The Italian Risorgimento is only a struggle between a people and a State, between the Italian people on one side and the Hapsburg State on the other, between the live forces of the future and the dead past. It was inevitable that, having passed the Mincio in 1859, and the Upper Adige in 1866, we had, in 1915, to pass the Isonzo and get beyond; it was so far inevitable that the neutralists themselves have had to acknowledge that Italy could not, under pain of death, and what is worse, dishonour, have remained neutral. This vindication of our intervention is the fact which gives us the greatest satisfaction. And what does it matter if I read in a gloomy and pessimistic book that the acquisition of Trento, Trieste and Fiume still represents a deficit in the balance of the war? This way of arguing is ridiculous. In the first place, historical events cannot be regulated like a page of book-keeping with receipts and payments, debit and credit. It is impossible to make out an estimate of historical facts and expect it to agree with the final balance. All this is the result of a melancholy philosophy which was widespread over Italy after the war. But let us hope it will soon pass to leave room for a little optimism and pride. This after-war period is certainly critical; I fully recognise the fact. But who can expect that a gigantic crisis like that of five years of a world-war will be settled at once, that the world will return to its previous tranquil state in less than two years? The crisis is not limited to Trieste, Milan or Italy, it is world-wide and is not yet over. _The Necessity of Struggle._ Struggle is at the bottom of everything, because life is full of contrasts. There is love and hate, black and white, night and day, good and evil, and until these contrasts are balanced, struggle will always be at the root of human nature, as the supreme fatality. And it is a good thing that it is so. To-day there may be war, economic rivalry and conflicting ideas, but the day in which all struggle will cease will be a day of melancholy, will mean the end of all things, will mean ruin. Now this day will not come, because history presents itself as a changing panorama. An attempt to return to peace and tranquillity would mean fighting against the existing dynamic period. It is necessary to prepare ourselves for other surprises and struggles. “There will not be a period of peace,” they say, “unless the nations indulge in a dream of universal brotherhood and stretch out their hands beyond the mountains and the oceans.” I, for my part, do not put too much faith in these ideals, but I do not exclude them, because I never exclude anything; everything is possible, even the impossible and absurd. But to-day, being to-day, it would be fallacious, criminal and dangerous to build our houses on the quicksands of international Christian-Socialist-Communism. These ideas are very respectable, but a long way from the truth. (Applause.)