five million dollars on principal account only for five years, and interest rising proportionately to an aggregate of less than 2 per cent. with extinction of capital and interest in sixty-two annuities. As soon as the news became public the idea of a national voluntary offering of a million dollars towards the payment of the first annuity of the debt was mooted unofficially, and gave rise to a most gratifying expression of patriotic sentiment. Unexampled success attended

the appeal, limited, as it was, naturally, to Italians at home and abroad, with the result that in less than a fortnight, the lists closing on December 1, no less than 666,000l. sterling had been subscribed.

A sensation was created on Armistice Day, November 4, by the news of an attempted assassination of Signor Mussolini, averted only by the alertness of the Rome police. A former Socialist Deputy, Signor Zaniboni, was arrested when on the point, as it was alleged, of firing at the Premier from a closed window of a house facing the balcony of Palazzo Chigi, at which Signor Mussolini was about to witness the march past of the troops and patriotic associations to the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Other arrests speedily followed throughout the country, leading members of the Order of Italian Freemasons being charged with complicity in the affair. Popular effervescence made a stricter Press censorship advisable, in view, especially, of recent regrettable incidents accompanied with loss of life and destruction of property in Florence and other cities, traceable to anti-Freemasonry agitation. The Press laws voted by the Chamber of Deputies in the summer session had resulted in more furious attacks on the part of the Fascist Press on their journalistic adversaries. The few remaining independent organs suffered daily sequestration and threats of suppression, averted in the case of the Corriere della Sera, a paper of the highest standing and moderate Liberal views, only by editorial and proprietary changes.

CHAPTER IV.

GERMANY AND AUSTRIA.

GERMANY.

THE Ministerial interregnum with which the year 1924 had closed lasted till the middle of January. The German People's Party (Deutsche Volkspartei) and the German National People's Party (Deutsche Nationale Volkspartei) were determined at all costs to keep together, and without them no Cabinet could be. formed, but their united forces did not constitute a majority of the Reichstag. Thus the Centre held the balance. The members of this party were prepared to enter a Government which should be in close touch with the two Nationalist parties, but they were insistent that there should be no tampering with the Republican idea. An attempt therefore was at first made to form an independent non-party Ministry; but Herr Marx, who essayed the task, could obtain no collaborators. After some more failures, a Chancellor acceptable to all three parties was at length found in Herr Luther, who belonged formally to no party, but was reckoned

L

a friend of the German Nationals, and who as Finance Minister had been a leading figure in the Cabinets of Stresemann and Marx. The German Nationals now for the first time joined a Republican Government, accepting three posts: Interior (Schiele), Finance (von Schlieben), and Economy (Neuhaus). Other new figures were the Minister of Communications (Krohne, of the German People's Party), and the Minister of Justice (Frenken, of the Centre). The Ministry of Posts was entrusted to Herr Stingl, of the Bavarian People's Party, who had already occupied the same position in the Cuno Ministry. The Ministries of Foreign Affairs (Stresemann), Food, Labour, and Defence (Count Kanitz, Brauns, and Gessler) remained in the same hands. The Centre purposely abstained from putting forward any of its leading representatives.

Stresemann's purpose was thus achieved; he was in a position to prosecute the policy of which the London Agreement had been the firstfruits, without having to guard against a hostile agitation from the side of the Nationalists. The next objective of this policy was only revealed gradually. In February there was despatched to the Governments of the Western Powers the notable letter which developed in a new form the idea of a security pact with France, once vainly broached by Cuno. The German public gained its first meagre information of the details of this proposal from the accounts in the foreign press. When, however, English Ministers made their statements to Parliament in March, the letter became an international European concern, although its text had not yet been published. But the interest of the German public was by this time absorbed in quite other matters.

The new Chancellor-pace the persistent rumours of differences of opinion between Stresemann and himself-knew how to maintain at home that equilibrium between parties which was necessary to secure a safe passage for the Government's foreign policy. In his address to the Reichstag he deprived the Opposition of its most powerful weapon of attack by promising to uphold the Republican form of government. At the same time, he pronounced the magic word for which the middle class was so anxiously waiting-" revaluation "-promising an extension of the meagre concessions which as Finance Minister in the previous year he had made to the holders of State bonds and of mortgages who had been ruined by the inflation. Expectations were held out to other sections of the electorate also. A customs tariff was necessary as a basis for the commercial treaties which Germany was now free to make after the lapse of the restrictive clauses in the Treaty of Versailles; and in any case, such a tariff was bound to take into account the protectionist tendency which the whole world was manifesting. Apart from this, the composition of the new Government gave those who desired Protection hopes of having their wishes fulfilled in Germany itself. In the field of internal affairs the German Nationals were scheming for

a revision of the Constitution and the restoration of the old national colours.

While the national policy of the Government required months for its elaboration, the parties in power had more immediate requirements which they hoped to fulfil in the State of Prussia. The elections for the Prussian Diet had not turned out so favourably for the Right as in the Reichstag. The parties which supported the Weimar Constitution had obtained about one-half of the seats. The German People's Party, nevertheless, was determined to create the same system of alliances here as existed in the Reichstag. It left the "big coalition " which it had formed with the Democrats and Social Democrats, and its Ministers, Boelitz (Instruction) and von Richter (Finance), resigned on January 6. A violent agitation was commenced against the Premier, Otto Braun, and the Minister of the Interior, Severing, who was almost as much hated by the extreme Nationalist associations as by the Communists. Herr Braun at first maintained that he was under no obligation to resign; but as the Communists joined with the Right in opposing him, only half the House supported the vote of confidence on January 23, and his Ministry accordingly resigned. His opponents, however, failed to secure their object, as in Prussia also the Centre was now the deciding factor, and here it was not willing to share its influence with the Right. According to the Prussian Constitution, Parliament chooses the Premier, who then selects his colleagues and seeks a vote of confidence for the Cabinet thus formed. Simple as this process seems, it proved on this occasion to be a veritable squaring of the circle. Time after time a Premier from the Left received a small majority for himself personally, and was then left with his Cabinet in a minority. Herr Braun was the first to undergo this experience; then the former Chancellor Marx made repeated unsuccessful attempts to obtain a majority for his Cabinets.

In this way public attention was almost monopolised by party and personal rivalries, and an atmosphere was created in which abuse and recrimination throve. At the close of the previous year the discovery of certain shady financial speculations which were going on had led to prosecutions in the law courts. It now became known that the promoters, among whom the names of Barmat and Kutisker were most prominent, had had at their disposal public moneys, credits of the Post Office and of the Prussian State Bank, while responsible members of the Republican parties, such as the former Chancellor Bauer and the Centre deputy Hoefle, who had been Minister of Posts for the last few years, had served as intermediaries. Hoefle fell under suspicion of having received bribes, and was arrested. Voices naturally were not wanting which laid these offences at the door of the Left generally. The Republican Press retaliated by bringing similar charges against the other side, calling attention to the

irresponsible and light-hearted way in which the heads of a certain mortgage institution had granted credit to a consortium of noblemen. It stigmatised the compensation paid to the manufacturers of the Ruhr district as a robbery of the taxpayers.

The investigations into the bribery scandal led in April to a tragic occurrence. The ex-Minister Hoefle, in the course of his examination, broke down completely. Regardless of this, the court officials continued to keep him in strict confinement, with the result that he died on April 20, in circumstances which pointed to suicide. The public clamour for purer administration was now pointed at the law courts, which in many respects gave ground of complaint. The judges were accused not only of harsh treatment of prisoners undergoing examination, but also of showing partiality in political trials. The deputies and officials implicated in the Barmat affair were examined by a committee of the Landtag, the competence of which in relation to the law courts was also disputed. The result of its labours, which closed in November, was to clear all remaining deputies of suspicion of criminal offences.

While the bribery investigations were in full swing, the Republic lost one of the most, if not the most generally respected of its public men-its first President. True, the rage for fastening imputations on public men had not spared Ebert either in the preceding months. In December of the previous year an editor who had stigmatised him as a traitor on account of his diplomatic attitude during the Berlin labour risings in January, 1918, had been acquitted by a Magdeburg court. And there were now people who tried to implicate him in the Barmat scandal. These accusations, however, had only served to secure for him strong expressions of public confidence. These were followed by the liveliest manifestations of sympathy when in February he fell seriously ill and had to undergo an operation, which was followed by his death on February 28, a few months before the end of his term of office. [See Obituaries.] So long as he was in power, neither the workers nor those who favoured the monarchical form of government were over-ready to praise publicly the ex-saddler. Now they remembered how much Ebert, by his staunchness and firmness, had done to restore constitutional conditions in the revolution period, and to pull the Republic through its various crises. The procession at his funeral, and the tributes paid to his memory on that occasion, testified to a sincere and universal admiration for his character.

While all parties united on this occasion in praising his aloofness from the passions and watchwords of party, his death was the signal for an outbreak of the most embittered strife between the factions into which the German people is split up. For two months the choice of a successor was hotly disputed. That the attempts to induce all parties to compromise on a single candidate