The whole country, united where it is usually divided, will tomorrow celebrate with all the stops that a country's officialdom can afford, the Sette Giugno riots and the killing of at least four Maltese 100 years ago.

There is unanimous agreement about this - both government and Opposition are in agreement, as do this country's intelligentia, writers, screenplay authors, musicians and the lot.

But all this official hoopla still glosses over, even after 100 years, the slur against the entrepreneurs, the millers, whose houses and factories were ransacked by the rioters.

Agreed, those were bad times for the Maltese. Not for the first time in Maltese history, the Maltese benefited when there was a war going on and starved when there was peace.

Jobs were lost, prices rose, poverty became widespread. People became restless.

At the same time too, there was political agitation in favour of more share by the Maltese in governing their island. Students were on the forefront as well as those in favour of retaining the Italian language and opposing the British presence.

What happened on the day led to at least four Maltese dying when they, or some of them at least, were not out to cause trouble and even had no idea what was happening.

Their killing inflamed people and led the British to hurriedly give the Maltese a modicum of self-government and for the first time a Parliament.

But we're anticipating things here.

What happened on 7 June 1919 was that the amorphous and leaderless crowd turned on the millers and blamed them for the high price of bread. But historical research has shown that the millers themselves were conscious of the impact of the high price of bread and had offered mitigating measures which would be of a cost to themselves.

The crowd did not want to hear: they had already ransacked the office of the Daily Malta Chronicle which did not agree with the strike by the dockyard workers. The three leading milling families - the Cassar Torreggianis, the Francias and the Farrugias (later to become Farsons) - were attacked. The Cassar Torreggiani house was ransacked.

Next, the crowd moved to Hamrun and attacked and destroyed the Francia flour mill, then to Qormi where it did the same to the Farrugia flour mill.

Meanwhile, a panicked and inexperienced British official gave the order to fire upon the crowd and the first unfortunate deaths occurred.

On the next day, the crowd gathered again and ransacked the Francia house (in front of today's Parliament) and eyewitnesses later described seeing pianos and curtains being thrown out of the windows.

Then, as spontaneous as it had begun, the rioting stopped after many appeals were made.

The killing of unarmed Maltese was a terrible misfortune but history has always sided with the Maltese victims and looked askance at the millers who in those dangerous days were doing their job and employing people.

But then, we're used to this anti-capitalist stream in our national DNA - think of the long National Bank saga, for example.

In time, the three milling companies moved on - Farrugia, as said, became Farsons, the Cassar Torreggianis went into fuel products and the Francias moved on, leaving us the Lija Villa Francia as their gift to the Malta that stood by while the rioters ransacked their beloved house.