Times | 19 Dicembre 1936

The Times |  December 19, 193

The Times | December 19, 193

“A Fairy Tale” FROM OUR O\WN CORRESPONDEN1t ROME, DEC. IS On the anniversary of ” Wedding Ring Day” and of the defiant speech at Pontinia, Signor Mussolini to-day visited the township of Littoria, in the Pontine Marshes, and after. bestowing rewards upon a number of the most meritorious agricultural labourers made a speech summarizing the Italiin successes of the past year and reminding the nation that further trials may lie ahead. Signor Mussolini began by recalling how they had conquered the Empire in seven months and how they had pacified it in barely three months, so that there were now 115,000 labourers engaged on road building, and added: ” All this has been done in the face of everything and of everybody.” At the same time, in spite of ” sanctions,” there had been no relaxation in the policy of ” moving to- wards the people.” Measuires had been taken to elevate the people morally and materially, and in this sphere Italy not only had nothing to learn from anybody, but could teach some- thing to all. After having declared that the man who abandoned the soil without some supreme motive was a deserter false to himself and to the Italian people, Signor Mussolini concluded by a wvarning that peace was not perpetual. Recalling the speech made at Avellino on August 30 at the close of the Army manoeuvres, he said: * I asked then whether all accounts had been settled. All the African accounts have been settled down to the last centesimo. Other accounts are open, others questioned, but I believe firmly that thev will be settled by normal means as we desire and as we wish. For while we Fascists reject the unthinking fairy tale of a perpetual peace, which never existed in the world and which never can exist, we desire that the period of peace may be as long as possible.” Turning to a group of women from Minturno who were carrying olive branches, he said: “Lift up your olive branches all the same; you know with what we accompany them”-a reference to his phrase about an olive branch sprouting from a forest of 8,000,000 bayonets. which brought the speech to an end amid wild applause. “A FAIRY TALE.”; ——8 THE DUCE AND PERPETUAL PEACE

The Times |  December 19, 193

The Times | December 19, 193

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