THE laudation of Signor Mussolini in the newspapers controlled by Lord Rothermere is an extremely disquieting suggestion of a new political campaign to be launched by the allied controllers of a large section of the English Press. We are assured: “We in Great Britain have the deepest and most direct interest in Mussolini’s welfare. He has waged and won a struggle which every Western nation may have to face sooner or later.” The suggestion, of course, is that Great Britain, with the whole of Europe, must, perforce, choose between Fascism and Bolshevism, and that, having rejected Bolshevism, it must, we presume, suppress the Bolshevists by the Fascist method of whippings, dosings with castor oil and occasional assassinations. The eulogies of Mussolini appear in papers that belong to the group that sneer in chorus at Mr. Baldwin and are urging the Conservative Party to submit to the yoke of Lord Birkenhead and Mr. Winston Churchill. We recall the notorious Glasgow Rectorial address and we look forward to the future with some misgiving. An English Fascist movement would probably bear some resemblance to the fanatically Protestant Klu Klux Klan. Already, indeed, Liverpool Orangemen are denouncing Communism and Anglo-Catholicism as twin evils. And we remember that Lord Birkenhead began his career in Liverpool!

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