THE ASSASSINATION OF THE KING OF ITALY. T HE murder of
King Humbert, though a most deplorable event, as increasing the uneasiness, and therefore the severity, of all ruling persons, will not, we think, produce any grave political consequences. It appears to have been ordered by a club of Italian Anarchists in America, probably as an act of vengeance for the rather savage repression evoked by the recent insurrection in Milan. That repression was not due to the King, but as he officially sanctioned it, and was the most conspicuous figure in his Government, the murderers selected him as their victim, and finding, as they very rarely find, an agent who was indifferent to his own fate, they carried out their iniquitous purpose with unusual success. Any man who will give his own life can take that of any other, and Gaetano Bresci seems to belong to the type of men, now common, in whom convictions or passions are so strong as to dominate the usual regard for self. There is no reason to suspect any hand behind that of the Anarchists, for, so far at least as we can see, no party, or State, or Church can derive the smallest benefit from the disappearance of the King. The Anarchists themselves do not benefit, for society, which they hope to dissolve, is not even shaken, and the watchfulness of the police will be stimulated not only by a new zeal among their superiors, but by that general horror and disposition to condemn the guardians of order which is provoked by any great instance of their failure to protect life. A universal disposition to hunt Anarchists down cannot be an advantage to men of Anarchist opinions, and that desire is always strengthened, as we have often pointed out, by any murder of the eminent. The more extreme Liberals of Italy, again, cannot benefit, for every assassi- nation makes thousands of Conservatives, and Humbert I. was not one of the Sovereigns upon whose lives dynasties depend. He was a constitutional ruler who had no wish to be a despot, and who took little interest in adminis- tration except as regarded foreign policy and the discipline of the Army. He would probably have made a great cavalry officer, but except an unusual degree of fearless- ness, which he showed not only in the field, but in visit- ing cholera-hospitals and defying the threats of assassins, be had no qualities striking enough to prevent the growth of Republicanism, which under his reign was very marked. There have been Kings whose existence of itself justified Monarchy, but Humbert of Italy, though a good King enough, could not be counted in the list. The revolutionary party, therefore, does not gain by the King's death, and, indeed, will lose, it being an instinct of the human mind—as Lord Beaconsfield once pointed out—to hope all things, and especially all social improvements, from a new Sovereign. Little is known of the young King ; but he springs from the house of Savoy, which has held its own for a thousand years ; he will have as able advisers as his father, and he will in all human probability pursue the same policy, especially in external affairs. The new Queen, no doubt, was a Princess of Montenegro, and the Montenegrin house is Russian in feeling and in alliances; but Queens Consort have either little influence, or they have ideas which they do not bring with them from their homes. Victor Emanuel III. is little likely to break the Triple Alliance, which protects him alike from France and from the Papacy, and it is only by seceding from that Alliance that Italy can greatly affect the general current of events. Her liking for England in particular does not depend on any individual, but on the fact that the friendship of this country helped greatly to secure her liberation, and now protects her from dangers which might at any moment become serious in the Mediter- ranean. No individual is precisely like another, and Victor Emanuel III. may choose Foreign Ministers whom his father would have found unacceptable, but the maixs lines of his foreign policy are fixed for him by the situation.
As for the Church, it is hard to see that its chances increase with the disappearance of King Humbert. Though the present King has no children, he is young, and in any case the dynasty, which is no doubt the key- stone of Italian unity, is in no danger of extinction. Extreme organs of the Clerical party may conceivably point out that excommunicated Sovereigns do not die old men ; but the spiritual menaces which were faced by Victor Emanuel, who was a sincere believer, anxious on account of his irregular life that the Church should not utterly condemn him, are not likely to appal his grandson. Victor Emanuel IIL, even if he is a fervent Catholic, which is most improbable, as he selected a bride from a house of the Greek faith, has no power whatever to surrender Rome, and it is the surrender of Rome to the Papacy, if not of the Roman States, which is the object of the group of irreconcilables who now direct the policy of the Church. They want the temporal power, which no King of Italy can give, and the Quirinal must therefore remain in antagonism to the Vatican. The struggle between the clericals and Italy, which lies at the bottom of many of the designs which make up European politics, must continue under conditions which are very little changed. It may grow a little fiercer, for the young are imprudent, and King Humbert, who hated no one, probably acted as a moderating influence ; but it is really based on ideas which are unchangeable, and which cannot lose, except through the slow passing away of genera- tions, their driving force. The desire of Italy for unity will not die away, nor the desire of the Roman Church for sovereignty in Rome ; or if either change does occur, it will be due to causes but little affected by the personality of the Italian Sovereign.
The Anarchists have, in fact, only added one more to their long list of absolutely useless crimes ; they have committed a murder, which is a, vulgar offence open to anybody without a conscience and with a revolver, but they have not shaken either society or the world. We hope that the fact will speedily be perceived, and that we shall hear little more of those cries for exceptional and terrible vengeance which only serve to justify the fanatical enemies of society in their own eyes. It is folly and worse to propose the arrest and sentence of all Anarchists, the torture of the guilty, or the expulsion of all suspects from every country. Anarchists who commit or order murder deserve death, and we, at least, believe that of all deterrents ignominious death is the most effectual, but they are as much entitled to justice—that is, to fair trial and full identification, and to an opportunity of being heard—as any other criminals. Nothing is gained by driving them to desperation, and there is this lost, that the natural and instinctive fear of the consequences which will follow if they transmute opinions and resolutions into acts at once loses all its force. They become like men to whom quarter has been refused, and whose only hope, therefore, is to secure all the satisfying vengeance they can before they die. To make a public profession of Anarchical opinions an offence is only to make the Anarchist clubs more secret than ever, and to strengthen their resolution to regard every member who betrays them or who resists their commands as a traitor to the brotherhood, well worthy of the only punishment they are able to inflict. As for threatening torture, what is the gain to the world if Gaetano Bresci the moment he has shot a King passes the supreme sentence on himself, and dies by his own hand ? Anarchists should not be given up to a Holy Inquisition, but hunted, tried, and executed like any other murderers. You will not suppress fanatical hatred of society by proving that society when alarmed is careless of those first principles of ordinary justice which when it is not alarmed it professes to hold so sacred that rather than violate them it constantly acquits the notoriously guilty.
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