Week 63

 

Reading the transcriptions of one hundred years old parliamentary sessions is a bit like Alice in Wonderland in reverse – falling into a pit of weird and stuffy figures of speech, and figures most obscure, committed to showcasing the strongest confidence in their own arguments, by overly consistent iterations of words – and to observe all that, in between stupor and disbelief. I always get lost along the way; there's always something worth an aside, and another one, and so on... until it's Saturday and I have to put something together.

Well, here it goes.

 

The session of late November 1918 should have given the Italian Chamber the opportunity to debate the first, most urgent adjustments, necessary for the transition to post war and the eventual return to peace time politics, administration and economical practices. Nonetheless, such transition proved in large part impossible: too hard to dismiss the habits of war, the incensed, violent conflict that had pitted interventionists and neutralists against each other – too fraught the economical matters to allow for any simple, clear cut solution to show a safe way ahead – too ambiguous the political situation, with the recent maximalist turn of the Socialist Party weakening the parliamentary reformers, and the convulsions of the interventionist Fascio Parlamentare stirred by the speech of former Prime Minister Antonio Salandra, the contemporary appearance of another short lived “democratic federation” of a more Wilsonian inclination – and too wide the sea of international politics, for the Parliament to paddle trough it (and after all international matters were not supposed to be the Chamber's main concern), with the Paris Conference and its preparations looming ahead; a decisive factor in the post war settlement of Italian things, that largely escaped the influence and grasp of the Italian Parliament.

As was tradition, the central point of the Chamber's activity was the discussion of the financial budget, that had opened soon enough – before the relation even – after Prime Minister V.E. Orlando's address of the 20^th of November.

But those matters had a natural tendency to tangle up with each other, and the bizarre detour provoked by the violently anti-neutralist Carlo Centurione on the 23^rd and 24^th with his accusations of treason that we discussed in the previous week, had further removed the Parliament works from the path of supposed least resistance.

I had hoped I could try to restore some order, going by themes, and opening with the arguably most urgent one: the budget. But I have realized that oftentimes this approach ends up creating a logical flux of arguments that isn't really there and altering the naturally amorphous structure of a parliament session – which is a bit of a Christmas pudding, or one of those leftovers meal, where everyone finds themselves picking through their plate in a blend of surprise and disappointment. Hence, rather than from the budget, we'll just start from somewhere.

 

Garlic and Onions

Assume one had entered the Chamber in the early afternoon of Monday 25^th of November; they would have found the Ministry of Finances Filippo Meda busy in a rather distinctive argument.

As for garlic and onions – explained Meda - […] I must confess I am not an expert on the issue, but I had never heard that from garlic and onions one could obtain glycerol...

At which point, the chemist and socialist representative Edoardo Bonardi, whose speech of the day before had sparked the whole issue, felt necessary to restate his point:

In a very significant amount!

Meda wasn't sold on it:

I am not an expert […] but I have consulted with many...

Bonardi insisted:

A pity for those chemists

And Meda, who displayed a rather belligerent attitude in his speeches – the issue does feel a bit trivial though

I hope you are right; because I can assure you that if really we can make glycerol with garlic and onions, then our agriculture has just opened a new large field of industrial exploitation. But, even admitting that one can obtain glycerol from garlic and onions, we must observe that garlic and onions have been exported in larger amounts than before the war towards the Allies. The amounts of exports towards Switzerland have instead been decreasing. In 1914 the exports […] were 40 thousand quintals […] in 1915 it fell to 30 thousand quintals […]

After a further interruption from Bonardi, Meda resumed:

Let's be clear; your idea is this one: you have allowed during the war for the exportation of stuff which was used by the enemy. And I am telling that's not true, especially with regards to garlic and onions […] When Switzerland imported 40 thousand quintals of garlic and onions, they did so because of their foodstuff necessities. Later, when we and the allied nations had interest to keep for themselves most of those produces, we limited the exports towards Switzerland and increased those towards France, Great Britain and the United States […] In 1916 Switzerland received 26 thousand quintals; in 1917, after the admonishment from the ministry of consumption and supplies that it was better for those produces to be retained within the country, the exports towards Switzerland were of just 1,938 quintals.

I have failed to establish if and in what measure garlic and onions could be used to produce glycerol – I believe it is possible, being that glycerol is a byproduct of bio-diesel production, but it might not have been the preferable way. Bonardi had raised the issue during the previous Sunday session, in an energetic attack against the “war profiteers”

speculators, war harvesters, people starvers, […] false traders, intermediaries, collectors, requisitioners, hoarders...

And after a long analogy with the years of the French Revolution, and a somewhat questionable praise of the repressive initiative of the 1793-94 French authorities, he came to the case in point:

the symptomatic exportation of certain goods […] in such an amount and in such stark contrast with the pre-war years […] to make sure that those substances were used, in the hands of the formidable scientific and technical German organization, for the production of deadly war materials.

I am certain that, without the large amounts of sulfur, which directly or indirectly came into the hands of the Central Empires, the atrocious war of asphyxiating gases […] would have been impossible. […] You must remember, colleagues, the disappearance from [public] commerce of glycerol. And you are well aware that glycerol [is used to make] nitroglycerin. […] Well, from that point on, there has been an increase in the exports from Italy of one curious, and apparently of secondary relevance, voice: garlic and onions! […] Certainly not for salads and stews, but for the return those produces offer in terms of glycerol, hence in dynamite!

There again, Meda was not convinced by Bonardi's numbers, and – as he explained on his reply of the 25^th

Concerning the exports of sulfur to Switzerland, there had always been a major concern that sulfur could go through and end up in possession of the Central Empires […] For this reason the exports of sulfur had been regulated by a dedicated Committee […] and [for Switzerland] established by the Inter-Allied Committee in 60,000 quintals per year.