In other countries in which the tradition
of personal liberty still survives, the study of the Italian corporative
organisation has become of the greatest interest, and it
has been asked how far society can be organised upon corporative
principles and whether the adoption of these principles necessarily
entails the acceptance of dictatorship and the abolition of the historic
liberties of the subject. The present paper will make no attempt to answer this question,
which, indeed, is rather one belonging to the science, and perhaps
nowadays the practice, of politics. It is rather a description of the
organisation of which the corporate state is composed and by which
it is governed. Its scope being limited by considerations of time
it may be found lacking on several points of interest and superficial
upon others. It may be possible to refer to some of these in
discussion, but the whole concept of the Corporate State is so revolutionary
in itself and its implications that its study would occupy
many a meeting. An attempt will be made to survey the organisation
set up by the corporative legislation of the last eight years,
and to answer some of the questions inevitably provoked by even so
cursory a glance