The future of the proletariat is a question of will-power and capacity; not of will-power only and not of capacity only, but of both together. You are free from the yoke of political intrigue. Your applause tells me that it is true. I am proud of having fought for intervention. If it were necessary, I would carve in capital letters upon my forehead, so that all cowards might see, that I was among those in the glorious May of ’15 who demanded that the shame of the neutral Italy of those days should cease. Now that the war is over, I, who have been in the trenches, and witnessed daily for long months the revelation, in every sense, of the valour of the sons of Italy—I say, to-day, that it is necessary to go out and meet the returning workers and those, who were no shirkers, who laboured in the factories with minds open to the necessities of the hour. And those who do not see this necessity, involved by the new order of things, or deny it, are either stupid or deluded. I have never asked, and to-day less than ever, anything from you or anybody. And so I have no anxiety or misgivings as to the effect that my words will have upon you. I tell you that your action has been original, and is worthy, on account of the motives of sympathy which inspired it. Another observation. Upon the flagstaff of your building you have run up your flag, which is the tricolour, and around it you have fought your battle. You have done well. The national flag is not merely a rag, even if it has been dragged in the mud by the bourgeoisie, or by their representatives; it still remains the symbol of the sacrifice of thousands and thousands of men. For its sake from 1821 to 1918 innumerable bands of men suffered privation, imprisonment and the gallows. Around it during these years, while it was the rallying-point of the nation, was shed the blood of the flower of our youth, of our sons and brothers. It seems to me that I have said enough. As regards your rights, which are just and sacred, I am with you. I have always distinguished the mass which works from the party which assumes the right, nobody knows why, of representing it. I have sympathy with all the working classes, not excluding the “General Federation of Labour,” though I feel myself more drawn towards the “Italian Union of Workmen.” But I say that I shall not cease fighting against the party which during the war was the instrument of the Kaiser. They wish at your expense to try their monkey-like experiments, which are only an imitation of Russia. But you will succeed, sooner or later, in exercising essential functions in modern society, though the political dabblers of the bourgeoisie and semi-bourgeoisie must not make stepping-stones of your aspirations so as to arrive at winning their little games.