any explanation. They were too shy,
perhaps, to say openly what was spread abroad as a pretext by the
press and by gossip in the lobbies of the Chamber, namely, that
Austria's offer came too late and could not be trusted.

What are the facts? Italian statesmen have no right to measure the
trustworthiness of other nations in the same proportion as they
measured their own loyalty to a treaty. [Loud cheers.] Germany, by her
word, guaranteed that the concessions would be carried through. There
was no occasion for distrust. Why too late? On May 4 the Trentino was
the same territory as it was in February, and a whole series of
concessions had been added to the Trentino of which nobody had thought
in the Winter.

It was, perhaps, too late for this reason, that while the Triple
Alliance, the existence of which the King and the Government had
expressly acknowledged after the outbreak of war, was still alive,
Italian statesmen had long before engaged themselves so deeply with
the Triple Entente that they could not disentangle themselves. There
were indications of fluctuations in the Rome Cabinet as far back as
December. To have two irons in the fire is always useful. Before this
Italy had shown her predilection for extra dances. [Cheers and
laughter.] But this is no ballroom. This is a bloody battlefield upon
which Germany and Austria-Hungary are fighting for their lives against
a world of enemies. The statesmen of Rome have played against their
own people the same game as they played against us.

It is true that the Italian-speaking territory on the northern
frontier has always been the dream and the desire of every Italian,
but the great majority of the Italian people, as well as the majority
in Parliament, did not want to know anything of war. According to the
observation of the best judge of the situation in Italy, in the first
days of May four-fifths of the Senate and two-thirds of the Chamber
were against war, and in that majority were the most responsible and
important statesmen. But common sense had no say. The mob alone ruled.
Under the kindly disposed toleration and with the assistance of the
leading statesmen of a Cabinet fed with the gold of the Triple
Entente, the mob, under the guidance of unscrupulous war instigators,
was roused to a frenzy of blood which threatened the King with
revolution and all moderate men with murder if they did not join in
the war delirium.

The Italian people were intentionally kept in