_The Dilemma of Italy._ This meeting, therefore, asks for the repudiation of the Treaty of the Triple Alliance as the first step to mobilisation and war. Otherwise, if the treaty is still in force, you can see how it can be interpreted in any sense. At first it bound us to intervene on the side of Austria and Germany, and we were taxed with being traitors when we declared ourselves neutral. To-day it proves that it is our duty to remain neutral. Treaties then are interpreted according to the letter, according to the spirit and according to the convenience of those who have to interpret them! Necessity demands, therefore, the explicit repudiation of the Treaty of the Triple Alliance. Perhaps this can be made the _casus belli_. We are not diplomats, but it is certain that if Italy repudiates the Treaty of the Triple Alliance, Germany will ask for explanations, and if, at the same time, there was mobilisation against Austria and Germany, we should be able to reach the stage in which a solution by arms would be forced upon us. For us the _casus belli_ was magnificent and solemn; it was that created by the violation of the neutrality of Belgium. Italy ought to intervene in the name of _jus gentium_, in the name of her own national security. She has not been able to do so then; but now we must decide. “Either war, or the end of our name as a great power.” Let us build gambling-houses and hotels and grow fat. A people can have this ideal also, which is shared by the lower zoological species! In reality the German working classes have embraced the cause of Prussian militarism, and so, my friends, the chief reason for remaining neutral falls to the ground. You Italian Socialists are preparing to commit the same crime of which you accuse the German Socialists. We, in the meantime, question the right of the German Socialists to call themselves Socialists any more. The International compact is only of value when it is signed and respected by all the contracting parties. Since the Germans are the first to have broken it, the Italians are no longer under obligation to hold by a contract which might mean their ruin. It is a fact, however, that Italy is “still bound to the Triple Alliance.” This Government of ours is pusillanimous, because the repudiation of the Triple Alliance does not mean a declaration of war or even mobilisation. But, meanwhile, this would prove that the Italian people vindicate their right to independence of action in this period of history. _The Revolutionary War._ To say that we are causing a revolution in order to obtain war, is to say something which we cannot maintain. We have not the strength. We find ourselves face to face with formidable coalitions, but the _fasci_ of action have this object, to create that state of mind which will impose war upon the country.