THE AUSTRIAN AMNESTY.
Tam Emperor of Austria has granted an amnesty to "all" political offenders in Lombardo-Veneta; a phrase we are told to construe as all offenders whom the Austrians consider "political "—a number, it is said, being detained in the " criminal " category. A system exceptional even in Lombardo-Venetia had prevailed for eight years. There were not only insurgents and suspected insurgents in the dungeons of the great fortresses—there were scores of wealthy nobles in exile, whose estates were under sequestration; and, many of those nobles had become naturalized in a neighbouring constitutional state. The people were not only sullen and disaffected, but they had given and were giving, even under the Emperor's eyes substantial proofs of sympathy with Piedmont—they were subscribing for guns intended to arm a formidable fortress on the Po, which guns were to bear the inscription of "Lombardia con voi." What the Emperor saw at Venice he found at Milan—guard-houses strongly defended with iron palisades, a standing proof of the apprehensions even of his soldiers. In many ways he must have been brought face to face with evidences of a pervading disaffection, galling to the intellect of a statesman and painful to the pride of an Emperor. By a stroke of the pen he has won from even the sullen Milanese a flash of popularity ; and his amnesty was answered by a "spontaneous" illumination and operahouse cheering, so unwonted in La Scala. In this ease, however, "gratitude," if anywhere felt, must have been "a lively sense of favours to come" ; for shortlived will be the popularity of Austria if this act of the Emperor is not the forerunner of a more liberal policy—the removal of the sequestrations, the grant of solid local liberties.
The political value of the amnesty it is not easy to determine. Perhaps the King of Naples will regard it with suspicion; he may look upon it as a hint that what the German Kaiser sees fit to perform, he, the dependent of the Kaiser, should imitate. His contemporaneous conduct, however, rather shows a design to continue his reign of terror. On the Pope and the Grand Duke of Tuscan also it must exert an influence. The Moderate party in Italy 'will doubtless accept it simply as a sign that Austria cannot continue her military seventies in the presence of free Piedmont ; while the statesmen of Piedmont will regard it as what in fact it partly is, the Austrian counter-movement to the bold measures of Count Cavour at Paris in 1856, rendered necessary by the effect of that movement—an effect enhanced by the unbending rigours of Austria on Italian and European public opinion.
But there is one party to whom the amnesty will not be welcome—the party calling itself National, because its aims include independence and unification, but more properly called Republican, because, although it affects to submit to the will of the liceple as regards forms of government, there are few if any ot its members who are not Democratic Republicans. This party, few in numbers, but ardent in faith, and ever conspiring, regard everything that tends to ameliorate the social and political condition of the people as another rivet in the chain that binds Italy to the Stranger. They accordingly view with dread the policy of Piedmont. Putting their faith in revolution alone, they argue, as our Chartists argued in 1841-'2, that if the lower classes were relieved from the stress of the miseries springing from unsatisfied physical wants, they would quietly lapse into a contented dependence on their masters ; forgetting that Issachar, by no means a bright fellow, learned to kick as he waxed in fatness ; and not remembering dat apeople which forgets in days of comfort those great aims it nourished in its days of misery is neither a high people nor one deserving of much sympathy. There may be momenta when
"In voice faint and low, Freedom calls Famine—her eternal foe, To brief alliance, hollow truce" ;
aid notwithstanding the hollowness of the truce, to victory. But those are moments not planned by man, and they are sure to be followed by direful consequences which no one could foresee. It is because Piedmont has entered on the path of gradual change and amendment, and is therefore beyond their reach, that she is not beloved by the children of revolution. If Naples, if Tuscany, were to become constitutional, with a free press, and justice rendered independent of political power, although these would be unquestionably steps towards the goal of Italian freedom, yet they would be regarded as so many obstacles rising in the path of the men who conceive that Italy can be only set free by a sudden blow. They do not see that if Austria were surrounded by free states, she would either have to imitate their freedom or evacuate her dominion. Rigid military despotism would be then as impossible a policy for her, as the continuance of Negro slavery would have been for the original Slave States of the American Union, had they, since 1784, been girdled with a belt of freemen.
Throughout all nature the law seems to prevail that slow growth is essential to durability. All powerful and prosperous nations have grown up slowly, battling stiffly each step in their career. The Roman empire endured because it grew by degrees, and consolidated today what it acquired yesterday. The Macedonian and French empires were transitory, because they did not grow, but rather expanded like glass under the breath of flame 7-till they cracked. England, Russia, and America, are expandmg on the Roman system under our oyes. Nor is the domestic life of nations exempt from this law. England has grown into a free state ; she has not leaped suddenly into a state of freedom. Is it likely that Italy is or can be an exception to a law so strikingly exemplified in the history of nations ? If Italy would be free from the Stranger, she must grow free step by step, not strive to spring, by brilliant but abortive insurrections, into a state of freedom. Holding fast by the delusive faith in insurrections, the Republicans believe that they were beaten in 1848 because the leader of the Piedmontese was a King,—blind to the true reason, that the King was beaten simply because he was neither a Napoleon nor a Cresar. What Italy wants is a fulcrum. for her popular lever ; that fulcrum can only be acquired by winning and consolidating the small liberties that opinion can extort from the justice or the fears of power.
The Austrian amnesty is gladly accepted, not so much for its intrinsic worth, as for the promise it implies of a policy of concession. The Emperor will be sadly deceived if he thinks the display of good feeling on Sunday will be permanent unless he adopt further measures—unless he inspire confidence, by ceasing
to govern through spies and corporals, and institute a reform in the habits and bearing of his troops. But, as we read the signs of the times, a liberal policy, or an ultimate defeat, perhaps not remote, is the alternative offered to Austria since Piedmont stood forward as the European champion of Italy.
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