NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE reports of Italy now incline more to peace ; and the known facts being put together, they tend to corroborate that happier appearance.
Th Austrian Government is so straitened for money, that it has nable even to postpone the exhibition of its wants to a MOM inopportune. The Government has for some time
undert to support the railway share market by .being a pur-
chaser of shares at a fixed price—in effect guaranteeing a certain amount to the shareholders of the authorized railways. It has now found it necessary to support the public stocks by a similar operation : but neither its means nor its credit were sufficient to carry on the two classes of operation together; and so, to perform the one most urgent for its own interests, it dropped the support of the railway shares. Loud was the indignation of the monied public at that breach of faith, which even a Rothschild openly deprecated; and the Government was obliged to resume its in- convenient patronage of railway shares. But if Austria is com- pelled to carry on money operations which are confessedly so difficult, how could she enter upon a war so uncertain in extent, continuance, and cost, as one for the maintenance of Absolutism in Italy ?
Or how could she find credit among capitalists, reminded as they are unceasingly, by overt manifestations in every province of the empire, that a war with Italy would be the signal for a struggle to obtain popular power in the Sclavonian and German provinces of Austria ? This week we see instances of the demands which areinceasantiy transmitted from the provinces to Vienna, for concessions similar to those which the more judicious Princes of Italsy are planning for their subjects. War with Italy waged by Prince Metternich's Government would be a war with Aus- tria also ; and how would the Government of a country war- ring upon itself and its own provinces, fighting against the necessities of the time and the growing opinions of Europe—a Government marking itself out as belonging to the past, and inviting dismemberment—how would a Government so placed find credit with the great public money-lenders ? On the other hand, there are rumours and hints that Austria is about to establish a new form of local government in Lom- bardy ; which looks much as if the mistakes of the past were about to be superseded, and swallowed up, as it were, in a new movement, so as to attain the advantages of retracting without its humiliation. The Pope, too, is said to have abated some of his stiffness on the point of the Ferrara occupation.
On the surface, therefore, Italian affairs wear a more smiling aspect ; and the conduct of her people and princes, wise and good, seems likely to meet its reward. The prudence of the people has been a characteristic of this movement not less remarkable than the liberality of the more enlightened princes ; Pius the Ninth having set the example to both. The leading men of Italy will no doubt perceive what responsibility is thrown upon them, by the • very hopefulness of their position, to maintain that prudence. Everything may be obtained by it.
