Oldal 1 [1]
OCR
ae : IMPRESSIONS FROM ITALY, This late spring's municipal elections are over, While the smoke o propaganda slowly clears away, it is impor~ tant for the objective observer - as well as for Italian officialis — to try clearly to see the trends and tendencies, espe=~ cially since these are of utmost importance and foreshadow cos ming eventse It has, in fact, to often been overlooked, that 1953 will see General elections in this country, which will eravely affect the future of Italy 3; and that in view of this perspective, this spring's municipal elections, down to the low= liest hamlet, were fought on straight party=lines t municipal and local consideration scarcely entered into the picture, very much to the demage of the roots of Italian Democracy. But in order clearly to understand the political pice ture, it is necessary first to cast a short glance on the econo= mic ones Italy has by far received the greatest chunk of Mare shall aid, of all the continental European nations, Playing in States, the Italian Govermement was able to extract from the American administration, more interested in electoral than uni= versal considerations , huge sums of money with few if any strings actached, It thus happened, that while this monetary manna fell over an arid country, its distribution was far from lucky, There was so much that. something trickled down to everybody. But the bulk stayed in a few chose hands, who built up vast fortunes, mostly outside of the countrys Italy, a land of few millionaires living of the masses then ten years ago 4 but it has certainly a larger number of enormous fortunes, A very unhealthy situation. Addeé to. this is the rapidly growing population, the impossibi~ lity to leave he country in larger numbers, the universal povertys Hence despite its oytward brilliance, sespite the ostentation of the newly-rich, Italy is suffering from & fundamental grave economic crisis. Hidden though it may be in the official statisties, there is a very bad unemployment problem, which the gover= ment is one af the gravest sources of political unrest in the country. a j \ 3 But there are other things besides thi\s economic pics ture, There is @ strong revulsion of sentiment against the ruling Af cuties cr rarag Party. This iy and its smaller ue political satellites of the left, is suffering af om its to long ee \ LN 4.
