History offers certain chances only once. (Assent on the Extreme Right.) But to understand this law it is necessary, Honourable Gentlemen, to keep before you two very simple considerations, and they are these: there has been a war which has shifted interests, which has modified ideas, which has exasperated feelings, and there has also been a revolution. To make a revolution it is not necessary to play the great drama of the arena. We have left many dead on the roads to Rome and naturally anybody who deludes himself is a fool. _We have the power and we shall hold it. We shall defend it against anybody!_ The revolution lies in this firm determination to hold power! (Assent and comment.) _The Italian People under the Domination of a Liberticidal Government, groaning under the Fetters of Slavery?_ And now I come to the practical side of the discussion. They speak of liberty. But what is this liberty? Does liberty exist? After all, it represents a philosophical and moral concept. There are various manifestations of liberty. Liberty never existed. The Socialists have always denied it. The liberty of work has never been admitted by you. You have beaten the blackleg when he presented himself at the factories when the other workmen were on strike. (Applause: interruptions by the Extreme Left.) But then is it really true and proved that the Italian people are under the domination of a liberticidal Government, and groans in the fetters of slavery? Is mine a liberticidal Government? In the social field, No! I had the courage to transform the eight hours day into a law of the State. (Comments on the Extreme Left.) Do not despise this victory; do not undervalue it. (Assent.) I have approved all the social and pacifist Conventions of Washington. What has this Government done in the political field? It is said that Democracy lies where suffrage is widened. Well, this Government has maintained universal suffrage. And, although Italian women, who are intelligent enough to exact it, had not done so, I have given it, be it only as regards the municipal elections to from six to eight millions of women! No exceptional laws were passed,—(Comments on the Extreme Left.)—and the regulation of the Press is not an exceptional law. You forget a very simple thing, that the revolution has the right of defending itself. (Approval from the Right: comments.) Is there in Russia liberty of association for those who are not Bolshevists? No! Is there liberty of Press for them? No! Is there liberty of meeting, of vote? No! (Applause: comments on the Extreme Left.) You who are the defenders of the Russian régime have not the right to protest against a régime like mine, which cannot, even distantly, be compared with that of the Bolshevists. (Approval on the Right: comments on the Left.)