No one can deny that Italy is passing through a period of crisis and political ill-health.  Such states of public psychology are for peoples what neurasthenia is for individuals.  On what does it depend?  Often enough on reasons which cannot be isolated or defined.  It is a state of mind which may come to an end at any minute, and is consequent upon the after-effects of the War.  Rather than coming from the economic disorder, it derives from a malady of the temperament.

I have never believed, in spite of the agitations which have been seen at certain periods, in the possibility of a revolutionary movement in Italy.  Italy is the only country which has never had religious wars, the only country which in twenty centuries has never had a real revolution.  Land of an ancient civilization, prone to sudden bursts of enthusiasm, susceptible to rapid moods of discouragement, Italy, with all the infinite resources of the Latin spirit, has always overcome the most difficult crises by her wonderful adaptive power.  In human history she is, perhaps, the only country where three great civilizations have risen up one after another in her limited soil.  If Italy can have the minimum of coal, cereals and raw materials necessary to her existence and her economic revival, the traditional good sense of the Italian people will easily overcome a crisis which is grave, but which affects in various measure all the victors, and is especially temperamental.

It cannot be denied that if all Europe is sick, Italy has its own special state of mind.  Those who wished the War and those who were against it are both dissatisfied:  the former because, after the War, Italy has not had the compensations she expected, and has had sufferings far greater than could have been imagined; the latter because they attribute to the War and the conduct of the War the great trials which the nation has now to face.  This sickness of the spirit is the greatest cause of disorder, since malcontent is always the worst kind of leaven.

Four great countries decided the War:  Great Britain, France, Italy, and the United States of America.  Russia fell to pieces soon, and fell rather on account of her own internal conditions than from enemy pressure.  The action of the United States arrived late, but was decisive.  Each country, however, acted from a different state of mind.  France had of necessity to make war.  Her territory was invaded, and all hope of salvation lay in moral resistance alone.  Great Britain had to wage the War out of sense of duty.  She had guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium, and could not fail to keep her word of honour.  Two countries alone chose freely the sorrowful way of the War:  Italy and the United States.  But their sacrifices, sufferings and losses have been very different.  During the War the United States have been able to develop their immense resources, and, notwithstanding some crises, they have come out of it much richer than before.  From being debtors to Europe they have become creditors.  They had few losses in men, and a great development in wealth.  Italy, who after many difficulties had developed in her famous but too narrow territory the germs of a greater fortune, has had, together with very heavy losses in men, heavy losses in her wealth.