"So Distasteful"

M. Giuseppe Motta, Vice President and "president presumptive"* of Switzerland, onetime President of the League of Nations (TIME, Sept. 8, 1924), delivered a surprisingly firm diplomatic rebuke to Italian Fascismo last week before the Nationalrat.š M. Motta chose as the text of his remarks a disturbance created recently at Geneva, when Italian Fascists broke up a meeting of Italian Socialists at which Mussolini had been denounced as a "murderer" by several speakers.

The Italian Minister at Berne, Signer Garbasso, had previously had the hardihood, according to M. Motta, to request the Swiss Government not to grant a permit for "a meeting so distasteful to Italian Fascists in Geneva."

Though not daring to censure the Italian Government directly, Vice President Motta made clear that, as a sovereign state, Switzerland resents such attempts to dictate Swiss policy toward public meetings and can guarantee in future only the diligence of the Swiss police in dealing with hot-tempered Fascists on Swiss soil.

*According to a Swiss custom having almost the force of law, the Vice President is elected each year to succeed the President, by the Bundes-Versammlung (Parliament). The President, at present M. Henri Haberlin, is debarred by law from re-election until one year after the expiration of his one year term.

šThe"National Council" or Chamber. The Standerat, or "Council of States" (Senate), when sitting with the Nationalrat to elect the President is known as the Bundes-Versammlung or "Federal Assembly" (Parliament).