| Chapter 1: | Italy from the American Immigration Quota Act of 1921 to Mussolini’s Policy of Grossraum, 1921–1924 |
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In the meantime, they forbade organized labor to strike. Union headquarters, cooperatives, and Popular and Socialist clubs were destroyed or burned. When strikes occurred, the Fascists became strikebreakers. They even ordered the government led by Facta to enact ordinances forbidding and preventing strikes.16
In September 1922, State Treasurer Giuseppe Paratore asked Facta to meet with the new Emigration and Unemployment Commission. In the meantime, winter threatened with its inevitable seasonal increase of unemployment. The long and detailed report sent by Paratore to Facta by the end of September casts light on the unemployment situation in Italy.17 According to the National Employment Bureau, by June 30, 1920, unemployment had reached 105,831. By July 1, 1921, the number had risen to 388,744, and by September 30, 1921, to 470,542. These figures increased steadily until February 1922, when unemployment reached 606,819. But Paratore’s report rejected these figures as elusive. In fact, the Employment Bureau limited registration to unemployed men, considered the only source of family wealth and support. Therefore, his report pointed out, for every unemployed man in a family, at least three persons endured the consequences. The total number of people directly affected by unemployment, then, could reach in excess of 2,000,000. The industrial situation loomed as even less promising. Official reports of the ministries of Finance and Industry assessed the general condition as precarious. International indexes showed that among the nations on the winning side of the war, Italy alone had suffered an increase in the cost of living (Revue d’Economie Politique, July–August 1922). Yet, these indexes pointed out that Italy occupied the tenth position on the international scale of price-index, followed by Germany, Bulgaria, and Poland, all of whom were desperately fighting inflation. More importantly, between 1920 and 1922, the overall wholesale price index rose by 20 percentage points. The industrial commodities index and that for farm products rose strongly, signaling a key indicator of inflation. The following figures were reported in major Italian cities in mid-September 1922: