_All must sacrifice themselves._ I agree with those who recommend the spirit of sacrifice also to the working classes; I agree, because we do not only say to the working men that they must wait, while still working, for better times to come in order to break the vicious circle in which they move; we also say that, generally speaking, capital must be controlled. In this connection I announce to you that in a short time a manifesto will be issued in which it will be once more asserted that, in order to solve the financial problem, it is necessary to resort to a threefold measure: first, the partial confiscation of all wealth over a certain amount; secondly, the heavy taxation of inheritance, and thirdly, the confiscation of super war profits. _No Pessimism._ I am not a bit pessimistic about the future of the Italian nation. If I were, I should retire from public life. But as I am profoundly optimistic, I think that with the January strikes over we have passed the critical period of our social crisis. You will tell me that February has not brought much light; we have the strike of 50,000 textile workers belonging to the Popular Party, which shows that black Bolshevism has the same destructive and anti-social character as the other Bolshevism. But it seems to me that the social crisis is stabilising itself while awaiting solution. If we can get over these next six or eight months without catastrophe, if we can increase our trade with the East, if the workmen can be made to understand that we cannot take our money there but must send our manufactured goods, and that only thus will the high rate of living be diminished, because only from the East come those raw materials of which we stand in need, it is certain that the workmen will repudiate the more destructive than constructive weapon of strikes and settle down to serious work.