The fate meted out to Dalmatia makes us very sad. But the fault does not lie wholly with the negotiators of the eleventh hour; the renunciation had already been made in Parliament, in the papers and in the universities themselves, where a professor printed a book, which was naturally translated at Zagabria, in which he proved, in his own way, that Dalmatia is not Italian. The Dalmatian tragedy lies in this ignorance, bad faith and want of understanding; faults which we hope to repair with our work by making Dalmatia known, loved and defended.
The treaty, once signed, could be annulled in one of two ways: by outside war or internal revolution. Both equally absurd. You do not make the people throng the squares in order to change a peace treaty after five years of bloodshed. Nobody is capable of working such prodigies. It was possible to cause a revolution in Italy in order to obtain intervention; but to cause a revolution in November 1920, in order to annul a peace treaty which, good or bad, had been accepted by ninety-nine per cent. of the Italian people, could not be considered. I do not mind much about coherence, but there are stenographic records which bear witness to the fact that I steadily refused to go against the treaty either by promoting outside war or internal revolution. I considered that it was also dangerous to get mixed up in an armed resistance to the treaty.
_The Tragedy of Fiume._ Two months of polemics and daily articles during November and December bear witness to my support of the cause of Fiume, and my open and strong opposition to the Parliament.
It is a pity that oblivion falls so quickly on the words of a daily paper; and I have not the melancholy habit of unearthing what I publish. But the undeniable truth is this: that day after day I fought so that the Government at Rome should recognise the Government at Fiume; so that the representatives of the Regency should be invited to Rapallo; and so that the Government at Rome should avoid any armed attack on Fiume. At the outset I called the attack of Christmas Eve an enormous crime, and I always upheld the spirit of justice, liberty and free-will which were the inspiration of the legions of Ronchi.