To all this was to be added a broad simplification of taxation with abolition of certain taxes and a new form of protection for thrift and for banking activities.
In November I floated a loan that I called “The Littorio.” It was intended to facilitate cash operations and to give some elasticity to the budget. Since there was a very heavy floating debt, represented by treasury bonds, I decided upon redemption of these bonds and their inscription in the great book of the public debt. These provisions had without doubt a harsh character; they were full of sacrifice. But when the moment and its discomfort had passed, we were able to start on a policy of wise severity; our lira began to climb gradually on the markets of London and Washington and our credit rose again in every part of the world.
To be sure, the passage from a giddy to an austere finance which I had inaugurated with the Pesaro speech was not without its difficulties. Failures and heavy losses were brought about. Business deals begun while the lira was at one hundred and thirty to the pound were closed with the lira at ninety. All this brought with it unavoidable losses which hit hardest those who were the least strong and resistant financially.
The difficulties in returning to a position of financial dignity and austerity were notable; reconstruction was as difficult as inflation had been easy. We had to reduce the budget and state bonds to their simplest expression; we had to start a policy of demobilization of our debts to be able to know our complex financial burden and to determine exactly the interest that had to be paid every year.
But the situation has been cleared and bettered. In order to have a sounder, readier, more agile organization, I had decided on the unification of all the institutions issuing paper money. Only the Bank of Italy has the power to issue paper money; the Bank of Naples and the Bank of Sicily returned to their original functions of guardians and stimulators of the agricultural economic life of southern Italy.
When, after a year of notable difficulties, the financial situation of the budget and of Italian economy had been cleared, I was able to address myself, in 1927, to the new gold basis of the lira, on concrete foundations. In December, 1927, at a meeting of the council of ministers, I was able to announce to the Italian people that the lira was back on a gold basis, on a ratio which technicians and profound experts in financial questions have judged sound.
I felt the pride of a victor. I had not only led the Black Shirts and political forces, but I had solved a complex and difficult problem of national finance, such a problem as sometimes withdraws itself beyond the will and the influence of any political man, and becomes subjected to the tyranny and mechanism of mere material relations under the influence of various and infinite factors. Only a profound knowledge of the economic life and structure of a people can reach, in such an insidious field, conclusions which will be able to satisfy the great majority.
To-day we have a balanced budget. Self-ruling units, the provinces and the communes, have balanced their budgets too. Exports and imports and their relationship are carried in a precise and definite rhythm—that of our stabilized lira. Through solidity and certainty, Fascist Italy is creating a new Italian régime, while the necessary complement of our general policy and the essence of our state organization is being supplied by a new corporative system.
CHAPTER XII
THE FASCIST STATE AND THE FUTURE
AMID the innovations and experiments of the new Fascist civilization, there is one which is of interest to the whole world; it is the corporative organization of the state.