Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends All! youR numerous and enthufliastic attendance here this evening clearly expresses your judgment and your deliberate purpose. Your applause will be the confirmation or the Constitution of the Anti-Fascist Concentration of Australasia, drawn up in the Committee, -consisting of the following gentlemen :-F .. Broccardo, G. Terranova, N. Brancove, S. Lodovico, C. 'Silverstrini, A. Torrigiani and 0. Merluzzi. l do not spealc tO you in the name of the party which I representevery party comes into the coalition, with the full equipment of its theories, without foreswearing any one of them! I do not sp.eak, therefore, in the name of the Catholic party, or the Liberal party, or tho Republican party or the Communist or Anarchist party, etc. I speal< in the name of the whole people of Italy, saving only the Cains, in the name of the people which wishes to 'fnalc.e known~. but cannotfor it is gagged-tb ·file people· of· Australia and may!/"., to. Ylf w9ol~ world, the burning sh'ame of Fascism! History, from its beginning to our ·days, shows us that the most effective means of overthrowing tyranny -apart from the bodily destruction of the tyrant-is the exposure of its deeds and misdeeds. For this reason, the tyrant of all ages is affrighted and infuriated by truth, like the bull by the red rag; and he kills, imprisons, -tortures, exiles all those who venture to proclaim the truth. I have therefore accepted, with all the enthusiasm of lllhich I am capable, the invitation of the Committee to commemorate our great martyr and my own personal friend, Giacomo Matteotti, and to address at the same time an appeal to the Australian people. Thus:- 0The Anti-Fascist Concentration" for Australasia denounces to the Australian people and to its legitimate representative, the Right Hon- \ B1bllotec d C 2 orable Stanley Bru~e, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, Benito Mussolini and his Government! "Liberty is the goal, which is so dear, As he knows, who for it lays down his life." -Dante. Must we keep silent things that are incredible though true, or feign things that are credible, though false, in order to be able to tell them? And for our greater anguish, shall we find credence in things and deeds which had to overcome so much re- • sistance from our inveterate la.w abiding habits, in order to be believed by us, in the time of their inception, and which, in any case, we judged as a reprehensible but transient historical and social excess? Shall a people like that of Australia, which through Jong usage has made the observance of law af\d order its second nature, be able to 1 lend ear and faith to the statement that arbitrary and criminal force is constantly employed as n. means of government for a people with a civiJisation two thousand years old? Right Honorable Sir, you derive your powerful moral authority to direct the destinies and represent the wishes of the Australian people from the legal majority which gave you this mandate, and we, no less readily than any other, offer you due recognition and deference! Neither of these is due to Benito Mussolini, who has usurped his power, and keeps it still, illegally and arbitrarily, to the detriment of a whole nation weighed down by oppression! From the time when, in Oct.Ober, 1H22, with the famous 111nrch on Rome-a march of Italians against their own capital!-which dispassionate historia.ns will soon describe as it was in effect, the most cowardly episode in all civil wnr, being free · from all possible risk, Parliament. Monarchy, Constitution, Legality, Liberty, ceased to exist, except in name and for passing the estimates. 'l'his wretched episode markecl the formal consummation of a whole
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