ITALY.
THE question of Italy is not put forward only because Count Ca..;. your is reported to have said something in the Conference. What- ever may have passed in that assembly, or whatever reserves may have been kept, the subject is put forward by its own inherent force. Sardinia cannot overlook it, cannot be silent, cannot re- main merely passive ; and Sardinia does not stand alone. There are other Italians in thepeninsula besides her subjects ; and Austria also is in the peninsula. By the existence of the Pied. montese state, the question of Italy has been entirely changed since 1848-'9. It no longer stands among those "nationalities" which excited vague sympathies but whieh baffled definite hand- ling. - We owe a distinct debt to all the practical Liberals of Italy, since this eountly has tAriee been instrumental in inciting them onward with false hopes of assistance, and has then left them in the lurch just at the critical point. We have thrice performed that act of treachery, thrice defeated very just hors of improve- ment, and entailed upon Italians political reaction. Constitu- _ tional government in Italy has now assumed a substantial form, and has been so conducted as to engage our sympathies and our common interests. The Italian question therefore has become substantial, practical, and living. No one can for a moment imagine that any branch of the Italian question is at present in suspense—that antagonized factions and opinions are at rest, and that there is not a constant warfare to suppress the state which has so successfully established itself. The closing of the war has an immediate effect upon the position of parties in Italy ; it releases one of the most formidable ad- versaries of Italian nationality. The antagonisms within re- main in their full force : the Pope, pressed by a bankrupt ex- chequer and the decline of his influence in all the chief cities, and instigated by the reactionary party among his Cardinals' employs a never-ceasing activity to undermine the influence of the Pied- montese Government at home, to incite the priest party in all the Sardinian states to bring the other Italian Governments together in a combination against their own subjects and against Piedmont, and especially to lead the Austrian Government back upon the fields of Italy. The conspiracy between Guelphs and Ghibellines against modern constitutional liberty was never more active than it is at the present moment. Recent events have proved that there are grounds for fearing active aggression. During the ne- gotiations, Austria proclaimed an amnesty for her exiled subjects ; and the measure was held as an act of generosity, opening the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom to its best exiles. There were causes to arouse suspicion. " Timeo Danaos " ! The amnesty, in fact, was regarded as a trap for the purpose of drawing away many distinguished men who were the ornaments of the Constitutional n the peninsula, and who have obtained citizenship in Piedmont; and it was calculated to suspend questions between Sardinia and Austria during the negotiations. But events have compelled Austria to show that she does not depart from her established policy in Italy. The Emperor has emu- lated other sovereigns, past and present, in submission to Rome. Protestant subjects, upon whose allegiance his throne in great part depends, have been justly irritated at the arrogance and false- ness of the Roman priests throughout his dominions. He has been compelled to summon a mixed meeting of bishops and states- men for the purpose of arranging the working of the Concordat ; and Count Leo Thun himself, the civil negotiator of the measure on behalf of Austria has been put to his wits' end in the en- deavour to mitigate the severity with which the priests have exer- cised their newly-recovered power. But there is an exception to the mitigatory exertions of the Austrian Government : there is one place where the priests are allowed to dictate, to interfere, to suppreas, and to arrest ; and that place comprises the Northern provinces of Italy. In Piedmont, where the press is free as it is in this country, the priesthood do not scruple to show that they desire to get back all the power that they have heretofore exercised. The same Church which is licensed to tyrannize in the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom exists with as little division as there is in the sky above within the territories of Sardinia. There is un- broken communication between the priesthood of Rome all over the peninsula ; and there is therefore an organized and conse- crated conspiracy ever working to undermine the constitutional establishments of Sardinia.
Within the last few weeks, the extreme parties of Italy have come into collision within the city of Parma. It is of course diffi- cult to get accurate information on subjects of this kind, where the popular agitators veil their proceedings as much as the Aus- trian officials. But we doubt whether we are far wrong in saying that the two parties have never ceased to continue their intrigues and their covert hostilities within that city. It is the open spot in the ground of Italy which enables us to see the incessant work- ing of the elements beneath. The assassination of Bordi was not an isolated fact ; it belongs, we believe, to a series that comprised the assassination of the Duke. It is well known that the death of the Duke was an item in a programme for a Republican insur- rection of the whole city if not of the state. The insurrection itself was deferred ; the actor to whom the part of Brutus was allotted refused to postpone his part of the business, and the Duke was killed. The Republican party has never been quieted. In 18.54, a military commission was appointed to adjudge rioters who were excited to turbulence by a dearth ; officers of that commis- sion have been assassinated ; Bordi was the third ; a fourth was named, but he still survives. If the Republicans have never ceased to Watch for the opportunity of striking blows, the Aus- trians have never abandoned their guard. It could not have been a single murder which induced the Duchess Regent to proclaim martial law ; but, instead of intimating the protection of the city to Italian government and Italian troops, she hands it over to Austria and her. soldiery. We have here then the confession that the minor Governments of Italy are here, practically upheld by Austria, and also that Austria is ready to occupy any ground which she may be permitted to defend in Italy as an outpost of her own power. It is not a very long march from Parma to Turin.
We need not dwell upon the unceasing hostility to Italians and to constitutional freedom which resides in Rome or Naples. Tus- cany, connected by blood with Austria, has avowed her depend- ence upon the policy of the Empire' and has, like Austria, to acknowledge that the exiles whom it has driven forth have found a home in Piedmont. There is therefore an undying conspiracy of the Italian Governments against Sardinia. The Italian .people may still repeat what has been so often said, that their Go- vernments, like some other Governments in Europe, form a con- spiracy of the Sovereigns with foreign accomplices to tyrannize over subjects who are treated with the basest cruelty. Mr. Glad- stone might republish his pamphlet on Naples, without alterations. A London daily paper, which supports the foreign policy of our Government and s pathizes actively with Imperial France, has just published a • tribe on Naples, which might excite hopes that the Western Powers are about to undertake a crusade in Naples to vindicate honesty and humanity in the Southern part of the peninsula. This demonstration, coupled with the reports of Count Cavour's appeal to the Conference, might raise hopes almost as high as Lord Minto's speech from hotel- windows to the admiring Italians in 1848. But we have some- thing more than shadowy sympathies to consider now. The con- stitutional state which has established freedom for all classes, which has given circulation of knowledge printed and spoken, which has placed the law above the priesthood, and has instituted the commencement of free trade, is the object of incessant attacks from its neighbours all round, to undermine and overthrow it. It is not by playing off intrigues against intrigues ; it is not by " demonstrations " in the Bay of Naples or the Straits of Messina that the Italian question can be settled. It cannot be dashed off as an appendix to the unsettled Oriental question. To arbitrate the questions between Austria and Piedmont, to settle the mad pretensions of Naples, to arrange the withdrawal of foreign troops from Rome, where they constitute a state of un- acknowledged war —to settle these things, is to go far in settling "the question of Italy," and is not too great a subjeot for the de- liberation of a special Congress.
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