'But these provisions will not be enough to solve the grave and worrying problem of the systematization of the floating debt nor to secure the equilibrium of the budget. These ends cannot be reached save by a levy on the national wealth that the government has from the first pointed out as an unavoidable necessity for the restoration of our finance. This levy must before all and in a special manner fall on the wealth made out of the war. Nothing is more repugnant to the general sentiment than the excessive enrichment of some in contrast with the sacrifices of blood and goods which the greatest number of the nation have made. At the same time, the extraordinary levy upon wealth formed or augmented during the war must not be exaggerated.

'We ought to consider with good will the wealth destined for new production, and this wealth cannot in any case alone have more than a slight and brief effect on the solution of our financial problem. We cannot find this solution except by an impost that in an extraordinary way must weigh progressively on the wealth of all citizens, with the sole exception of the patrimonies of the poor. As to the principle of this impost, it would appear that there cannot be any objection. If the Italian people does not collect its moral energy and resolutely face the problem of the restoration of its finances it cannot hope to avoid

economic ruin and bankruptcy. And it is above all the moneyed classes that must convince themselves that every hesitation to follow the way of duty toward the state cannot but end fatally not only for the state but also for themselves. Financial seriousness and sobriety, faith in undertakings, care of its own credit, have always been undiscussed prerogatives of the Italian people. Their splendid traditions of financial strength, honesty, and loyalty must be preserved and maintained.

'What is necessary is that the levy on capital should be applied in a way that will not disturb the economic life of the country. The affair is new and difficult, and naturally must be studied by the government with particular care. Certain indiscretions with regard to this study which is in course of completion and erroneous statements in the press and elsewhere have caused an unjustified alarm in the financial world. The levy will be ordered in such a way as to avoid disturbing capital. A long period for the payment of the impost will be allowed to this end, and the most ample guaranties will be given both for just assessment and for the valuation of shares, factories, lands, and every other form of wealth. On the solid basis of the levy on capital it will be possible for the treasury to obtain quickly, by operations of credit, that power for the gradual liquidation of the floating debt that is so necessary, and for the moderation of the paper circulation that weighs on prices and on the exchange. We are convinced that the new Chamber of Deputies will agree with these ideas, and that the Italian people will know how to do its duty and thus to crown the work of the war. But to the duty of the Italian people corresponds that of the government to follow with all its strength a rigid policy of economy.

VOL. 17-NO. 858

MUCH of what has recently occurred is known to the public. We shall not dilate upon the dreadful black chronicle of those events, nor do we desire to exaggerate what is already bad enough. Those were red days: they were days of brutish delirium.

The past year has witnessed many evil developments in our countryso many of them, indeed, that if our course is not changed we run the risk of verifying the pessimistic prediction that the victors in the late war will expire on the corpses of the vanquished. We have permitted the exaltation of victory to turn into the bitterness of domestic discord. We might have anticipated from a successful peace a growing sense of solidarity among the different social classes, a conviction of security and common vigor, a universal anticipation that, having overcome the tragedy of Caporetto, our nation would easily survive any other danger that might befall it. But we have permitted our controversies over foreign policy to poison the good relations of our own people. Our strained economic circumstances have been inter

preted, not as a command to sobriety and labor, but as an excuse for prodigality and idleness. What were at first murmurs have risen to shrieks. The violent conflict of factions has scattered the embers of civil war. Strikes have become epidemic and are developing into revolts. The surface of society is torn asunder, revealing the molten lava at its base.

Crimes of violence have always been a serious evil in Italy. The habit of bloodshed, encouraged by the war, has been engrafted upon a dangerous predisposition already inherent in our race. Distress and disorders, following such experiences as Italy has suffered during the past four years, sharpen the thirst for blood and plunder, and release bestial instincts that lurk at the base of our society. So certain criminal propensities of our race, strengthened by the lessons of the war, have been quick to respond to anonymous agitators whom the recent red riots called forth from their obscurity. The regular leaders who originally planned these ill-advised demonstrations must now regard them with horror. Vagrant inciters of sedition, emerging from unknown haunts, mingled with the masses and assumed control at the critical moment. The appearance of such criminals is the only explanation for the infamous crimes of the last few days, which culminated in savagely hunting down officers of the law, and lynching an unfortunate colonel at Turin.

This is not the road that leads to salvation: it is the way to lose everything. Comfort and privation, respectively, may still be characteristics of two distinct social classes. If such tumults continue, they will indeed equalize the condition of all; but it will be an equality of paupers. Destroy the government, and middle classes and workingmen, landlords and tenants,

conservatives and radicals will perish alike in the inundation of evil that will submerge civilization. There are people who never tire of hurling into our ears 'Down with war,' but do not hesitate to expose the entire nation to starvation and ruin.

Would not hesitate? Yes, they would not hesitate. To be sure, our radical deputies in Parliament are not very exultant just now. What they say, and in a still greater degree what they do not say, betrays a chill of fear, a sense of oppressive responsibility. We are not accustomed to abuse our political adversaries, but they must not think that our temperance of language was due to fear lest control of the masses should escape from the class to which we belong. Nor do we accuse our adversaries at least, the best of them-of regarding these masses as mere pliant forces which they can use to gratify their personal ambitions. We believe they look upon the masses as their own flesh and blood. For this reason they cannot witness without horror the tendencies that now reveal themselves. They cannot look forward in cold blood to the probable future of a nation that is pursuing the course which our people have taken during the past few days. Men who hate war because they hate bloodshed, surely cannot close their eyes to that kind of Socialism and that doctrine of fraternity which does not scorn to attain its ends by a St. Bartholomew of government officials. The leaders of the workingmen cite the recent cessation of the strikes as a proof of the solidarity and the discipline of the proletariat. But the proletariat in several cities has answered after its own fashion, by dropping work again the following day and demonstrating, if such a thing were necessary, how easy it is to start a conflagration and how difficult to extinguish one. A fool can

start an avalanche, but the strongest man cannot check its course.

as you

Something more than this is necessary. Above all, we need honestly to examine our own conscience and to follow its dictates with resolution. The Catholics charge the Socialists with deliberately misleading the people. The Socialists retort by denouncing the pious Bolshevism of Miglioli. Are not both the accusers right? And what progress are we going to make by such mutual recrimination? Italy! You may call it ‘a fatherland,' as we do, or 'a people' as the Catholics prefer, or 'the proletariat' as the Socialists demand. Does it not amount to the same thing whichever word you use? Is Italy not a historical and moral personification? Does a mere dispute about names justify such domestic strife, while the fatherland, or the people, or the proletariat may prefer - is drifting rapidly into untold dangers? We are all in a position to do our bit for the common salvation. Let the Catholics abandon the pious Bolshevism of Miglioli. Let the Liberals dispense with their wordy fancies and with tactics as puerile as those of the students at Turin, who started a school strike because one of their companions was barbarously assassinated by. the Bolsheviki. Let the Socialists- above all, the Socialists-who imagine that they have tamed the brute instincts of the masses when they have merely enchained them, bethink themselves before it is too late. Our people are an immature people; our government is an ancient government. We must rejuvenate the latter in the interests of the former; for the people themselves are maturing rapidly. Who are to hold this people in check, if not those who have removed the bit from its mouth? Who will be able to inspire the common people with wisdom, unless it be the

ones who have already inspired them with folly? There is danger if the popular leaders do not keep a firm hand. If the Socialist newspapers continue to throw oil on the fire, while the Socialist deputies in Parliament are throwing water on the fire, the conflagration will continue to spread.

For more than a year we have been sounding the alarm. The governing classes should wake up and take action. They should not tolerate an indefinite postponement of peace and demobilization: or allow a few over-zealous and hot-headed patriots to lay mines that may blow up not only themselves, but all Italy. But we realize that the government is at a disadvantage in defending itself, when so many domestic enemies are ready to stab it in the back.

The Socialist leaders seem unaware that their delinquencies are as serious as those of the government. Who tried to make the Italian people believe that the European war was due to a conspiracy of the capitalists? Authentic documentary proofs are accumulating every day to prove that this guilt rests on Germany and Austria. Who tried to make the people believe that they could remain neutral? Those gentlemen refuse to read the confidential memoirs of Conrad. Did they not try to convince us that neutrality would be a national bless

ing? Let them look at Spain, which is balancing between anarchy and a rule of Janizeries. They describe Russia as a terrestrial paradise. But Lenin can make no headway except with the support of his opponents. They say that the Hungary of Bela Kun was a viceparadise. But their own newspapers are forced to acknowledge that Hungary is voluntarily returning to the rule of the helmet and mitre, and that the Hungarian Socialist party is 'completely disorganized.' True, they have been able to win some votes by shouting against war and glorifying Russia, but they have set a wheel in motion which they cannot stop. They defamed the army, but they opened the way for a bloody pogrom against the officers of the government.

We are not so simple-minded and devoid of common sense as to expect a public confession of these faults. What good would it do, providing it were thinkable? But we ought to change our methods. We shall be forced to do so unless we wish some day to see our snake charmers strangled by their own serpents. You gentlemen who profess to represent the masses in Parliament, bear in mind that if Italy falls the proletariat falls with it. Aye, the proletariat will be the first to fall. Repeat that to yourselves.

A MEMBER of one of the Entente missions recently said to your correspondent: "The greatest man which the war has produced is Noske.' When I inquired why he thought this, he said:

'Last January, Europe was on the very verge of Bolshevism. Noske is the man who rescued our hemisphere from that abyss.'

Noske himself is by nature such an unassuming and modest man, so practical and matter-of-fact in his make-up, that were he to hear this quoted he would protest vigorously against being considered the greatest man of the day, or even a great man. Nor is he in fact a great man. Indeed, if we use a term that has been somewhat cheapened of late to apply only to men of overpowering intellectual greatness, Noske is not a genius. He is merely a clearheaded, sensible citizen. He possesses that healthy common sense which every man in public life should have, and which serves the people far better than genius. Statesmen of genius are often most woeful leaders. Statesmen of common sense are never so. Noske's moral qualities are of the first order. He has great energy, courage, sense of duty, and candor. These are the These are the qualities which have made a basketmaker of Brandenburg the savior of Germany and of Europe. That part of what the Entente diplomat said is unqualifiedly true.

Last January, the Spartacans were almost able to seize the reins of power. If Bolshevism had captured Berlin, it would have taken the rest of Western Europe. Noske was the man who prevented this immeasurable misfortune.

A man who was in Berlin last January, when the repose of the night was broken by the constant spitting of machine guns, and the supporters of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg were seeking to seize the imperial chancery, will never forget the day when Noske's troops, the 'Nosketiers,' as the Berliners later christened them,― that little army which Noske had created out of nothing, concentrated at the gates of Berlin at the critical moment and marched down Potsdam Street into the capital, bringing rescue when hope had almost vanished.

What he started last January he has perfected and completed subsequently. He has organized a National Guard. This small, but effective, army is firmly in the hands of the government. The members of that government, including even the Socialists - who hesitated at first, but learned by bitter experience that political life cannot continue without armed support are determined to employ this military force whenever it is necessary for the sake of maintaining peace and order. That determination is one of the most important practical gains of the year. When the German army dispersed haphazard after the conclusion of the armistice - dismissed, as members of the old government have repeatedly told me themselves, because it could not be kept under the colors - Germany was defenseless. Now we have every reason to believe that it is adequately defended from internal enemies.

Danger from that particular source seems to be diminishing. The wave of