The Conference at Washington shared the fate of all the conferences. It opened with great hopes, flashing before our eyes the possibility of eternal peace. Then the concrete results frustrated these hopes. I confess that I do not believe in perpetual and universal peace. In the life of the peoples, notwithstanding ideals—noble and worthy of respect—there exist the permanent factors of race, and the greatness and decadence of nations, which lead to differences often only settled by a recourse to arms. Now it is not a case of weighing these conventions with a view to peace; they represent a breath, a pause, and it is useless to enquire if they have been laid down for idealistic or for business reasons. In any case I declare that Italy did well to adhere to this Convention. If she had not done so, we should have appeared in the eyes of the world as Imperialists and jingoists, which is far from what we have in our hearts and minds. The fact that the Government asks the Chamber for this ratification gives an idea of the general trend of the Fascista foreign policy. (Applause.)
(The ratification of the Treaty is approved of without discussion, only the Communists being against it.)
MESSAGE FROM THE HON. MUSSOLINI TO THE ITALIANS IN AMERICA UPON THE OCCASION OF THE SIGNING OF THE CONVENTION FOR THE LAYING OF CABLES BETWEEN ITALY AND THE AMERICAN CONTINENT
The National Government, which has worked indefatigably for three months to set the country going upon the path to better fortunes, has in these days signed the Convention for the laying of cables which are to put our country into communication with you, who represent it in the numerous, rich and patriotic colonies beyond the Atlantic.
The enthusiasm for this work, so necessary to our life as a great nation, seemed at one time to have died down, but to-day with the rise of youth upon the scenes of Italian politics, that which it seemed would be relegated to some remote future has been transformed into a concrete and almost immediate reality. It is not you, who suffer almost more than any the pangs of homesickness for our adored country, who need to be shown the usefulness and necessity of this undertaking, which will be carried through in the shortest space of time possible. It will render frequent, daily and, above all, free the communications between the forty million Italians who live in our beautiful peninsula and the six millions who live beyond the ocean. All the Italians who can give financial and moral support must co-operate so that the undertaking may succeed. The Italian Government does not appeal in vain to its emigrant citizens, because it knows that distance makes the love of their country stronger and more intense.
The cables, which in two or three years will bind together Italy and the Americas across the boundless ocean, are like a gigantic arm which the country stretches out to her distant sons to draw them to her and to make them share more intimately her griefs and her joys, her work, her greatness and her glory.
Mussolini.
Rome, 6th February 1923.
FOR THE CARRYING OUT OF THE TREATY OF RAPALLO
Prefatory remarks to the Deputies, 8th February 1923, accompanying the Project of Law presented by the Hon. Mussolini, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister.