Word: duce
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...Duce handed to King Vittorio Emanuele...
...gold standard. Abroad many a headline writer splashed ITALY GOES OFF GOLD TO PAY FOR WAR! Actually Italy has not been on a true gold standard for some years, and last week's decree did not unhook the lira from its pegged relation to gold which II Duce has sworn to defend, and Italian Government bonds, after weakening, closed a week's end at their previous levels. In the money marts of London, Manhattan and Paris wiseacres opined that a year or more may pass before the lira lapses into danger of being forced...
Efforts by Rome correspondents to simplify the situation led to a round of rumors that "Mussolini's war is likely to cost ten billion lire" ($825,000,000). This "inside figure" was based on nothing more profound than multiplying by the extremely convenient figure ten the sum II Duce says he has already spent on belligerent preparations, namely one billion lire ($82,500,000). The budget of Italy has not balanced throughout Depression, and the public debt, which stood at 97 billions ($8,002,500,000) two years ago, has now topped 105 billions...
Thus far this year Dictator Mussolini's moves have produced an Italian boomlet with the index of general production at 106.8% of the country's prosperous year 1928. Not wholly confined to war industries, since II Duce presses on relentlessly with his Fascist public works, the index has risen also in peaceful trades, soaring to 184% of 1928 activity in the building sector. Unemployment, which stood at 1,160,000 in January 1934, was down to 750,000 last week, due partly to army recruiting, partly to the boomlet's creation of more work and partly...
...general Italian economic picture last week was thus one of strong crosscurrents. Conservative in keeping the lira pegged, II Duce remains liberal in expenditures for social service, radical in his policy of war preparedness at any price. Profoundly influenced by Niccolo Machiavelli, the great Florentine who understood Italians better than anyone else, Dictator Mussolini considers that in an hour when all investments are bad, the best is to speculate on a program of conquest or, better still, obtain Ethiopia by intimidation. No leader ever fell and no people ever revolted or were basically unhappy, Il Duce feels, while they were...