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g£@ THE LEA "D E R. [No. 281, S&tukbat,
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THE ITALIAN CRISIS. It is delightful to ...
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LORD JOHN'S NEW REFORM BILL. Tub exhibit...
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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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^Zp Ott; That Which Been Principal Busi-...
for our countrymen . The season lias revived that which we thought had died iu communities so civilised as ours—passion , without which there is , in truth , as little complete life as there is life in an atmosphere that knows no storms . The events of the session , "we oay , have schooled the nation as well as the Government , and in emerging from it England finds that she has recovered something of her old greatness , in heart and will , as well as in intellect . Can we say , then , that this has been a barren session to us ?
G£@ The Lea "D E R. [No. 281, S&Tukbat,
g £ @ THE LEA "D E R . [ No . 281 , S & tukbat ,
The Italian Crisis. It Is Delightful To ...
THE ITALIAN CRISIS . It is delightful to see Lord John ! Ritsseu < in the position of an independent member . His W higgery brightens there into the freshest liberalism . His love of justice becomes all but abstract . Perhaps , indeed , after turning , long ago , the winning-post in politics , he is cantering over the old ground , and revisiting , in the vagueness of age , the arena of his youthful zeal .- Certain it is that after his Italian excursion on Tuesday , an uncomfortable rumour went abroad that Lord
John ' s faculties were declining under a peculiar influence . At the Vienna Conferences he had been overpowered by Austrian appreciation , and conceived a morbid horror of war * Since his return , he had acquired an aversion , equally powerful , to military government in Italy . While his Lordship , in an independent attitude , expresses with almost a muliebris imjpotentia of language a semiofficial sympathy with the cause of freedom in Europe , it is the duty of good patriots to keep
him there . There is no estimating the tonic virtues of the Treasury element in hardening a statesman ' s nerves and releasing him from any relaxing control that may have ensnared his mind . Italians , at least , must rejoice to see Lord John Hussein half-way between the Cabinet and the opposition . IFrom that place he speaks , as Mr . Gladstone once wrote , in behalf of their national rights . They need assistance and they need advice . Their country has reached a new historical crisis . The Austrian oppressors , taking counsel of their fears , are
fortifying the Lombard provinces , increasing the garrisons , even throwing up earthworks , and stationing huge armies at points whence they may descend to display the Austrian genius for massacre , and re-erect the Uadetzky gallows . 150 , 000 men , at least , are under the command of that fierce veteran , who petitions his government for the licence of martial law . Evidently , a struggle is at hand . When it arrives , neither Prance nor England can remain indifferent spectators ; but their attitude will be of less importance to Italy than the conduct of the Italian leaders .
There are two principles in . the field—Piedmontese constitutionalism , represented by King Emmanuel , and Italian republicanism , represented by Ma ^ sini . Enmity and jealousy divide them . The King persecutes the ultra-liberals ; Mazzini denounces the King . In this lies tho peril of the future . But we may fairly put it to Italians of all shades of opinion , whether a national government , upon any liberal basis , were not preferable to that ignominious subjection
under which the flower of the Lombard youth are torn away as conscripts in an Austrian army . Is not " Italy for the Italians , " better than " Italy for the Austrians , " and for a score of despicable tyrants , who flourish by tho disunion of tho Italian people ? Tho object of the patriots should be to restore the nation to independence , after which they may found such institutions aa will beat represent its genius , and enable it to hold a high position in Europe . Italy , half as large again as Great Britain , inhabited by twenty-four millions of a race ¦
as finely-organised as any in the world , one in blood , one in language , one in the essentials of character , but never yet one in policy , is distributed into seven states , of which Piedmont alone is comparatively free . Even there , JJadetzki menaces the soil , and may at any time , while the choicest of the Sardinian troops are absent , push an army over the frontier . In the Lombardo-Venetian territory six or seven millions of Italians await a conflict with his half-barbarous soldiers collected from Central and Eastern
Europe . Six millions of the same race , in Naples , are ruled by the regal lieutenancy of Austria , whose cruelties have stung to sudden zeal the sensibility of Lord John Husbeix . In the Papal States two millions and a half submit to the unspeakable degradation of ecclesiastical government , and two thousand
French soldiers guard the Holy Pope . Tuscany and the lesser States suffer under maladministration and bigotry , equally injurious to body and soul . The wealth of a fourth part of the land is drained into the Austrian exchequer to maintain Austrian functionaries and troops in Austrian uniform . Its youths are levied to serve on distant stations under
alien generals . Its courts of justice are subject to Austrian control ; its schools and colleges to Austrian superintendents ; its writers to Austrian censorship ; its journals , with the exception of one or two official gazettes , are suppressed ; its very catechisms and grammars are tinctured to the Austrian taste ; public assemblies of all kinds are prohibited ; foreign sentinels patrol the streets ; every mau , woman , and child , is at the mercy of Austrian insolence .
Elsewhere , five or six states are absolutely governed by princes or grand-dukes , who in their turns are governed by llussia , Austria , or France . Only in Piedmont " can a man think , speak , or act as a being made in the image of God . " Do not the friends of Italy recognise this picture ? Is it not a reflection of their own ? Will it be better to kee p the nation prostrate and in agonies , until a perfect Republic can be evolved from chaos , than to place between Southern Italy and Austria the broad barrier of a
constitutional state , developing rapidly after tho example of England ? * If , in the contest that is approaching , one Italian strikes at another iu behalf of his peculiar theory , and to the detriment of the national cause , infamy will attach to him . No doubt the Kino of Piedmont acts partly upon selfish , in other words upon dynastic , principles . But the Italians have in Piedmont a citadel which they have never before possessed—a state under the guarantee of England—and they will do well
not to depreciate this advantage . Throughout their history we perceive them suspecting one another , inviting foreign aid to defeat a rival faction , enslaving themselves to names and families , and seldom making common cause against the common foe . If these sins and errors are to be repeated , the trial of strength bad better be postponed until Italy is reconciled to herself . Foreign domination has been her bane . Foreign influences have upheld her domostic tyrants—in Naples , in Tuscany , in Homo . To subduo and eject » la i i 1 i 1 / i their alien masters is tho first
consequently duty and tho first interest of tho Italian people . Unquestionably , tho principle of Italian unity , though for tho time practically out of sight , offers the widest basis for tho future independence of the nation . It is sheer madness to think of playing onco more tho game of 1848 . Tho Neapolitans can never again apply to their Bourbon Domitian for contttitutional guarantees , or tho Iiomane to the Pope , or the Lombards , through Radetzky , to FitANOia Joseph . Their triumph would
be a farce , and their failure would make them ridiculous . Nor is it probable that the Court of Turin , numerous as its adherents may be , can extend its dominions far southward . Accordingly , when the pretensions of King Emmait UEii are satisfied , and securities so far established for the independence of the peninsula , there is still a wide field for the purely national party . From Da > nte to Napoieon every profound speculator on Italian history has recommended the amalgamation of the race under one Government .
And Mazzini is perfectly right to impress on his countrymen that Italy ought not to depend for her freedom on a side wind from France . But , on the other hand , to precipitate the attempt is to ruin it . Events point fairly to a prospect of independence , * if Austria , which is now exposing its moral weakness by leaning upon its bayonets is placed , b y the acts of Hadetzky , formally as well as virtually , in the wrong . Above all ,
it would be the height of impolicy , and worse , should Mazzini endeavour , by a premature movement , to forestal the Government of Piedmont . Piedmont , with the flower of her army in the East , has claims on the protection of England and France . Milan , in a state of siege , would have no such claims . But Milan , rising to adopt a cause already adopted by the Western Power ? , would enter , with infinitely improved chances of success , the arena of the national conflict .
Lord John's New Reform Bill. Tub Exhibit...
LORD JOHN'S NEW REFORM BILL . Tub exhibition of Lord John Russei / l in the House of Commons on Tuesday night is the historical event of the week . It would be amusing , if it were not painful . It suggests the question , whether Lord John ' s friends ought not to consult upon the necessity of interposing . It was not alone the confusion of the ideas which had taken possession of his mind ; it was not simply tho wandering from one subject to another
without any kind of order—tho ideas evidently pouring out according to their own will , without , interference on behalf of tho speaker ; but it was the fact that he at last fixed upon a distinct proposal—for Lord John did make a proposal , and it was very specific , although little developed . He iirst of all began with a speech " on the state of the nation , " in regard to its foreign relations ; for such was really the nature of the survey , although he only gave notice that he should " call attention to the state of Italy and to tho occupation of tho Papal States by foreign
troops . " Italy , therefore , was to have been the largest field , the Pupal States his specific object ; and to the object he was faithful , though tho field was infinitely extended Russia , by favour of her Neapolitan proxy and her Austrian coadjutor , may perhaps be regarded as an Italian Power . But how did tho state of Asia enter into a survey of Italy ? What had Spain to do with the subject ? Why was Lord John compelled to go back upon tho " equipoise" question ? Manifestly for one reason only . He must be in that state of mind at which men
sometimes arrive after prolonged and arduous labours , in which the grasp of tho present in lost , and all tho ideas of the past come dancing into the view of memory lilto fi ^ uron in a dream , confounding themselves , and tlitftracting tho invalid with the vain ellbrt to follow their movements consecutively . It is ,, however , tho very crowning point ot ovidenco , thnfc a person in this state should have a project . King Lear , who wns g iven , like some other eminent persona , to surprised , had a device for shoeing cavalry with felt— -ft hint for our present War Office . An ingenious individual in thin country some years
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 11, 1855, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11081855/page/10/
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