EUROPE IN FERMENT

ONE of the worst things about a country in a state of political subjection, where every effort has necessarily to be directed to the supreme purpose of winning back the people’s lost inheritance, is that it has neither the opportunity nor perhaps the desire to be in touch with the trend of even great events in other countries. This would be unfortunate even if the destinies of nations were not linked together, for it is a matter of ordinary experience that what one country does today another is likely to do tomorrow, and to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Nine out of 10 even among educated men in India probably know of nothing else in the Europe of today except Bolshevism in Russia, the fall of the mark in Germany, the employment trouble in England and the conduct of France in the Ruhr. Yet, there are at this moment at least three movements in Europe which are no less important than Bolshevism in their majestic sweep, their great magnitude and their immense possibilities, and which, for good or for evil, have already begun to affect the destinies of great portions of European humanity. The best known, or perhaps the least unknown, of these is what is known as ‘fascism’, which has already created a revolution in Italy which only the wisdom of the King prevented from becoming violent. The underlying idea of this movement cannot be better described than in the words of Signor Mussolini who, in a recent address, described it as the negation of all socialistic and democratic ideas. “Fascism,” he said, “is a doctrine of national efficiency, of force, of duty, discipline, sense of responsibility, despising all the commonplaces of demagogy.”

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