TOPICS OF T - HE DAY.
THE NEWEST ASPECT OF THE ITALL1N QUESTION. THE address of Victor Emmanuel to the Piedmontese soldiers is the promulgation of a fortune for Italy which was not within the range of her imagination, ranch less her hopes. Not to say it invidiously, the act practically supersedes Garibaldi as the fore- most leader of Italy. It is apparent, indeed, in the very conduct of that gallant Captain, that he has invited his King at each stage to take the chief command ; and we believe that no man will so heartily welcome Victor Emmanuel's courageous and sagacious step as Garibaldi. The popular leader remains still the acting chief in Naples, and he will never lose his place, either in history or in the affections of his country; for he has added himself to the short list of men who have made Italy what she is and what she is about to be the morrow. For a short time, the leader in the field appeared to be going forward in a. course separate from that of the National party ; the step now taken by Victor Emma- nuel reunites that party and all its leaders, most hopefully prog- nosticating the absolute union with which Italy seems about to be endowed.
How does it affect the position of the Italian King towards the French Emperor? Journalism has after its own sad fashion been niaking merry with the confusion which is supposed to be intro- duced into Napoleon's Italian relations by the proceedings of the Italians; but there is no sufficient reason yet to suppose that this lu- gubrious jest has any foundation in fact. Certain of our London contemporaries have been delighted because the Constitutionnel and some other semi-official journals in Paris, have been preaching at Garibaldi and the Sardinian Government, in a sense depre- cating precisely what Victor Emmanuel has now done, and what Garibaldi has been doing for the last few months ; since these journals are "semi-official," it is imaginea that they receive the inspiration of the Emperor Napoleon ; and the /Ifoniteur has gone further, with a more formal statement why the French Am- hessador 'withdraws from Naples. Hence it is assumed the Emperor is displeased by the entrance of the Piedmonte.se into the Roman territory. He has' say these prophets of evil, com- mitted himself to the maintenance of the Pope as the Sovereign of Rome, he has protested against aggression ; at Marseilles he has declared in favour of immediate peace, and Victor Emmanuel, having broken these conditions, must be treated by Napoleon as an adversary. Upon the face of the known facts there is no such Inconsistency, no such complication. The Emperor Napoleon seems to be in agreement with Great Britain upon the subject of intervention in Italy. In other words, while no foreign Power interferes, he abstains from interfering, leaving the Italians to settle their own affairs in their own way. He may advise ; he has unquestionably suggested caution ; but there is no evidence that iirthis last proceeding King Victor Emmanuel has acted without the passive sufferance of his powerful ally. If the conflict be limited to Italy, intervention being restrained elsewhere, peace is secured throughout the rest of Europe. In this ease, the fire is kept to that space within which it is already burning, while we secure the greatest probability of its being speedily extinguished even there.
With regard to the preachings in the Parisian papers, there are certain well known facts which at once dispose of those un- doubtedly peculiar manifestoes. In the first place, we have no reason to suppose that any journal in Paris has what we under- stand by a "semi-official" cfiaraeter. Public writers in the different journals may have their own personal relations with gentlemen in office, and such relations may be no secret; but the only paper in Paris which represents the Government, directly, avowedly, and accurately, is the Moniteur. Any other quasi- official relations may sometimes be a convenience to individual statesmen ; but they have seldom assisted the broad influences of the Imperial Government; while on the other hand, we have not failed to note very striking inconveniences arising from such rela- tions. Our readers will remember a case not lessremarkable than any now before us in which certain dabblers in Spanish politics actually obtained us, possession even of the Moniteur. It will be remembered, also, that that curious intrusion took place during the absence of the EmperorNapoleon from his capital. He is absent now ; and if in the absence of the master the servants are too faithful to their leading foible in the French character—an egotistical-self-assertion,-.-we need not mislead ourselves by twist- ing such signs of the national character into authenticated decla- rations of the Emperor Napoleon's will and purpose. The semi- official manifestoes then, go for nothing ; the action of King Vic- tor Emmanuel, after a conference of one of his statesmen with the Emperor, goes for much; and comparing the present juncture with those which have preceded it, we can understand that the Emperor Napoleon, as he has Alone before at each juncture, will eventually accept the-situation. How will the present turn of affairs affect the Papacy ? This question, indeed, has an importance which can scarcely be ex- aggerated. Since the promulgation of Massimo d'Azeglio, s note, each of the imperial, royal, and ducal Governments in Italy has had more than one_ chance offered to it ; and, with the exception of Sardinia every Government in Italy has refused each-succes- sive opportunity and accepted defeat. The only one of those reactional y Governments now remaining to accept or to refuse is
Rome. The Papacy, indeed, no longer has precisely the situation
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offered to it in D'.Azeglio's :note, with the suzerainty of the Ro- magna and the princely Government of Rome ; it no longer has the municipality virtually suggested for it by the Villafranca compromise ; but it has something else. It may still preserve the actual residence in Rome, and thus keep to itself the ancient centre of Christian episcopacy in Roman Catholic Europe. To our mind the position which is now awaiting the acceptance or refusal of Pius the Ninth is far better than any which has been planned before. Letns regard it for a moment abstractedly. It appears to be this ; the Pontiff would retain his freehold in the Vatican ; he would be the head of the Church in Italy, and. through the Roman Catholic world, unremoved, spiritually un- dethroned. As to the temporal responsibilities, they have at once painfully illustrated the boasted infallibility of the office, and tempted successive Popes to arrogate a literal infallibility wholly different from that ascribed to the office in a genuine spirit of Christian humility and candour. Released from these temporal complications, the Pontiff could no longer be twitted with the gross and paltry mistakes of men carrying on affairs in his name. De- voting himself more thoroughly to the spiritual administration of a church which compasses the globe, he and. his advisers would. naturally be led to regard their duties in a far better spirit, and to put a more rational construction upon the infallibility which they might still be assumed to hold ax-officio; just as the apes- tolical succession confers a pertain technical infallibility upon any strictly faithful administrators of the Anglican Church. In the meanwhile, however, a great and tempting opportunity would be made for the Italian clergy to take a position which it has never assumed in modern days. Instead of committing itself to a war a Poutrance with the progress of knowledge,—the most fatal blunder ever made by any ohurch,—it might, and most likely it would, become a powerful collaborator with Italian intellect. Already, therefore, the course of events directed by the newly re- sumed command of Victor Emmanuel seems to dose the question of temporal administration for the Pontiff; while it seems to form the commencement of a new tem, in which the Catholic Church may become more Catholic and more powerful than ever. Given success to the new enterprise, and Italy becomes, before 1861, not federated, not " united " in a simply moral sense, but actually consolidated. This boon is conferred upon Italy at a. period when all her energies are reawakened. We have already suggested how much Italy has suffered, by the remarkable fact that she led the way in European civilization, consolidating her municipal and political system before Europe had thought out any of the preliminary problems. She has had, therefore, great lee-way to make up in the comparison with other nations who have profited by her experiences and her teaching. But her struggles during the lifetime of the present generation have not been in vain ; comparing her progress with that of her oppressors, she will be' seen to leave them in medimval darkness, while she has held her own, even. in comparison with those nations that are most advanced. No sooner is the ban taken_ off her writers than the genius of her, literature recovers its activity, and the press is now teeming with historical and political works vindicating the immortal repute of Italy. The most recent advances of science, in the least explored of subjects—electricity, for instance—have in their very latest steps profited by the acumen and vigour of Italian intellect. No sooner is the nation resuming a full political existence, or rather first establishing it, than her inventive faculties meet the want of the day in military engineering. Free-trade is already, even while the country shakes with civil war, arousing the energy of agriculture. Amongst her patriots, Italy boasts the greatest of dramatic musicians, still living ; in preparing the ground, the foremost man among the statesmen who have made her what she is, and what she is about to be, D'Azeglio, used the immortal art of his country ; and the more businesslike statesmanship of administration is found in Cavour, a man capable of leading his compatriots to cooperate with the countrymen of Peel or of Napo- leon. It so happens that, at the present moment, we see most great states of the world struggling with some domestic question —Germany, for instance, with the question of nationality as op- posed to administrative severances ; Russia with serf-emancipa- tion, and the rights of the trading classes as opposed to the privi- leges of a barbaric nobility ; the United States with slavery, or rather with the sectional interests arising out of that injurious property; and. our own country is but resting after-going through questions not less momentous. Italy is working out the question of her own existence ; but in that existence are involved intellect, inventive power, art,. and all the influences that can stimulate the growth of civilization, and enlarge the welfare of mankind.
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