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every section—rushed with their difficulties to Rome, which encouragedthe illusion that it could handle them. Parliament, overwhelmedby these multitudinous issues, sought escape by creating commissionsto make rules and to manage them. Thus Rome got into its handsjurisdiction over every part of the political and economic systemand undertook to manage that through a bureaucratic state dominatedby a Premier who held his power through the incomparablepower of a philanthropic treasury which kept public funds flowingeverywhere. Italy became a highly centralized philanthropic bureaucraticstate in which parliament became an instrument in the handsof the Premier.Italy had become accustomed to this sort of thing—a Minister whocould gather into his hands all the strings of power. It was of courseby no means an authentic dictatorship. The right of opposition remained.The right of criticism continued. The Premier had to gatherthe support of many minority parties in the Chamber, and his insecuredictatorship lived from hand to mouth at the mercy ofunstable and contentious and bargaining parliamentary groups. YetGiolitti could get a vote of confidence of 362 to 90. It could becalled a dictatorship only by analogy. But it represented a loss ofpower by the republican organs of state, and these losses constituteda serious erosion of the republican foundations. And this erosion wasthe prologue to the swelling theme of Mussolini's imperial act. Italyunder Mussolini did not have to leap at one wide stride from purerepresentative government to dictatorship. The- legislature and thepeople had been partly conditioned to the so-called dictatorshipprinciple.Mussolini had to have more power and he set out to get it. Fewsensible men defended the condition that had grown out of numerousparties so that seldom did one party win a clear majority in theChamber. The Premier had to govern with the support of a collectionof hostile elements drawn together behind him by coalitions ofseveral minority parties. When proportional representation for parliamentwas introduced, the situation became worse. Parliamentbecame a hopeless, brawling society with the power of clear decisionalmost destroyed. The public was exasperated with parliament. Eventhe parliamentary system was discredited and blamed for everything.61