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cepted and supported by the very persons who should most strenuosly have resisted them, and we find them brought up for discussion in administrative bodies, proclaimed in the speeches of Cabinet Ministers, in Parliamentary bills, not to mention the Press, in which there was a regular competition, inspired by the most deplorable levity, to keep up with what was described as «the spirit of the times».
The theory of «the land to the peasants», put forward by the extremist parties as a bait to attract the agricultural masses, was seriously considered by the classes who should have made every effort to repel this insidious proposal; and, as a result of constantly talking about it, in many areas regular usurpations of land took place, and the State, i. e. the Government, far from promptly intervening, at first adopted an attitude of culpable tolerance, and subsequently enacted measures (the notorious Visocchi, Falcioni and Micheli decrees), which actually sanctioned and, with the pretext of regulating these violations of the rights of property, legally extended them.
