The Associations which are included in Fascismo. They ask us: “Will you then camp out in Italy as an army of enemies which oppress the remainder of the population?” Here we have the philosophy of force by consent. In the meanwhile I have the pleasure to announce that imposing masses of men who deserve all the respect of the nation have joined Fascismo, such as the Association of the Maimed and the Disabled, the National Association of Ex-soldiers. In the wake of Fascismo, moreover, are also included the families of the fallen in war. There are a great many members coming from the people in these three Associations, whilst there is a great solidarity amongst these disabled ex-soldiers and families of the fallen in war. They represent millions of people, and, in the face of this collaboration, must I go and simply seek all the fragments, all the relics of the old traditional parties? Must I sell my spiritual birthright for a mess of pottage which might be offered to me by those who have followed no one in the country? (Loud assent.) No! I shall never do this.
The Collaboration I welcome. If there is anybody who wishes to collaborate with me, I welcome him to my house. But if this collaborator has the air of a controlling inquisitor, or of the expectant heir, or of the man who lies in ambush, with the object of being able at a given moment to record my mistakes, then I declare that I do not want to have anything to do with this collaboration. (Bravo!)
Besides, there is a moral force in all this. What was the cause after all which affected Italian life in past years? Italy was passing through a transformation. There were never definite limits. Nobody had the courage to be what he should have been.
There was the bourgeois who had Socialistic airs, there was the Socialist who had become a bourgeois up to his finger tips. The whole atmosphere was made up of half tones of uncertainty. Well, Fascismo seizes individuals by their necks and tells them: “You must be what you are. If you are a bourgeois you must remain such. You must be proud of your class, because it has given a type to the activity of the world in the nineteenth century. (Approval.) If you are a Socialist you must remain such, although facing the inevitable risk you run in that profession.” (Laughter.)
Taxation and the Discipline of the Italian Population. The sight which to-day the nation offers is satisfactory, because the Government exercises a stern and, if you like to say so, a cruel policy. It is compelled to dismiss by thousands its officials, judges, officers, railway men, dock-workers; and each dismissal represents a cause of trouble, of distress, of unrest to thousands of families. The Government has been compelled to levy taxes which unavoidably hit large sections of the population. The Italian people are disciplined, silent and calm, they work and know that there is a Government which governs, and know, above all, that if this Government hits cruelly certain sections of the Italian people, it does not do so out of caprice, but from the supreme necessity of national order.
The Government is One. Above this mass of people there are the restless groups of practising politicians. We must speak plainly. In Italy there were several Governments which, before the present one, always trembled before the journalist, the banker, the grand master of Freemasonry, before the head of the Popular Party, who remains more or less in the background,—(Applause.)—and it was enough for one of these ministers in partibus to knock at the door of the Government, for the Government to be struck by sudden paralysis. Well, all this is over! Many men gave themselves airs with the old Governments; those I have not received, but have reduced them to tears. (Assent.) For the Government is one. It knows no other Government outside its own and watches attentively, because one must not sleep when one governs, one must not neglect facts, one must keep before one’s eyes all the panorama, notice all the composition and decomposition, the changes of parties and of men. Sometimes it is necessary, as a tactical measure, to be circumspect; but political strategy, at least mine, is intransigent and absolute.
My only Ambition is to make the Italian People Strong, Prosperous, Great and Free. I should have finished; in fact I have finished, but I must still add something that concerns me a little personally. I do not deny to citizens what one might call the “Jus murmurandi”—the right of grumbling. (Laughter.) But one must not exaggerate, nor raise bogies, nor have one’s ears always open to dangers which do not exist. And, believe me, I do not get drunk with greatness. I would like, if it were possible, to get drunk with humility. (Approval.) I am content simply to be a Minister, nor have I ambitions which surpass the clearly defined sphere of my duties and of my responsibilities. And yet I, too, have an ambition. The more I know the Italian people, the more I bow before it. (Assent.) The more I come into deeper touch with the masses of the Italian people, the more I feel that they are really worthy of the respect of all the representatives of the nation. (Assent.) My ambition, Honourable Senators, is only one. For this it does not matter if I work fourteen or sixteen hours a day. And it would not matter if I lost my life, and I should not consider it a greater sacrifice than is due. My ambition is this: I wish to make the Italian people strong, prosperous, great and free! (The end of the speech is hailed by a frantic and delirious ovation. All the Senators rise, and the Tribune applauds loudly, whilst the great majority of the Senators go to congratulate the Hon. Mussolini.)
(The sitting is adjourned.)
“AS SARDINIA HAS BEEN GREAT IN WAR, SO LIKEWISE WILL SHE BE GREAT IN PEACE”
Speech delivered from the Palazzo della Prefettura at Sassari (Sardinia) on 10th June 1923.