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tain that ? European diplomacy has nothing to do with the Italian question , but to sanction whatever result is evolved from the efforts of the Italian people . No nation was ever set at rest by the decisions-of a Congress . Lasting institutions must spring oub of their natural developments , or out of spontaneous impulses . With respect to Italy , it is most fimportant that the Governments of Europe Should observe this rule , prescribed alike by justice and by sound policy . Spain has not been Weakened by intrigue more than by intervention . Greece is a warning against the creative propensities of diplomacy . Italy , tortured by . her despots , has been harassed by her friends , and would dearly purchase the sympathy and aid of the Western Powers , if , upon the achievement of success , they were to stipulate for a voice in tbe settlement of her affairs . So much must be conceded by the friends of Italy . Their good-will is no title to interference . They will best serve Italy who counsel her against abortive insurrections , without pretending to offer the free gift of a constitution . We believe that this didactic liberalism , which prevails among the English almost as inveterately as it does among the French , who think no country free unless they decree its form of freedom , is that which has excited most jealousy and most distrust among the Italian patriots . But , without any right to interpose , practically , in the settlement of this great question , we are free to criticise the acts and the temper of the Italian liberals . Some of them are engaged in an argument—in our own columns—between two sets of opinion , which do not appear to us to be very widely separate . The believers in " Italy for the Italians" avow that Piedinontese development would be preferable to Austrian occupation ; " an Italian" declares " himself willing to choose a constitutional monarchy in place of the degrading yoke of Austrians , Bourbons , and priests ^ The King of Piedmont , at least , has broken no oaths ; he is not , like Pius IX ., better known than trusted . Again we put it , therefore , to these advocates of a common cause : is it wisdom or fanaticism , if they feel the necessity of uniting against despotism , to divide upon points of secondary interest ? They have to wait for their opportunity , and to profit by it . They may have German armies to resist , ecclesiastical intrigues to discomfit , Jesuits to detect and expel , civil and military institutions to organise against the return of oppression . This is the varied task in which their intellects and their energies must bo absorbed . It is not a fanciful prospect that excites their fears and their hopes . The hour is at hand . A national army ia already in the field , a remote field indeed , yet not obscured by distance , for every Sardinian victory is a sign of life , and may be a precursor of many glorious feats at home . Equally important would be the successful enrolment of an Italian legion . It would habituate the people to discipline ; it would teach them to fraternise by marching side by side ; it would cement the union or the Eoman with the Florentine , of the soldiers of Venice and Savoy . We are perfectly aware of the indignation which Italians feel when they are invited to enlist ns desperate mercenaries to fill up the chasms of the slain before Sebastopol . The principle which excludes the best Poles from the Polish Legion , would exclude the best Italians from that of Italy . They muafc share the results of the wnr , or the war will be a mockery to them . Were a speedy peace to be concluded , it might relieve the court of Vienna from some of its apprehensions , but diplomacy can . neither destroy nor save the Italian people if they are steady < iucl patient ,
as well as full of tope and spirit . But we must implore the friends of Italy not to hurry on an unprepared revolt . Their enemies already resort to terror ; Italy ean afford to watch and wait . Though diplomatic war without revolution be futile , revolution . without diplomatic war is possible , and the Italians have too many resources , too many traditions , too much genius and strength , that they should need to anticipate their opportunity or surrender their objects , whether or not the Western Powers be inclined to accept a compromise instead of a conquest . At present , it is true , few men anticipate peace . It is not the desire of the influential classes in England . It is far from the policy of the French G-overnment . Events have become complicated , and threaten to become still more so . Every act on the part of our own and of the French Executive indicates a belief in the prolongation of the war . Russia gives no sign , but suffers resolutely . Only the German Cabinets persist in coquetting , while our loudest blusterers , who are the slaves of diplomacy , affect a menacing liberalism , and pass the word of warning to Naples and to Austria . Any exciting act , however , on the part of the Western Allies would prove premature , and embarrass their operations , without serving the Italians . In Naples , indeed , even our country gentlemen , friends of order as they are , think dimly that it might be proper to interfere—not to do the work of "incendiarism , " but to spare Europe the reproach of a sanguinary idiot ' s rule . King Fekdinand is recommended to imagine how effective a British squadron would look -in his bay , and were the threat made * hi earnest , there might be serenity for a while in the squares of the sunny capital . But ncT established Government is really interested in abolishing the regime of the spy , the bastinado , and the subterranean cell . Perhaps it is too much to require from statesmen educated in "the principles of the Holy Alliance that they should interfere , where interference would signify revolution . As far , therefore , as yet appears , the Allies have resolved to keep Sebastopol only in view , when the season of indecisive demonstrations in the Baltic is closed . The opinion of some Italians is worth studying by all—that it would be false policy , through any devotion to a special idea , to disaffect the Piedmontese towards their Government . Patriotism has enough to encounter in the princes and priests , whom all liberals in Europe abhor , without attacking institutions which have the sympathy of a vast body of moderate men . The moral advance of Piedmont has been of incalculable service to the cause of Itnly . It has proved that Italians need only to be emancipated to progress in all the arts of society . It ought to prove also , to the satisfaction of every temperate mind , tliat a national king is better than an Austrian viceroy , or a branch of the Holy Alliance . "Without asking for a public analysis of the Italian patriots' creed , this much we may require—that they should not vilify their few powerful friends , or prefer their own crotchets to tho salvation of their country . The stones that rise one upon another in Venice menace the Adriatic with an emporium of military force , designed to quell tho movements of the Lombardo-Venetian people . While tho factions debate , these fortifications grow in Verona and Pola too , threatening the bordei-s of Piedmont . If tho Bufferings and degradations of Italy have impressed upon the Italians the truth that their hope lies in generosity , in forbearance , in confidence , it is time that their mutual wrongs Should urge them to prepare cautiously for the fulfilment of their common i
design . They have a right to suspect diplo * macy ; but to strike before Europe is ready , or to remember domestic feuds , is to light the fire which Has ever been a beacon to their foes .
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THE NAPIER DISCLOSURES . Would that all our statesmen were as cunning as Sir James Graham , for cunning men resort to devices which often lead to the exposure of their own schemes . In 1854 , Sir James Graham sent Sir Charges Napier into the Baltic , under circumstances calculated to make the British public believe that " the right man" was put into " the right place "—that the Baltic would be scourged , Russia ' s rocky stronghold shaken in , and St . Petersburg itself put up for sale or lease . That was the view held out to the public for a great part of that year 1854 . Meanwhile Sir James Graham was soothing the irritation oi the old gentleman who was placed at the head of the British officers with various syrups in the form of friendly notes , until Sir James Graham ' s cabinet became involved in the discredit caused by the resultlessness of the Napier campaign ; and then from soothing . Sir James turned to goading . On this Sir Charges , after thinking of it for a year , turns to the written drama , which he has in store , and determines to " shame the fool and print it . " The exposure is the more amusing , from its exhibiting the exposer as well as the exposee . There was a slight obstacle in the form of a punctilio : gentlemen never publishing private communications without leave of their correspondents . Sir ChabTjES wishesto publish , but how to get over the difficulty ? A friend observes for him that the Admiralty had " evidently" supplied the Times with materials for attacking him , and thus , it is implied , he is released by the malfeasance of the present Admiralty from any honourable reserves towards the late lord ! We can not see how the excuse applies to the case , or how it obviates the irrefragable rule that gentlemen never publish private letters without the leave of their correspondents . The indiscretion of the old boy , however , bursts the bubble of the early Baltic campaign ; it exposes the Admiralty as it waa then , and tells us how the British public , as well as the British admiral , may be bamboozled . There was a great pretence that to put Sir Charles at the head of the Baltic fleet was to put " the right man in the right place . " Several of \ is doubted it ; he had been a great sailor , a noisy advertiser of Sir Charles NAPiER , but sailors doubted whether he would bo qualified to conduct a naval war according to the new arts of naval warfare , or suited with the increased irritation of years to manage a class of gentlemen wearing epaulettes . However , he was certified by the Reform Club dinner aa " tho right man in the right place . " The dinner was held at the Reform Club on the 7 th of March . A few daya before that Sir Charles Napieu was x * eminding Sir James Graham that ho complained of the tools which were handed to him for breaking open the strong gatos of Russia . Wo all know what kind of workman that is who complains of his tools , and Sir James offered to let off his gallant friend if lio had any misgivings about his work . Sir Oiiahi . es declined to accept tho offer , evidently because ho supposed that to do so would be to confess himself " acoward . " Sir Jamiss Graham , therefore , had the strongest reason for believing that Sir Charles was ^ lio worst man for the place , that is , an unwilling * miBgiving , complaining workman . Yet he was sent out with innumerable puffs . Being ftfc tho sceno of action , Sir Charles instantly
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 8, 1855, page 864, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2105/page/12/
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