Dagonet Abroad

by George R. Sims

In the evening we get the news. The Conservatives have gained a majority all over Ticino. The Liberals are glum, and, after a night spent in the cafés, I walk home with Albert Edward, and we both prophesy trouble on the morrow. We have heard what we have heard, and we have seen what we have seen.

On Monday there was general Conservative jubilation. The church bells rang violently; from the mountain-tops guns were fired and bonfires were lighted. The little boys formed themselves into processions, and waved flags and shouted through the villages, and dogs, decked out in Conservative colours, followed proudly at the heels of their little Conservative masters. And here, on the eve of the lamentable outbreak which took place at Lugano on Monday evening, let me give you a few particulars of the first revolution which led up to all the recent trouble and excitement.

The revolution was a prearranged affair. In Lugano they managed it this way. Some men went into a field and made a bonfire, which caused a great smoke. Then some of their confederates suddenly rang the fire-alarm from the church belfry. Out rushed the officers from the Municipio to see what was the matter, and in rushed the revolutionists and took possession of the building. The Government officers were seized and dragged to prison. The mob rushed into the cafés and laid violent hands on prominent Conservatives, yelling, ‘To prison! to prison!’ It was Bedlam broken loose, for surely there was nothing but madness in what followed.

Every Conservative was threatened by the Liberals—the active Conservatives were actually seized and put in prison—an instance of the height of absurdity to which this so-called ‘revolution’ was carried. The man on duty at one of the little piers where the steamers embark passengers was known to be a Conservative. He was seized and threatened with imprisonment. ‘What for?’ he exclaimed. ‘You are a Conservative!’ yelled his Liberal aggressors. The same thing happened to shopkeepers, to boatmen, to fly-drivers; the one cry was, ‘To prison with the Conservatives!'—and all this was done in the sacred name of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.

It is really worth pausing for a moment to reflect that these things were actually done in a Republic, and by a party whose watchword was ‘Liberty.’ It is difficult to treat the thing as anything but a huge burlesque. ‘In the name of Liberty I put you in prison because your political views are not mine.’ Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it—reflect on it! Here is a Republic which claims to be the government of the free by the free, and in this Republic there is a party which calls itself the party of freedom, and its first act, when by force or by stratagem it has snatched temporary power, is to seize and imprison every fellow-citizen whose views upon politics and religion are at variance with its own.

My own belief is that the Liberals of Ticino in their discontent allowed themselves to be the dupes and the tools of a party of disorder, a party which has its headquarters over the frontier. I have seen upon the walls of Bellinzona a proclamation issued by a society which has its headquarters in Italy, and, putting two and two together, I look a little below the surface of what is generally called politics for the origin of the Ticino revolt against law and order. These things might perhaps be left for the Ticinese to settle among themselves, but unfortunately they have been done in the name of ‘the Liberal party,’ and Liberalism generally all over the world is injured and discredited by such a display of intolerance and persecution on the part of a section of those who profess it and make it their watchword.

But, after all, but for the brutal murder of Rossi, and some subsequent bloodshed, the whole affair might perhaps have been charitably dismissed as a display of what the German calls ‘Kinderei.’ The remark of a Cockney tourist who was in Lugano with me, that it was ‘like a lot of kids playing at revolution,’ is a fair translation of the German expression. The utter childishness of some of the proceedings which are now agitating the Swiss Republic is beyond dispute. The Ticinese have given us a revolution pour rire, and the whole thing, the murder of Rossi apart, is a cyclone in a coffee-cup, a hurricane in a half-pint pot.

So much for the revolution of September 11; now for the revolution of October 27. I have told you that the Conservatives of Lugano rang the church bells in their joy. On Monday afternoon the Liberals, having had enough of the Conservative rejoicings, thought they would have a turn. So they brought a cannon on the public square and began to discharge it. Now, cannon-firing in a public square is not exactly a parlour pastime, and an officer who was in charge of a small body of soldiers ordered the gay Liberal youths to ‘cease firing.’ They argued the point; the officer insisted, and then—well, nobody knows how it began. The Conservatives say the mob threw stones at the officer; the Liberals say the soldiers attacked the crowd; at any rate, stones were thrown and the mob was charged, and presently the soldiers were prodding the people and blood was flowing and stones were flying, and Lugano had another little revolution in miniature all to itself. I was with Albert Edward, and in the middle of it, and I am not ashamed to confess that we executed a strategic movement to the rear and sought the friendly shelter of the Farmacia Internazionale.

Half an hour afterwards the streets were cleared. Every shop and every café was shut, and only groups of excited men gathered under the arcades and discussed the situation. It had been severe while it lasted. I saw plenty of blood—less would have satisfied me—and unfortunately a number of women and children in the crowd were seriously frightened, and I believe a few of them hurt, in the absurd proceedings. A number of wounds were dressed by the chemists of the town that evening, and several of the soldiers were taken to the hospital.

All the troops in Ticino are from the German cantons. Between the German Swiss and the Italian Swiss there is no love lost. The troops have been attacked, and some of the soldiers injured by the people. Relations are now naturally more strained than ever. Some unlucky day something may happen, and then—— Well, let us hope for the best.