On the other hand, we who intervened must not be surprised if the sea is tempestuous. It would be absurd to expect that a nation which had just passed through so grave a crisis would recover itself in twenty-four hours. And when you think that after two years we have not yet got our peace, when you think of the weakness of those who govern us, you will realise that certain crises of doubt are inevitable. But the war gave that which we required of it—it gave us victory. _Let us idealise Labour._ When, not long ago, you hissed the song of the sickle and the hammer, you certainly did not mean to disdain these two instruments of human labour. There is nothing more beautiful and noble than the sickle, which gives us our bread, and nothing finer than the hammer, which shapes metals. We must not despise manual work. We must understand that if it is overrated to-day, it is because mankind, as a whole, is suffering from a lack of material goods. It is natural, therefore, that those who produce these necessaries are excessively overrated. We do not represent a reactionary element. We tell the masses not to go too far, and not to expect to transform society by means of something which they do not understand. If there is to be transformation, it must come when the historical and psychological elements of our civilisation have been taken into account. _Let us unmask the Deceivers._ We do not intend to oppose the movement of the working classes, only to unmask the work of mystification which is carried on by a horde of middle-class, lower-middle-class and pseudo-middle-class men, who think that they have become the saviours of humanity by the mere fact of being possessed of a card of membership. “We are not against the proletariat, but against the Socialist Party in as far as it continues to be anti-Italian.” The Socialist Party continued, after the victory, to abuse the war, to fight against those who had been in favour of intervention, threatening reprisals and excommunication. Well, I, for my part, shall not give way. I laugh at excommunication, and as for reprisals, we shall answer with sacred reprisals. But we cannot go against the people, because the people made the war. We cannot look askance at the peasants, who to-day are agitating for the solution of the land question. They commit excesses, but I ask you to remember that the backbone of the infantry was the peasantry. _Repentance._ We do not deceive ourselves by thinking that we shall succeed in sinking completely the now wrecked ship of Bolshevism. But I already note signs of repentance. I think that some day the working classes, tired of letting themselves be duped, will turn to us, recognising that we have never flattered them, but have always told them the brutal truth, working really in their interests. If, to-day, Italy has not fallen into the Hungarian abyss, it is due to us, because we have saved them by active interposition and by our life.