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AN ITALIAN" WARNING . The premonitory symptoms have appeared of a new intervention in Italy . The state of affairs at Naples , it is semi-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 caJI a platform , a ground of action .
him , 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 inj ured by its friends more frequently than any state in Europe . Ifc 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 me 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 armies , 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 .
But of what action 3 It is safe to interfere in the domestic government of the King of Naples , but can Great Britain , without hypocrisy , assume the prrvilege of coercing this thirdrate despot , who treats the malcontents of his kingdom exactly as malcontents are treated in the Austrian prisons and in Cayenne ? There may be reasons of policy why " something should be done " with . Naples ; but we do hope there will be no sentiment , no philanthropy
in the transaction . To goad and threaten a minor despot -who is no worse than the great despots he emulates , is to display that sort of courage which always keeps out of danger . Naples is not worse governed than . Milan , Parma , or Rome . Its political prisoners ar-e not more cruelly treated than the exiles at Cayenne . Its bastinado is not a mor , e brutal instrument than the thong of the Austrian lictors in Lombardy .
We 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 . What French intervention means the Italians well know . It means depriving them of the
right to settle their own affairs , imposing hateful governments on them by force , perhaps substituting , in Naples , a Bonaparte for a Bourbon . It is an undisguised encroachment on 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 polities
, —in 1815 , in 1821 , and in 1848 , and on each occasion has excited delusive hopes , stimulated premature atte mpts , 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 oaie of two objeots-4 o 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 , wo certainly cannot reckon attempts at the reformation of bad
governors . The political system of Naples belongs to its Bourbon dynasty , and cannot be separated from that dynasty , because it is tl \ o means by which the dynasty remains in power , in spito of a liberal and awakened public opimon . If the softening of King Ferdinand ' s rfgxmehz impossible and if it be dotorminod ? 5 ft * - £ * ) orb * ina « rreotio « , what folio wa 1 Will BritainT / p ™ ^ o 0086 thQ ohoso » of a «* t Britain and JWo % or , if they do not choose
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COUNT MOKTALEMBERT ON ENGLISH POLITICS . * M . de Montalembert ' s essay on the Political Future of'England has 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 Montalembert 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 Cesar . Because Okarles Dick ens dissects the poor and criminal classes' ! of society , and sheds the light and sympathy of genius on their desolation , he is compared with Eugene Sue . Because Oably i < e exonerates Chomwelj ,, from the charges elaborately presented against him by the libellers of the Restoration , and by the
ignorance of a long posterity of compilers , Oarlylb 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 the most degraded class of political fanatics in England bcliovo in the virtues of dospotism . M . » e Montalismbibiit perceives an aspect—a literal fact , and falsifies it by a falso explanation . CnoMWELL was a dictator , who governed by an army , but ho refused a crown—struggled to resign Ma supremacy—displayed nono of that
vulgar lust of power which is the inspiration of a military usurper . M . de 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 Athenaeum , 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 JSfeivs especially . The services rendered to the cause of political justice by the
Examiner will never be forgotten ; but neither can we forget that it has distinctly pointed out the empire of the couj > -d ^ elat 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 . Arnaud . "No writer , " says our contemporary , " applauds Napoleon the Third for the treachery and violence vised in his advent to the throne . " We wish , for the sake of English honour , that we could concur . But the
treachery 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 aniid the protests of December , 1851 . M . de Moktalembert must feel the retort , that the man he stigmatises as an " adventurer" he owns as a master , and if he—a Frenchmanowns him as a ruler , may not England own him as an ally 1 It was our inevitable policy to cultivate formal and friendly relations with the actual Emperor 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 coicpd ' etat is a bygone , is a casuistical deception . The coup-d ? e ' tat is not a bygone—it reigns —its victims 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 . lie 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 men of M . de Montalembert ' s order , among the necessities of existence . But would ho see freedom grow
with a nation ' s growth , become incorporated with its existence , belong to every citizen as a right , dissipate falso and artificial distinctions , make armios and polico its auxiliaries of solfdefonoo , render Usurpation impossible ? Jf ho would now , ho did not , when his exertions , united with those of the other politicians who repino over the humiliation of Franco , might have closed the path to a coup-ifdlat . ity faction and egotiain tho liberties ami laws ot Franco wore abandoned to tho violcnoo of an immoral schemer . Our public writers may have paid thoir homage to Usurpation without design-
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324 THE LEADER . [ No . 315 , Saturday , B ^^^ BCBMWOM ^ BJflM ^ PlMMBM ^ HEgjy ^ MMSgi ^^ B ^ fca ^ w ^ M ^^ M ^^^ MM ^ Bg ^ Hi ^ arttCiQ ^^^ MBM ^^^^ WMiWM ^ WMWB ^^^^^ MB ^ W ^ Wi ^^^^^^^^^^^ M ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ BK ^ jMCi ^^^^ j ^ B ^^^ BBJP ^^^^ C ^^^ M ^^ JBWgBPBO ^ ' n ,
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* The Political Future of Mnyland . By Oonnt Montalemiort . London : Mumvy .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 5, 1856, page 324, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2135/page/12/
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