NEWS OF VIE WEEK.
THE Plenipotentiaries at Zurich• have been winding up their special business and clearing the ground for the discussion whether or not the Congress shall be held.
The business transacted at Zurich, however, although most remarkable perhaps as a preliminary, is of great substantive value, and of still greater prospective capability. The principles secured there are of great importance. We now have something like the text of the Treaty, and our readers will be able to as- certain the degree to which our information of the proceedings in that place has been correct, and how far it has enabled us to es- timate the exact position of the contracting Powers. Austria cedes Lombardy, and her own previous freedom to use force in the maintenance of her allies the Dukes. On the other hand, France cedes the payment of four millions sterling and the lia- bility for the debt of the Imperial Government to the Lombardo- Venetian savings banks, to the amount of about ten millions sterling ; and France also cedes a certain degree of her own freedom in pledging herself to joint action with Austria, not only to promote reforms in the territories of the Pontiff, but also to promote confederation of the Italian States, with Venetia as an in- tegral member of that federation; the rights of the non-bellige- rent Italian States being reserved for the consideration of the Powers. When we have before reported the proceedings at Zu- rich, we have stated that the details were liable to change from time to time ; but in its broad characteristics, this compact is exactly what we described it to be. The reader will easily per- ceive that while the Treaty pledges the Emperor Napoleon to cooperate with Austria in procuring the assent of the Pontiff and of other Powers to this rearrangement of Italy, it does not bind the Emperor to refuse his acquiescence in any other arrange- ment adopted by the Powers; while it does bind Austria to co- operate with France in employing a peaceful and not a compul- sory method of action.
The reception given by the Emperor Napoleon to the Italian deputations is only another evidence to the same effect,—that while he preserves good faith towards Austria, he also is be- having frankly and satisfactorily to the Italians. It is clear, too, that they are satisfied, or at least that such of them as have been directly enlightened by an explanation of the Iinperial Powers are so satisfied. We almost fear that we mast weary the reader at times, by repeating this now familiar explanation ; but since he sees events change, and may observe that our contem- poraries change with the outward aspect of events, he might imagine that we had misled him before, or that we were now not cognizant of the altered circumstances. It is necessary, there- fore, to assist him in noting, that, while the secondary and trivial circumstances have changed, the position is precisely such as we marked it out some time since.
Meanwhile the Italian leaders, Garibaldi among them, are pre- paring to maintain their ground ; and they are developing the Italian of the future—of the immediate future. " It takes," says Garibaldi, and no man can know so well, "fifteen days to make a brave Italian a brave soldier." The Neapolitan Govern- ment is assisting Garibaldi's drilling of the Italians by a constant application of petty irritating oppressions ; in which also the pre- sent Roman administration lends powerful help.
