For the present every thing is satisfactory. The Government could not, and cannot do more or better than it has done, to organise ready help through all the vast zone of the Vesuvian country stricken by this dreadful conflagration. The life of one hundred and fifty thousand people running away, has been guarded and protected with energy and wisdom, and the deserted towns, those less damaged, have been in the quickest possible way set again to their own normal life. The streets quite destroyed have been rebuilt, at least in those parts where circulation is more necessary, and with the return of the many fugitives to the towns where the dreadful shower was worse, they have managed to start again a life, abnormal perhaps, but at least a life. You need only go over this long, fatiguing, hard pilgrimage, in these countries stricken by the terrible disaster, to realize the extraordinary new start to life, the work of reparation, the rebuilding of everything, where nothing more had been left. All has been made anew, from the bread for the famished, to the medical assistance to the sick, from the first work in removing cinders and lappillus, to the building of wooden barracks, from the trains already running through the high piles of rocks, to the tearing down of tumbling roofs, from the free dinners distributed all around, to the Serino water brought here from Naples every day. All has sprung to a new life. To say who has done all this is easy: The Government has had this simple, happy idea. It has trusted two men of intelligence, two men of will, the Duke of Aosta and General Tarditi; it has put its trust in the obedience, abnegation, heroism of the chiefs and of the soldiers; it has added to this sane, serious, and practical civil element, and has given much money, it has adhered to all requests, it has answered to all demands. Ready help is active, there where life is. How long will all this last? And can it last? And must it last? The salvation of to day is done! Man has saved man! Those who had power, intellect, good will, ardor, enthusiasm have given it all! The history of these days will remain memorable in the pages of human help! And I would like to have the vigour and the time to write it up myself, as an homage to the ideal which binds men. But what, and who will save to-morrow man and his house, man and his descendence, man and his bread, man and his field?
Who and what will create a new life firm, continued, of constant evolution?
One is the secret: this country must be saved. Oh men! who are tenderly concerned over the despair of nearly ten thousand people, oh! men of heart and mind, give, give food to all these unfortunate beings, to these poor people who have nothing to do, to the women, to the old people, to the children! Alas! you will not be able to do it always! Build, rebuild roofs and hearths that they may find a shelter, but the house will perhaps be empty, and the hearth fireless. Have the streets cleared free from the rocks, lapillus, and cinders which the fury of the vulcano has brought down, but these streets will be deserted and sad. Reform the social life with its laws and regulations, but all that will be a dead letter. Ah! all is useless if the country is not saved. The land which gives bread and fire, the land which gives life must be saved in all its region so terribly damaged. This land alone knows the secret of its resurrection. Save the land, you men of good will. Save it in all its modest and imposing forms: save the little orchard, and the small tract, the garden, the humble edge which closes the large field, save the land of the poor farmer, of the modest peasant, of the small land-owner, fertil or steril as it may be. Modest peasant, save the land, no matter how it is, rich or poor; the land is always the land, the spring of life, the earth which is flour, vegetables, the earth which is life itself! From the miserable little grass, to the highest of trees, the earth which enriches man, warms him up, lights up his nights. The earth which gives food to the tired limbs, wood to the hearth, oil to the lamp. Save this land! You cannot help these people beyond a certain length of time, your money would not be enough, your charitable impulse would not last, and of these charities people, after all, will get tired. And so it will be, for the necessity of human conscience, for the dignity of man, even if marked by misfortune.
No alms any longer, but some means by which everybody may rise again, take up again his modest and laborious round of existence, support himself and his family, and close every day, with a blessing to God. Some means by which he may end his mortal pilgrimage having accomplished his work among men, as a worker, and head of a family. Save the earth, save the wheat and the vine, the oil and the oak, save every inch of land around the silent country homes. Save the land which slopes down over the cruel and fatal mountain, just as that, farther off, which cannot fear its tragic explosion. Ah, those poor lands ascending up to S. Anastasia all covered and buried, but still trying to emerge, those poor country lands around beautiful Somma Vesuviana cut out of existence, smothered and gone! Ah! that silent and deserted grave which is now the country between Somma and Ottaiano, dead, under half a meter of stones and cinders, everything dead, the grass, the plants, the bushes, the trees! Who will forget, who will ever forget that incomparable vision of death?
Call men of science, those who study science to better life, and tell them to get together, to observe, to notice, to reveal to the ignorant the secret to save this dead land. Call men of finances, not those who understand it as a mere dance of cyphers, but those who know what it means to life, and let them form a great project, by which the land may be saved.
Money will come, people are already giving it, and more will still be given, especially if people know that it is not only used for charities but for the redemption of work, not only used for provisory help, but for a larger, wiser, and more austere aid.
The Government will give now or later all that is necessary, and perhaps beyond what is necessary. Form a great, serious practical project, based on strong views, an agrary and financial project, which may teach, guide, advise! Give little or much money, as needed or where it is needed, in order that every farmer may get back his little tract of land, that every peasant may rebuild his field, and every owner may redeem his property.
Give your advice and take the easiest means to have it fulfilled. Let money be given, not lent to he who has cleared and redeemed his field. If the money has to be lent, let it be on long time, and let the Government pay a strong part of the interest on the agrary loan, just as was done at the time of the earthquake in Ligury. Let the cheapest and most efficacious advice be given, that every man may start with his own hands and the help of his people, to free his land from its funeral shroud, and let help be given as a prize to will, and tenacity. Let it be a civil help to honest citizens, that their small destroyed fortune may be rebuilt for their children. This, at least, you must do, men of good will.
Let all the land around be delivered from the heavy mantle which wraps and smothers it, let it be free, and from one season to another, let the grass, plants, trees, flowers and fruits grow up again.