true the more serious accusation shortly to be hurled abroad that
Giolitti had sold himself for German gold. The latter is easy to say
and hard to prove; the former is hard to prove and easy to believe--it
being the way of politicians the world over.

However dull or bright Giolitti's personal honor may have been,
the Parliamentary situation was difficult in the extreme--one of
those absurd paradoxes of representative government liable to happen
any time. Here were five hundred-odd elected representatives of the
people owing allegiance, really, not to the King, not to the nation,
not to the responsible ministers in charge of the state, but to the
politician Giolitti. If they had been elected under the stress of
the war, after the 1st of August, 1914, they might not have been the
same personal representatives of Giovanni Giolitti. We cannot say.
Democracies are prone to be deceived in their chosen representatives:
they discover them mortgaged to a leader, secret or open. The Salandra
Government knew, of course, Giolitti's prejudices in favor of Italy's
old allies, disguised as patriotically _neutralista_ sympathies. He
had discreetly retired to little Cavour in Piedmont all the winter,
maintaining a disinterested aloofness throughout the prolonged
negotiations. Yet he knew, the Salandra Government and the King knew,
the people knew, that Giovanni Giolitti must be reckoned with before
Parliament could be opened to ratify the acts of the ministers, to
support them in whatever measures they had prepared to take. It would
be simple political insanity to open the Chamber before Giolitti had
been dealt with, leading to acrid discussions, scandal, the inevitable
downfall of the ministry, and political chaos. The nation must be united
and express itself unitedly by its legal mouthpieces before the world.

* * * * *