Award Ceremony Speech

Ernesto Teodoro Moneta was born in Milan in 1833. At the age of fifteen he took part in the war of liberation against the Austrians, and in 1859 he fought at Garibaldi's side in both North and South Italy. In 1866 Moneta was an officer in the war with Austria, but after that campaign he retired from the army and has since devoted himself to journalism. In his thirties he became editor-in-chief of the Milan newspaper Il Secolo, one of the most important newspapers in Italy, and since 1898 he has published the periodical La Vita internazionale.

Since 1870 Moneta has belonged to the international peace movement and is its most important Italian representative. He has been a member of the Commission of the International Peace Bureau since 1895. With his prominent position in the Italian press, he has enjoyed excellent opportunities to promote his views. Special emphasis must be placed on his work in the press and in peace meetings, both public and private, for an understanding between France and Italy - work which dates back as far as the beginning of the modern-day enmity between these two countries.

In 1887 Moneta founded the Lombard Peace Union, of which he is now president. He has organized several peace meetings in Italy and in 1906 presided over the fifteenth International Peace Congress in Milan.

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* On December 10, 1907, at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, Mr. Løvland, also at this time Norway's foreign minister, welcomed the audience and paid tribute to the memory of King Oscar II of Sweden (the last king to reign over the union of Sweden and Norway before its dissolution in 1905) who had died two days before. After a speech on «The Second Peace Conference» by Committee member Francis Hagerup, Mr. Løvland announced the joint winners of the Peace Prize for 1907, Mr. Moneta and Mr. Renault. He followed his announcement with a biographical sketch of each. That of Mr. Moneta is given here as the presentation speech. The translation is based on the Norwegian report in the Oslo Aftenposten of December 10, 1907.