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324- THE LEADER. [No. 315, Saturday,
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AN ITALIAN WARNING. T-hb premonitory sym...
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COUNT MONTALEMBERT ON ENGLISH POLITICS. ...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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324- The Leader. [No. 315, Saturday,
324- THE LEADER . [ No . 315 , Saturday ,
An Italian Warning. T-Hb Premonitory Sym...
AN ITALIAN WARNING . T-hb premonitory symptoms have appeared of a new intervention in Italy . The state of affairs at Naples ., it is sem'i-officially announced , engages the serious attention of the French and British Governments . The representations of Great Britain have been met contumaciously , which " justifies" further and more forcible measures . France , too , reminds his Neapolitan Majesty that he has not made reparation for an outrage committed on some French subjects in Sicily . Here is what the Americans call a platform 3 a ground of action .
But of wliat action ? It is sate to interfere in the domestic government of the King of Naples , bat can Great Britain , without hypocrisy , assume the privilege of coercing this thirdrate despot , who treats the malcontents of his kingdom exactly as malcontents are treated in the Austrian prisons and in Cayenne 1 There may be reasons of policy why " something should he done" with Naples ; hut we do hope
there will be no sentiment , no philanthropy Hi the transaction . To goad and threaten a minor despot who is no worse than the great despots he emulates , as to display that sort of courage which always keeps out of danger . Naples is not worse governed than Milan , Parma , or Eonie . Its political prisoners are not more cruelly treated than the exiles afc Cayenne . Its bastinado is not a more brutal
instrument than the thong of the Austrian lietorsinLonibardy . / W < e by no means apologise for the tyranny of Naples . It is a curse ; the Neapolitan people cannot expel their King , destroy their throne , and adopt a constitution , a day too soon . But it is , in the first place , pitiful to affect horror of a weak despotism , and to connive at despotism on a gigantic scale . Moreover , foreign intervention never has , and never can , succeed to any good purpose in Italy . hat French
W intervention means the Italians well know . It means depriving them of tlie right to settle their own affairs , imposing hateful governmettts on them by force , perhaps substituting , in Naples , & Bonaparte for a Bourbon . It is an undisguised encroachment oii the little independence that remains to Italy . English intervention , more generous in its motives , is , in its effects , even more mischievous . It signifies an insincere meddling between the Italian people and their various governments . Three times the British
Government has " interested itself" in Italian politics — in 1815 , ia 1821 , and in 1848 , and on each occasion has excited delusive hopes , stimulated premature attem pts , and produced disappointment , calamity , and failure . It seems jealous of an Italian policy adopted by an other Government , and interferes without any policy of its own , merely to occupy a part of the ground . It has-no objects in Italy ; its sympathy with Italian liberalism is capricious , timid , and only half-sincere . In , an English sense it is frivolity , but , in an Italian sense , it has been a
disastrous blight , bitterly remembered from end to end of the . peninsula . ' Intervention in Naples can have but one of two objects—to coerce the King into a change of policy , or to supersede him , and place another ruler on the throne . Now among the successes of diplomacy , we certainly cannot reokon attempts at the reformation of bad governors . The political system of Naples governors . The political system of Naples to its Boukdon
™ fe ngs dynasty , and cannot mseparated from that dynasty , because it is the means by which the dynasty remains in power , lnepito of a liberal and awafcened public opinion , if the softening of King Fp-rdinand ' b rjgime be impossible , and if it be determined ! KJ ^ r ( \ in 8 wrrectXon , what follows ? Will tn ^ JNeapo ttan a chooso the ch osen of Great Britain and France ? or , if they do not choose
, will he be forced upon them 1 or will they rid Naples of its tyrant , and leave it free ? Ask an Italian ! Nowhere is insincere , irresolute intervention more mischievous than in Italy . That country has been duped and injured by its friends more frequently than any state in Europe . It will be useful , in illustration , to trace the political action of England in Italy during the last revolutionary crisis . Austria was her enemy , England was her friend , and the Italian learned to say , with the prisoner in the Piombi of
Venice" God save nie from the men I trust : - From those I trust not I preserve myself . " There is little doubt that the Emperor Napoleon will attempt to convert the Conferences of Paris into a Congress , for the revision of the settlement of 1815 . With reference to Italy , there is one policy—and only one—that could give harmony to that oppressed and divided country . To withdraw the French and Austrian armie 3 , and to leave
the Italians free to settle their own political affairs , -would be to give them a chance of national regeneration . But to appropriate and distribute the peninsula , to intersect it with new frontiers , to bring new families within its dynastic circle , to do anything but release it from foreign control , would be to exasperate its disease , and to make Frenchmen hated and Englishmen suspected by the people even more than they are suspected and hated already .
Count Montalembert On English Politics. ...
COUNT MONTALEMBERT ON ENGLISH POLITICS . * M . de Montalembert ' s essay on the Political Put ure of England las recently engaged the attention of English critics and readers . An opportunity is given- us , therefore , of recurring to this remarkable volume , which has elicited a significant discussion among our public writers . It contains fallacies which accurate critics could not fail to discover , but it contains also suggestions of truth which have put
our journalists on the defence . Intimately as M . de Montalembem is acquainted with the history and institutions of England , with our manners , principles , and forms of official procedure , he fails , as foreigners generally fail , when he would prove an analogy or construct a parallel . He cannot divest himself , when dealing with political or social topics , of that doctrinaire pedantry -which refers men and events to a single type , and ignores the essential differences of time , of accessory circumstances ,
of personal character , of objects , means , and motives . Because Cromwell became absolute in the government of England , he is confounded with Napoleon and Caesar . Because Oham . es Diokens dissects the poor and criminal classes ] of society , and sheds the light and sympathy of genius on their desolation , he is compared with Eugene Sub . Because Carlyle exonerates Ciiomwell from the charges elaborately presented against him by the libellers of the Restoration , and by the ignorance of a long posterity of compilers ,
Oarlyle is described as wooing- a military usurper . Every philosophical mind has a contempt of ineffective government , of weakness in the position of power , of a ruler without purpose , decision , or vigour ; but only tlio most degraded class of political fanatics in England believe in the virtues of despotism . M . im MoNTAiiKMBEKa- perceives an aspect—a literal fact , and falsifies it by a falsa explanation . Cromwell was a dictator , who governed by an army , but he refused a crown—struggled to resign hie supremacy- —displayed none of that * 2 he Political Future o / England . By Oo-tmt Montalemlcrt . London : Murray .
nksq vulgar lust of power which is the inspiration of a military usurper . M . » e Montalembert touches a truth more nearly when he says that English journalists , professing liberalism , have , in flattery of the French alliance , adored the Apparition that reigns in France . The AtJienaum , in an elaborate criticism on his . essay , takes up the charge , and denies it , not for itself , because it has not been accused or suspected , but on behalf of the general press—the Examiner and
Daily News especially . The services rendered to the cause of political justice by the Exa ~ ' miner will never be forgotten ; but neither can we forget that it has distinctly pointed out the empire of the cowp-d ' etat as ' ' a new sort of despotism , "—just , beneficent , and wise . Liberal as the Daily News has been , it has been seduced by the alliance into a gratuitous complicity with the conspirators of December , 1851 , and even written the apology of St .
Abnatjd . " No writer , " says our contemporary , " applauds Napoleon the Third for the treachery and violence used in his advent to the throne . " We wish , for the sake of English honour , that we could concur . But the treaeliery and the violence , if not applauded , have been justified again and again on the fallacious plea , that only violence and perjury could save France from political ruin . Some constant journals there have been—our
contemporary is among them—that have never condescended to publish the eulogy of usurpation ; but we have , seen more degradationmore immorality—more cowardice exhibited by a section of the English press within the last two years than would have seemed possible amid the protests of December , 1851 . M . de Montalembert must feel the retort , that the man he stigmatises as an Cf adventurer" he owns as . a master , and if he—a Frenchmanowns him as a ruler , may not England own him as an ally ? It was our inevitable policy to cultivate formal and friendly relations with the actual Empebor of the French . The
meanness we complain of consisted in the adulation , insulting to France , debasing to England , that was offered at the foot of his throne- To say that the past is the past , and that the coup-< Tetat is a bygone , is a casuistical deception . The coup-cTetat is not a bygone—it reigns —its viotims are in Cayenne ; it suppresses the
public intelligence of France ; it is a present crime ; it is the infliction on the French people of a system that robs them of the fruits of sixty years of sacrifice and suffering . To plead that the act of December is a bygone is to plead repentance without restitution—to say that the criminal is sorry for his fraud , and intends to live quietly on the proceeds .
M . de Montalembert is ashamed of the Empire , that deprives France of her liberty and her dignity . He is an accomplished , eloquent man , who regards " politics " as an agreeable profession . A Tribune to speak from — a Senate to listen and applaud , —a Press , well guided by the censor , to afford publicity , —a Court , in which a " Statesman " is more than a puppet . These are , to inon of M . pb Montalembkrt's order , among the necessities of existence . But would ho see freedom grow
with a nation ' s growth , become incorpora ted with its existence , belong to every citizen as a rig-lit , dissipate false and artificial distinctions , make arrnioa and police its auxiliaries of selfdefence , render Usurpation impossible ? U ho would now , ho did not , when his oxertions , united with those of the other politicians who repino over the humiliation of France , mig ht havo olosod the path to a coup-iVJtut . Ity faction and egotism the liberties and laws of Franco were abandoned to the violenoo of an immoral schemer . Our public writers may have paid thoir homage to Usurpation without design-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 5, 1856, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05041856/page/12/
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