Before the War the number of men ready to take the law into their own hands was relatively small; now there are many such individuals.  The various nations, even those most advanced, cannot boast a moral progress comparable with their intellectual development.  The explosion of sentiments of violence has created in the period after the War in most countries an atmosphere which one may call unbreathable.  Peoples accustomed to be dominated and to serve have come to believe that, having become dominators in their turn, they have the right to use every kind of violence against their overlords of yesterday.  Are not the injustices of the Poles against the Germans, and those of the Rumanians against the Magyars, a proof of this state of mind?  Even in the most civilized countries many rules of order and discipline have gone by the board.

After all the great wars a condition of torpor, of unwillingness to work, together with a certain rudeness in social relations, has always been noticed.

The war of 1870 was a little war in comparison with the cataclysm let loose by the European War.  Yet then the conquered country had its attempt at Bolshevism, which in those days was called the Commune, and the fall of its political regime.  In the conquering country we witnessed, together with the rapid development of industrial groups, a quick growth in Socialism and the constitution of great parties like the Catholic Centre. Mutatis mutandis, the same situation has shown itself after the European War.

What is most urgently necessary, therefore, is to effect a return to peace sentiments, and in the manifestations of government to abandon those attitudes which in the peaces of Paris had their roots in hate.

I have tried, as Premier of Italy, as writer, and as politician, to regulate my actions by this principle.  In the first months of 1920 I gave instructions to Italy’s ambassador in Vienna, the Marquis della Torretta, to arrange a meeting between himself and Chancellor Renner, head of the Government of Vienna.  So the chief of the conquered country came, together with his Ministers, to greet the head of the conquering country, and there was no word that could record in any way the past hatred and the ancient rancour.  All the conversation was of the necessity for reconstruction and for the development of fresh currents of life and commercial activity.  The Government of Italy helped the Government of Austria in so far as was possible.  And in so acting, I felt I was working better for the greatness of my country than I could possibly have done by any kind of stolid persecution.  I felt that over and beyond our competition there existed the human sorrow of nations for whom we must avoid fresh shedding of blood and fresh wars.  Had I not left the Government, it was my intention not only to continue in this path, but also to intensify my efforts in this direction.

The banal idea that there exist in Europe two groups of nations, one of which stands for violence and barbarism—­the Germans, the Magyars and the Bulgarians—­while the other group of Anglo-Saxons and Latins represents civilization, must not continue to be repeated, because not only is it an outrage on truth but an outrage on honesty.