136 THE RISE OF ITALIAN FASCISM
Influence with the masses, and in any case the party and the
syndicates would be weakened by a violent Internal struggle.
Once they lost their hold on the people the socialist and
reformist syndicalists would be weakened in parliament.
Thus, whether the new government was formed without
them or with only a part of them, the disintegration of the
Socialist Party would be intensified. Mussolini felt finally
that it was impossible for him to guide Italy's foreign policy
in the way he wanted so long as the country was torn by
civil strife. If it ceased, and the socialists, defeated and
divided, could be pushed into the government, the fascist
offensive would have achieved most of its aims after all.
He could therefore calmly await the socialist metamorphosis
and ' with all sincerity 5 hope that it would take place in
the way he had expected and worked for.
Giolitti, for his part, was preparing a similar solution.
He had just quashed a strike of officials of the central
administration of the Post Office and the Finance Ministry,
who had failed completely and had been forced to go back
to work unconditionally under a threat of severe reprisals.
But at the same time he wooed the leaders of the General
Confederation of Labour by yielding up to the c Metal-
lurgical Labour Consortium', a producing co-operative
society emanating from the F.I.O.M., five great state
concerns, the arsenals at Naples and Venice, and the arma-
ment works at Terni, Genoa and Gardone, with the
idea of running them more profitably and lightening the
budget. Henceforward there could clearly be little danger
in Italian ' bolshevism' if it was possible at the end of
May 1921 to trust arsenals and armament works to the same
Metallurgical Federation which eight months ago had
ordered the occupation of the factories.
But Giolitti's master stroke was to get new tariffs worked
out and approved by parliamentary commissions (Alessio's
bill). This was an important turning-point in Italian
economics. Tariff walls were once more to defend national
industry and agriculture. Confederation chiefs and leading
industrialists were in accord over this, for this step would
create employment, and once more provide excess profits
to be shared in some measure between the capitalists and