TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE EQUILIBRIUM,
A REPORT has arisen that the English and French Governments are about to send a combined fleet to look on while the Neapoli- tans teach their rang 'better manners. It is said that the West- ern Powers will for some time limit themselves to a negative position: but who knows that they will.be able to do so? As to the Emperoe Napoleon we do not believe that his view is ever negative, or that he has not already shaped out a distinct course —perhaps alternative courses—towards the objeots which he in- tends to attain in Italy. A negative position would be more consistent with the spirit of our own Government; but there are circumstances under which a negative .position might do as much mischief as the rashest impetriosity—might as much serve purposes hateful to this country, as positive action with the enemies of its interests and principles. The situation of affairs in Italy is such that a power animated by an active statesmanship might possibly move the local influences so as to facilitate a predeter- mined course, and might at the same time obtain a control suf- ficient to minimise the inconveniences of interference. But a negative policy, launching a passive statesmanship into the cross- currents of Italian conflicts, implies a navigation without control of the helm. Questions have raised respecting the state of the alliance between France and England—questions as to whether it continues to be a complete alliance, or whether it is in effect broken up, and maintained provisionally only at some points. If it is a partial alliance mingled with a urinal opposi- tion, it, would drag us into situations alike dubious and dun gerous. If it is a complete alliance between a man actuated by a distinct purpose and men without a purpose, it is a loan of the resources of this country to a foreign minister, whose -counsels are unknown to us, and whose objects may be not only alien to our national feelings but counter to the interests of this country. It is not simple curiosity, therefore, which makes us wish to know a little more of what the public servants are doing. We only know the increasing complication in Italy and in- other parts of Europe. King Ferdinand has not sufficient head to un- derstand those perils to himself which should make him pause in his defiance of the Western Powers. There has been some hope that Baroa.Hubner might counsel him to acquiesce in the demand for more decorous because milder government ; but, independently of the density of the royal head, the very position of the able ffiploinatistis one that gives the most tedious of Kings an advan- tage over him. There is not, as an Italian contemporary says, any argument advanced bi Hubner that cannot be victoriously thrown in his teeth by Naples. If he advise amendment of the law—the 3feapolitan laws are better than the Austrian. If he counsel a better political rule—opinion is not more perseeute4 • Naples than in Austria. " In Naples they content themselves with imprisonment, and do not add hanging as they do in Aus- tria." Besides, the one thing which completes the odium of King Ferdina.nd's government is, that the King shoidd lean upon A.us- ilia in any degree. Even Ferdinand knows that he would at once acquire some little simehine of popularity if he were to cast off Austria. It seems impossible, therefore, to get at his intellect even through so fine a medium as the diplomatic Hubner. If they begin to play with edged tools in Naples, everybody expects that the game will extend to other states ; and indeed at is extending already. After turning back the Piedmontese Schoolboys and their tutors, in a manner equally unjust to the individuals and insulting to the Piedinontese Government, Tus- cany has flung another insult at a more powerful Government : no sooner have a few soldiers of the .Anglo-Italian Legion re- turned from Malta to their home in Tuscany, than they are seized and put in prison, as a matter of course. Possibly there may be explanations of this particular point; but many more men of the
lo-ItelienLegion have to find their way to their homes in erent parts of Italy.
Every agitator is on the eui-wive to take advantage of the disturbance. The Republican imagines that he can snatch his turn. The Muratists think that there is a chance for their man, and they reckon that the third. Napoleon must favour a second Joachim. Is the Murat one of the intended tools of the Emperor, or only one of the .mystification of the inscrutable policy ? Nobody knows; but it is scarcely probable that Napoleon can descend so low as to patronize a rather " soft " adventurer whom the Moni- teur has diaclaimed.
The movements of the two powers that maintain occupation of Rome do not simplify "the situation." It is reported in Turin, as if on authentic information, that both the French and Austrian forces are about to be withdrawn towards two extreme points of the Italian soil,—that the Austrians will confine themselves to Ancona, and the French to Civita Vecchia. But it is not inferred that Austria means to give up her hold upon the peninsula. On the contrary, in Ancona she will still possess a tete-de-pone. She has restored Pole as a war-port, and has this year united the go- vernments of Dalmatia and Istria, with the apparent intention of forming a maritime province and converting the Adriatic into an Austrian lake. It is true that Austria will never be able to pos- sess a powerful marine ; because she will not concede those liberties to her subjects without which it is impossible for the nautical spirit to rise. it is true that -gngland has an interest in Ionia to check the maritime ambition of Austria, with ample power to crush her at a moment. There is no question as to the interest and power of England : but what is France doing ? She
appears to be oopying the policy of Austria—perhaps in order to counterbalance it. Toidon would be to Civita Vecchia what Pola is to Ancona ; only that the French Emperor has been avowedly permitting the Alessandria subscription in Paris, and has en- couraged the progress of Pied4ont. The question is not as to the interest and power of England, or the sympathy of the Eng- lish people with the Constitutionalists of Italy, but as to the "card and compass" just new in the hands of our sailing-master. Ancona and Civita Veechia are not 'the only points in foreign occupation. There still is Athens, where France and England are holding Greece down to her place ; while EuropeanCom- missioners are debating whether or not another Greece shall not be created on the opposite aide of European Turkeanother
" independent " kingdom, with the Greek orthodex " which owns neither the liberty of Protestantism nor the civilization of Catholicism," and probably with a new dynasty. Already, with one Greece on their hands, the Western Powers warmly know how to let Greece run alone, or how to patch up, out of the imprac- ticable royal materials of iurope, a dynasty that will stand. In the Commission opinions differ : Turkey does not want a new Greece on the other side of her ; Russia highly epproves,; Austria proposes to stave off the difficulty by eontme171 ex own occupa- tion ; France is agitating in favour of the " •I P ependent" state ; and our Government, it is implied, has no opinion. It is needless to glance at collateral entanglements elsewhere. A correspondent has pointed out that English influence has been definitively kicked out of Spain ; but the difficulty is to find what may not be kicked out of Spain. O'Donnell, who ousted rvar- tero, is ousted by the Court ; the Court, identifying itself with the revival of the old Church power, talks of restoring Narvaez and mortmain rights of the Church ; and the inscrutable Napo
' - leon with his Spanish Empress, has been witnessing bull-fights.
It does not lessen the complications that General Stackelberg, who has made Parma yield the rule of maitiallaw set up by thin advice of Austria, has been surveying with friendly eyes Ring Victor Emmanuel's new counter-Austrian fortifications at Ales- sandria, for which Napoleon permits subscriptions Paris-- General Stackelberg, the officer of that Government which has been manifesting its good faith at the Isle of Sents and Bel- grade. We have compelled the evacuation of the Isle of Serpents, and some of the French journals consequently hint, offence at the separate action of England. All these signs of cross-purposes, we say, do, something more than pique curiosity. Parliament is not sitting, and we cannot expect much light on the subject, even if we could expect much enlightenment by the help of Parliament. The people of this country of course have their own views and opinions, their sym- pathies and antipathies, their interests to be promoted, spared, or hazarded. But we are somewhat in the position of the share- holders in a joint-stock concern, who are not allowed to know what their directors are doing, and whose secretary, perchance, keeps his big book under lock and key, while he undertakes to maintain " the balance " on his skilful but unaided fore-finger.
Previous page
