Evening star., 1939-11-23
Italy Limits Use
Of Cars 10 Business;
Gas Price High
Wives Must Bootleg
Rides; Heavy Duties
On Foreign Products
Thirteenth OF q SerieS.)
BY WILLIAM L. WHITE,

! ROME, Italy (AirmaiD An Ital-
ian businessman, If he has car,
often goes to work in the morning
as follows: He opens the door, gets
in behind the wheel and starts
flddling with the choke, even as you
and I. But then his wife, If she
has shopping to do, looks carefully
up and down the street, opens the
rear door and lies down fiat on the
back seat.
Then his mother n-law, if she
has a swatch to match, also gets
in and lies down fiat on the floor.
Then they close the. rear door and
he drives on downtown. When
they come to quiet street he stops
and looks carefully around for a
cop or party member If he sees
none he reaches around, opens the
rear door and his wife and his
mother-in-law, with her swatch,
scuttle out and go quickly off down
the street, trying to look as though
they had never seen him or his car
before.
This is all part of Fascism. There
are not only taxes on gasoline
which bring it to about $125 a GAL
Ion, but the government forbids
the use of any automobile for any
purpose except business. If busi-
nesSman is lucky enough to get a
permit to drive his car at all the
government forbidS him to take
any passenger with him except an
other businessman on business. So
If his wife wants to go to town
with him she must bootleg the ride.
II they are caught he loses his per-
nit to buy gasoline.
Coffee Goes to Army.
Another part of the same picture
is the current joke that in Italy
you cannot remove coffee stain
from a wool coat with gasoline.
Why? Because, the Italians explain,
laughing, in Italy you cannot get
the wool, the gasoline or the coffee.
1t is literally true of the latter. for
the government has not only for
bldden its sale, but collected from
the grocery stores all their reserve
stocks for the use of the army.
Foreign wines and tobacco are
likewise penalized with heavy duties.
The more popular brands of Amer
lean cigarettes sell for 40 or so cents
a pack in Italy. Anything which the
country does not itself produce and
which can be dispensed with is
either prohibited altogether or taxed
closely to the vanishing point.
These burdens or prohibitions fall
most heavily on the prosperous
classes who ordinarily would con-
sumo most of the imported lux
uries.
Spending to Make Jobs.
A prosperous Italian (and there
are many is free to spend as much
of his money as he likes for any,
thing which Italy produces. But al
ways 1T must make jobs for Italians.
With this one structure he can buy
any goods or services which man
or maid can supply or perform and
IN Italy these are manifold.
Under the classical rules of eco
nomlc liberalism one nation sells |
its coffee and rubber and with the
money buys automobiles, coal, oil
and the other specialized products
of other lands. They are fine rules,
only Italy sits down to the game
with pair OF deuces high-nothing
which any one: else wants except
her scenery-a beautiful but strictly
agricultural country barely large
enough to feed its own population.
So Italy decides she doesn't want to
play any more with the classic eco
nomic liberals, has thrown in her
cards and is getting up a new kind
of game of her own with consider
able SUCCESS