This is what may properly be called "tall talk." After this climax of virulence, a tendency developed in the press tending to mitigate the effect of such rancor. An attempt was made to show that the variance of opinions was more formal than substantial, and that it was for Parliament to decide. Even the _Idea Nazionale_ expressed this opinion, though for years it conducted a campaign to undermine the authority and prestige of parliamentary institutions in Italy. The _Tempo_, however, did not back down, but asked: "Is it true or not that during the meeting of the oppressed Czecho-Slavs in Rome no territorial agreement could be arrived at because the Czecho-Slav representatives did not want to accept the Adriatic limitations involved by the Treaty of London?" It also sarcastically remarked that the Treaty of London is now being called the "Pact of London," that somebody has already started to call it a "memorandum," and that it is to be expected that soon it will be called a "laundry list." And it continued: "Is it true or not that our requests, contained in that document, are an indispensable minimum to insure our safety in the Adriatic such as will justify the enormous sacrifices we have made in this war? Are we not right, then, to distrust this policy favorable to the Czecho-Slavs which tends to postpone the solution of geographic points without first recognizing the Italian claims as being fundamental? Let the Czecho-Slavs first recognize our right to safety and let them dispel our legitimate diffidence. All this discussion seems to have been the pleasant outcome of those who entertain the jolly notion that we are waging a poetic war instead of trying to solve in our favor vital military and political problems, and that we should be perfectly unconcerned about knowing whether on the other shore of the Adriatic there will be either Germans or Slavs, Republicans, Catholics, Orthodox, Conservatives, Democrats, musicians, or poets." Gradually the thunder-clouds began to disperse and a conciliatory element was introduced into the discussion. "Rastignac," who drives an authoritative quill, and who is one of the leading and much-listened-to journalists and lawyers of Italy, wrote in the _Tribuna_, the newspaper identified with Giolitti: