THE CHAOTIC STATE OF TORY ITALIAN POLICY.
AS we are daily threatened with a new regime of Tory Government, it would be well if we could ascertain what Tory Government in foreign policy—especially Italian policy —will mean. In Home Affairs, now that the Tories have fairly disburdened themselves of Mr. Disraeli's uncomfortable paradox, that they are the only true and safe Reformers, there is an intelligible and straight path before them. They will stand as much as possible in the old ways, and stick by the present electoral system ; they will hug ihe fetters of the Church and Universities, and protect their privileges, not only against the Anti-State-Church fanatics, but against all libe- ralizing movements ; they will foster education heartily so far as they can do so without endangering any further the eccle- siastical influence of the Church ; they will introduce really good law reforms so' long as Sir Hugh Cairns is their lead- ing adviser ; and they will cement the alliance with Roman Catholics so far as the country and Orange party, represented by Mr. Newdegate and Mr. Whalley, will, allow them. In colonial affairs the Tory and Whig policy is now nearly identical. The Tories would rule India with a leaning to the landed interest that is by no means injurious to the consolidation of our rule there, as Lord Canning, who, in this respect, evidently leans to the views of Lord Ellen- borough, has shown in his administration of Oude ; and with regard to our parliamentary colonies, the Tories have not for a long time shown any disposition to draw the reins at all tighter than the Liberals. So far, then, the Tories have a Blear field before them, and a line which, we are bound to say, though on home affairs less wise, is not on the whole less popular than that of the Liberals.
But on foreign policy they are really bound to give us some coherent manifesto of party views ; for a greater and more dangerous jumble than the convictions of their leaders on these questions it is scarcely possible to find. For ex- ample, Sir E. B. Lytton, who on all points on which he has a conviction at all, has proved himself by far the most wise and liberal of lea party, declares in his recent speech at Hitchin his hearty sympathy with the great movement which has given unity to Italy, in terms that contrast very strangely indeed with the expressed views of his late col- leagues. " When I last addressed you," he says, " what was Italy ? A number of petty States, in which the friends of order were the mere puppets of Austria, whilst the friends of freedom seemed only wild conspirators who could not use any other weapon than the miserable dagger of the assassin. Now, it is Italy, a great nation with a consti- tutional monarch ; the tyrant is gone, and let us hope the assassin also will disappear. We have a direct national interest iu the entrance of Italy into the ranks of consti- tutional monarchies." It seems, then, that had Sir E. B. Lytton held the seals of the Foreign-office during the autumn of 1859 and the year 1860, he would have done what in him lay, with as hearty a good will as Lord Russell himself, to nullify the compact of Villafranea, and secure for Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and the Romagna, the right to merge themselves under the Italian crown of Victor Emanuel ; and we need not doubt that he approved heartily, like Lord Ellenborough, of the great exploits of Garibaldi, which carried the enthusiasm of union down to the extremity of Calabria and Sicily. Here, then, we have two eminent Tory statesmen, the former Colonial and Indian Secretaries, in emphatic and even enthusiastic unison with the Italian policy of the Liberal Government. Nor can it be doubted for a moment that Sir E. B. Lytton wishes, as heartily as Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell, to see Venetia rescued, whether by diplo- macy or force, out of the hands of Austria, and the French troops well out of Rome. We are sincerely glad to find such very unconservative—such almost revolutionary views, seiz- ing on the hearts of two of the most distinguished members of the Tory Cabinet. But what are we to say of the remainder— of the two leaders, and of the late Foreign Secretary to whom Lord Russell has given unsolicited so excellent a character ? Lord Derby's declared attitude towards the unification of Italy has been one of slightly but decidedly unfriendly neu- trality. He told us at the opening of the session that if the dream of a united Italy could be realized, he would look upon it without jealousy, provided it is not only great and united, but really independent of France. At the same time he condemned, not sparingly, every act by which it had been brought about ; he condemned the King of Sardinia vehe- mently for his countenance of Garibaldi ; he condemned him still more for his intervention in Naples ; be condemned Lord Russell yet more vehemently for approving that in- tervention. In subsequent debates he has expressed his anti- Sardinian bias—his horror of the supposed Italian designs on Venetia, and his sympathy with that " much injured" prince the ex-Duke of Modena—still more strongly. In short, Lord Derby has never been at any pains to conceal his disgust for Count Cavour's policy and for all its great consequences. Were he to come into power next year, we should know that in any danger to Italy his bias would be Austrian. Were France, for instance, from any cause to take umbrage with Italy—disgusted, we will say, with Ricasoli's refusal of all hope of future territorial cessions—and publicly withdraw her countenance, and were Austria to seize the occasion to reconquer Italy, we should find in Lord Derby no disposition to shield the kingdom of Italy from Austrian vengeance. So far from sympathizing with Lord Ellenborough and Sir E. B. Lytton, we have every reason to believe from his speeches that he would stand coldly by, and say, "Let Sardinia reap what she has sown." With the Tory leader in the House of Commons the matter stands still worse. Mr. Disraeli has not hesitated to avow his conviction that England should have used all her influence to enforceithe conditions of the treaty of Zurich. So far from upholding the right of the Italians to settle their own destiny, he condemned the Liberal Minister in the strongest terms for not exerting himself to get the conditions of that treaty carried out. So, he said, and only so, we might have prevented the seizure of Savoy and Nice, and avoided the danger of thrbw- ing Italy entirely into the arms of France. He, at least, has openly and publicly declared against the enfranchisement of Italy, and has committed himself to playing off Austria, not only north but south of the Alps, against France. Lord Malmesbury has been much praised by both friend and foe for his singular wisdom and moderation. Lord Russell has delivered his testimony in his favour, and that testimony has been caught up and echoed with triumph from a hundred Tory mouths. For our own part, we are extremely reluctant to believe that Lord Russell would really have acted at all as Lord Malmesbury did during the first three months of 1859. We read the despatches carefully at the time, and have them now before us. The policy they contain was in its whole animus anti-Sardinian. Lord Malmesbury preached and scolded at Sardinia, while, in the most modest way, he remonstrated with France. While straining every nerve to retain the treaties of 1815 intact, he would not even support the just request of Count Cavour, that Sardinia should be represented in the Congress proposed by Russia to smoothe away the mutual differences of Austria and Sardinia. Although Austria and Sardinia were the main parties to the quarrel, although Sardinia really represented the whole sentiment of Italy, yet Lord Milmesbury would not hear of her pleading that cause her- self in the Congress that was to deliberate on the grievances of Italy. He declined Count Cavour's request with a strong intimation that Sardinia was the true culprit. And when, on the breaking out of the war at last, the French Government requested the co-operation of England in her Italian policy, the reply to Count Walewski was,—not a re- buke to France (which was the true feeling in the Foreign Minister's heart), but a not very manly philippic against Sardinia. Lord Malmesbury, while expressly saying that the Government " do not presume to constitute themselves judges of the course which France considers herself bound in honour to pursue in this last and fatal period of the con- troversy," has no scruple at all in constituting himself the judge of the course which Sardinia—though in every way acting from far purer and nobler motives than France— had thought right to pursue.
"But if her Majesty's Government do not shut their eyes to the defects of the system upon which Austria has acted in Italy, and which could hardly fail, sooner or later, to entail upon Austria a fearful unpopularity, and upon Italy the concomitant miseries of a social or of a foreign war, neither can they hold Sardinia blameless for the course she has pursued in these latter times, and which has now produced its certain and lamentable results. . . . " It was in an evil hour for herself, and for Europe, that Sardinia lent herself to dreams of ambition and aggrandizement, and forgetful of the little sympathy shown in 1848 by the Milanese for her cause, and their ingratitude for her gallant actions, she has provoked the war in which she is now engaged.
" By violating her treaties of extradition with Austria; by foster- ing deserters from her army; by rallying in Piedmont the disaffected spirits of Italy; by menacing speeches against the Austrian Govern- ment, and by ostentatious declarations that she was ready to do battle as the champion of Italy, against the power and influence of Austria, Sardinia invoked the storm, and is deeply responsible to the nations of Europe. Her Ma]jesty's Government saw this dangerous policy with apprehensions, which have now been realized, and they cannot forbear from remarking that the first and immediate effect of the war which it has caused has been the suspension of constitutional government in Sardinia itself."
Is this the tone, is this the political attitude which a Foreign Office with Lord Russell at its head would have thought it right to assume ? We trust not. We believe that Lord Russell scarcely knew what he said when he endorsed Lord Malmesbury's despatches. The evident and conspicuous wish at the bottom of all these despatches was to sustain the power of Austria intact in Lombardo-Venetia, to rebuke all the aspirations of the Italian patriots, and to hold France back by acting on her through hectoring Piedmont. We must add that Lord Malmesbury's speeches, after he left office, were uniformly of the same cast—reiterated and even vehement pleas for the Italian dukedoms, especially for the Duchess of Parma, and bitter criticisms on the unifying Sardinian policy. The bias which Lord Derby was at no pains to conceal worked itself out by Lord Malmesbury's not very efficient hand. Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald has uniformly evinced the same bias as his chief.
ATory contemporary yesterday maintained that Lord Derby would carry out the non-intervention policy more thoroughly than the Liberals. " The doctrine of non-intervention and peace as regards this country would be better ensured and in safer hands under the administration of the Earls of Derby and Malmesbury than under the management of a Cabinet com- posed of heterogeneous elements pledged to very advanced opinions. As an illustration of this, it might be inferred that with a Conservative Ministry the unity of Italy would be steadily encouraged. At the same time good care would be taken not to weaken the real power of Austria as a great central force between France and Russia." This sufficiently indicates the bias with which the non-intervention would be interpreted by the Tory party. Lord Ellenborough and Sir E. B. Lytton, though the most eloquent, and in some respects most able, are by no means the influential members of a Tory Cabinet. Lord Derby, Lord Malmesbury, and Mr. Disraeli are more than a match for the only colleagues who feel a real sympathy with Italy. On the other hand, the Liberal Government is absolutely united on this point ; Lord Palmerston, Lord Russell, and Mr. Gladstone, agree- ing on it with a warmth which they probably feel on scarcely any other subject.
Moreover, there is this reason to distrust these sporadic ap- pearances of a liberal Italian policy among the Tories, that the mass of thi Tory party incline to Austrian sympathies, just as the mass of the Liberal party incline against Austria. And the leaders are inevitably influenced by this. Their own views become more pronounced when they are heartily backed, and there can be little doubt that if the Tories were once in power, the free classical sympathies of one or two leading men among them would soon be stifled in that close conservatory of Austrian traditions. Hardly can the strong sympathy of the Liberals with Hungary restrain even the Liberal leaders from the expression of wishes hostile to Hun- gary. A Conservative Government would hold an unfriendly neutrality towards Italy, and openly make common cause with Austria north of the Alps. We trust that no such shame is in store for the English people.
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