Page:Giuseppe Bianchini - The Work of the Fascist Government and the Economic Reconstruction of Italy - tr. Luigi Villari.pdf/33

 sonality of Francesco Crispi, imbued as he was with the spirit of the country's greatness, whereas the little men who with so much acrimony fought his ideals, have been completely forgotten. Who now remembers Brofferio, who in the Sub-Alpine Parliament hurled his bitter invectives against Cavour? Who remembers that little man who in those days managed to fill the papers with his outcries and who appeared in the guise of a defender of freedom crushed by the aristocratic Cavour?

The opponents of the present Government, who regard thenselves, I know not why, as the spiritual successors of Cavour, tell us that he would have disapproved of the present state of things. This method of making the dead talk is indeed too convenient and somewhat childish. I certainly do not. profess to know what Cavour would have done or said in the present circumstances. He could not, however, have failed to observe the work accomplished by the Fascist Government in two short years for the reconstruction the country, nor how much has been achieved to revive national idealism, nor to note that, whereas on the one side men are acting with a sense of rectitude