Immobilismo

Balding little Mario Scelba began his premiership briskly last February by saying: "Now let's get down to business'." Though his majority was small, he announced bold projects to cure Italy's nagging ills, and acted as if he expected to launch them forthwith. Living up to his reputation as Italian Communism's chief scourge, which he had earned as De Gas-peri's Minister of the Interior, Scelba began auspiciously by ejecting Communist organizations from the lush premises they had seized from former Fascist owners and by evacuating government-employee unions (mostly Communist-run) from government-owned buildings.

"For the first time, after many years of waiting. Italy has a government willing to pass from the defensive to the offensive in this fight against subversion," said Rome's 11 Tempo. The Cabinet announced one project after another: an extensive public-works program to alleviate Italy's chronic unemployment, a big housing program, a new income-tax law providing six-month prison terms for Italy's notorious tax evaders. But after ten months in office, Premier Mario Scelba's government has failed to get even one of its major proposals enacted into law. In Rome's cafes, the word for Scelba's performance is immobilismo.

Parliamentary Inaction. One trouble lies in the wrenching strains within Scelba's patchy coalition of Christian Democrats, Liberals, Social Democrats and Republicans. Right and left wings mistrust each other. In parliamentary committee, the coalition partners haggle, filibuster and squabble in bickering inaction. The tax-evasion bill was proposed in March, introduced into the Senate in April, referred to the finance committee, which did not even discuss it for three months. Then Liberals and conservative Christian Democrats proposed one amendment after another to the bill. Said one government member ruefully: "In America you have penalties up to ten years for tax evaders. Here in Italy, when we try to write a jail provision for six months, we are called radicals."

The public-works program has not even reached the discussion stage. The housing program was proposed in April, sent to committee, and has not been heard of since. Neither has the program for new school buildings. Communists or fellow travelers, who hold more than a third of the seats in Parliament, sabotage and delay. Quarreling allies and vigorous enemies are not Scelba's only handicaps. There is also the problem of his own Christian Democratic Party.

Though Scelba is Premier, the head of the party (and its real organizational strongman) is Amintore Fanfani. Fanfani, who wants to be Premier again himself some day, has supported the Scelba government publicly. But he has been careful not to identify himself with it, and is not in the Cabinet. He has often been privately critical. Fanfani could bring down the government now. But he would rather wait until he judges the moment ripe, and his own political machine ready, for a new election. Fanfani's temporizing contributes to immobilismo.

New Beginning. Even Scelba's vaunted drive against the Reds has stumbled, staggered and almost stopped, though the climate for action against the Communists has never been better. Last week, goaded by its critics, the Scelba government tried to make a new beginning. Tacitly admitting his inability to force any new law through against Communist obstructionism, Scelba announced a new attack on the party's purse by the only course left to him--stricter enforcement of existing laws. Principal targets are Communist-run enterprises such as building societies, which are run as businesses for profit, to feed the party's coffers while claiming exemption from taxation as "cooperatives." Another Cabinet decision: Communist state employees will no longer get raises in pay above a certain level, or promotions to high civil posts. Critics wondered aloud why these sensible steps had not been taken nine months ago.

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