TROUBLES OF THE POWERS.
ME state of the Continent every day urges the alternative ques- tion—a Congress, or chronic war ? The fate of millions for a half-century of happiness, or such a half-century of wretchedness as the world has not witnessed within memory, seems to depend upon the clearsightedness, the moral courage of some dozen in Europe. We English are not out of the trouble. If Europe is ablaze, England, for all the four seas, cannot be so tranquil or so prosperous. It seems strange at first, yet still it is strictly natural, that the very causes which threaten us with daily-increasing danger of war constitute the obstacle to a better understanding for the preservation of peace. The greatest difficulty of all is the inca- pacity of some of the Powers of the Continent, or of the crowned Impotencies, to assent to a basis of joint action. With very striking exceptions, there seems to be none prepared to give up its own separate, narrow, and imperfect plan. Austria has her idea of government by military control. Her subjects are con- victed, a priori, of rebellious tendencies, they are sentenced to come in and make their submission, and are allowed to go about the business of life under a sort of ticket-of-leave. So many have been the promises of concession and reform, that no one be- lieves in the Supreme Council of the empire, which has just as- sembled in Vienna ; it is as little believed in at Prague as it is at Pesth or Vienna. The very latest reports show us that the Bohe- mians are in a state of suppressed rebellion, only less avowed than that of the Hungarians, less denounced than that of the Venetians. The information direct from Venice confirms our impression, that the city, and the province on the Main which passes by its name, are literally held by force of cannon. Nay, more ; while affecting concessions, Austria clings to that which she has formally surrendered ; at the present moment, the public acts of the Austrian Government in its Italian province are carried on in the name of "the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom." Aus- tria, therefore, not only refuses to recognize Tuscany, and other annexed provinces of gorthern Italy, but will not recognize the de facto and lawful possession of Lombardy. Naples is just at this hour making concessions, promising liberal measures, and is trying to ingratiate the Sicilians with the pro- mise of railways. As if Charles the First had met Cromwell on Marston Moor with a proposal to improve the high roads ! Yet It.. up to the very latest moment, Neapolitan Government has been maintaining her rule by the means of bastinado and tortures— women flogged to death, men set upon razors, or their eyes forced out of their heads by tight bands over the forehead. Just as the police in Marsala, before the landing of Garibaldi, had orders to break into the shops "for the purpose of creating abetter feeling." Russia has her own reforms to carry through ; yet she cannot abstain from meddling on behalf of the Christian subjects" Turkey. Prussia is endeavouring to preserve a juste milieu4 sm. L;c, martinet fashion, by help of an increased army ; a sort of arts. tration which necessarily inclines to the Absolutist Government represented by Austria, and is more congenial to the antecedents of the Prince Regent than to the future of his own country. And Sardinia, not unmindful of dangers on her Eastern border, or of obligations towards France, with other prudent doubts, hurried on by Garibaldi' and cannot be unfaithful to the idea of a restored and united Italy. The Western Powers, to some extent, observe a policy of laissez faire ; but it is a laissez faire with a difference. England is dis- posed absolutely to let alone: her authorities rather desire that the status quo should continue, but they are quite ready to accept every newly manufactured fait aocompli. France pursues a laissez faire which rather patronizes the ardent Italians, though, at the same time, it seeks to guide them, and to select its faits accomplis. England is for England ; but the Government is im- pelled forwards rather than otherwise, by a people which sympa- thizes with popular self-government. France is for France ; but it is a France compatible with a reformed Russia, a restored Hungary, a regenerate Italy, and an English alliance. On the whole, therefore, while a review of the difficulties impresses us with a sense of anxiety, we cannot but perceive, in the midst of the thorny bush Difficulty, the flower Facility. And against the obstacles standing in the way of the energy that would bring about a right understanding in Europe, we may set the appalling consequences of letting things drift on as they are. Who can prophetically read "the chapter of accidents" opening before us ? What office, what combination of offices could be imagined, which would erect an insurance against all the conse- quences of war ? Let things proceed uncontrolled, and we have idiotic perseverance in Neapolitan torture, blind persistence in Austrian military fanaticism, and all the destruction that can be brought about by crowned imbeciles whose rule simulates a wickedness unknown on earth. Simulates, we say ; for the ma- lignity which appears in their action really does not exist in human nature. They act from the impulse of a weakness cribbed, cabined, and confinea, and blinded by a systematically kept up exclusion of knowledge ; for the true Satan in this working world, is Ignorance. The administration of these wretched creatures is now bringing us to the verge of revolutions, whose shade might be marked beforehand in broad patches upon the map of Europe; and who can foresee what those revolutions might bring on ? "The fall of kings,"—the identification of better sovereigns, of the very institution of kingship, with imbecility and badness. Nay, the spread of blood, waste, and misery, where we might have the industry and wealth of peace, is not BO terrible a form
of the evirwith which we are threatened, as the continued preva- knee of the ignoble in the governance of the European nations. Now, from this fate for the close of the present century, the Western Powers can preserve Europe. A positive agreement on the part of the Western Powers to arrange the calamitous diffi- culty of Europe, would find a ready response in Russia, an in- evitable acquiescence in Prussia, a practical acquiescence in coun- tries still enchained ; and instead of chronic war, we should have the Congress.
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