FRANCE AND ITALY.

DURING the past month but little has been done towards the final settlement of the much-vexed Italian question. The Emperor of Austria and Pio Nono appear to have made up their minds to the course they will pursue, and cajolery and half-veiled measures have been tried in turn, though equally in vain, by Louis Napoleon. The political situation resembles that curious chess problem, in which the party moving first must lose the game, and the opponents are striving to exhaust each other's patience. As, however, Pio Nono's position is admirably adapted for passive resistance, we are of opinion that Louis Napoleon will have eventually to succumb.

The question of the day has received a fresh development by the sudden clamour raised by French writers for the annexation of Savoy to France, as a return for the establishment of a central Italian kingdom under Victor Emmanuel. The true facts of the case are difficult to arrive at, for our ministers, on being cross-questioned, seek refuge in a studied reserve; but there seems little doubt that the "idea" on behalf of which the French Emperor entered on the war, was not quite so disinterested as he would have us believe. An overwhelming mass of evidence has been collected to show that a compact was entered into, previously to the outbreak of hostilities, between France and Sardinia, that the former country should receive Savoy in return for liberating Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, in other words, producing an enormous territorial aggrandisement of Sardinia. People are very often generous with other persons' property, and nothing was so easy as for Louis Napoleon to promise to augment Sardinia at the expense of Austria. Unfortunately for the high contracting powers, the Emperor of the French suddenly checked his triumphant career, and Sardinia could only clutch Lombardy. As, therefore, the contract was not carried out in its integrity, Victor Emmanuel declined handing over Savoy to the tender mercies of France. Such, to our view, are the plain facts of the case, and Louis Napoleon has just cause to complain of the sharp practice on the part of his gallant ally in spoliation. But the pretext put forward by the French writers for the annexation is an insult to common sense: they say, should a powerful kingdom be established in Italy, it might at any moment be able to throw an army into Dauphiny, and completely cut off the communications between Lyons and Marseilles. To prevent such a direful consummation, France must receive Savoy. Can anything more ridiculous be conceived than such an argument? Lord Malmesbury disposed of it at once, with his usual perspicacity, in the debate of the 16th of February:

It is the opinion of the government that a "strong kingdom" should be formed in the north of Italy. That is not my opinion, for this reason, that it would be impossible that such a kingdom there should be of any real strength. It is the wish of all of us, I presume, that Italy should be an independent nation, strong enough to resist aggression. But the proposed kingdom, if Savoy is to be annexed to France, would not be "strong" in a military sense. It would be open at both ends. France would hold the keys of the Alps in March-VOL. CXVIII. NO. CCCCLXXI.

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Savoy, and Austria would hold the keys of Italy on the Mincio. There would be no protection from the north; and the conformation of Italy is such as to make it impossible to defend itself by sea without an enormous fleet, its coasts on each side being so exposed. Looking to the character of the Italians and their distinct traditions, there would be far greater strength in a confederacy of Italian states than in any one kingdom. Such a kingdom might be strong enough for purposes of offence, but would be powerless for defence-at all events, if deprived of Savoy. Let the Italians, then, be left to themselves.

The strong pressure put upon government by the Conservative lords has drawn from Lord Granville an intimation that France does not intend to annex Savoy without the consent of the Great Powers. Unfor tunately, the treaty of 1815 has been so rent that it is hopeless to appeal to it under existing circumstances, and continental governments have fallen back on

The good old-fashioned plan,

That those shall hold who have the power,
And those shall keep who can.

Treaties are regarded as of less value than the parchment on which they are endorsed whenever an ambitious potentate fixes his desire on his neighbours' possessions. We, who assented to the formation of Belgium and Greece, cannot now appeal to a treaty which has been practically ignored, or bid France hold her hand if she insist on annexing Savoy. The late government wisely exercised a profound neutrality during the Italian campaign, and thus avoided the moral guilt of complicity. But Lord John Russell inaugurated a new foreign policy by his notorious speech at Aberdeen. Louis Napoleon took advantage of the blot, and the rumours about the annexation began with renewed vigour. In fact, there is nothing but the opposition of Sardinia to prevent his appropriating his new territory whenever he thinks proper. And if such an arrangement lay Italy open to his forage, we shall have to thank a Liberal government for the vast expenditure such a change will entail on us in keeping up a Mediterranean fleet, to prevent his making any dangerous demonstration from the seaboard of the Adriatic.

After all, this threatened annexation of Savoy is but a further development of the idea which the rulers of France have fostered since the earliest period-the territorial aggrandisement of their country. While the lords of Savoy have been gradually augmenting their territory on the Italian side, France has for centuries been appropriating the older Burgundian possessions. Hence, it is logical enough that, if Victor Emmanuel should permanently gain the possession of Central Italy, France should seize upon Savoy in her turn. There is a plausible argument frequently employed, that Savoy is in no way akin to the Italian races, but has a natural affinity for France; the inhabitants speak a species of French, therefore they ought to belong to that empire. The same dangerous theory might be employed with respect to Jersey and Guernsey, if it were recognised in the case of Savoy. On the same principle, however, France ought to restore Alsace to Germany, and give up all her longings for the Rhine frontier. In one case ethnology is called into play, in the other geography; but the end is intended to be the same in both. France will never be cured of her fatal desire for expansion, from which all her wars have originated, and is as ready now to appeal to arms

as during the empire of the first Napoleon. If Europe give way in the matter of Savoy-and we hardly see how the annexation can be prevented if Louis Napoleon will it-five years will not elapse without a quarrel with Prussia, and an extension of the French frontier to the Rhine. We know, by bitter experience, the Napoleonic tactics: when he wishes to carry a point, as against England, he makes an enormous display of strength, which arouses a degree of nervous apprehension. When the irritation has reached its culminating point, he yields a graceful concession, which blinds the British public, and he gains his end, which has been left out of sight during the embroglio.

The new commercial treaty, then, is the worst step that could have happened for the dignity of England. We hold that it has been concluded in a spirit of truckling to the Emperor of the French, and has bound us to the chariot wheels of the pacificator of Italy. It has been urged that the conservative organs, which have brought these views forward, fail in the proof of any advantages which will accrue to the emperor; but to us it is simple enough. He desires to rekindle the traditions of imperial France, but knows that he cannot do so if England is opposed to him. By opening up a market for our productions he binds us over, as it were, to keep the peace, for such enormous sums will be locked up in France that a war would be ruinous. At the same time, to guard against all eventualities, he is enabled to collect enormous stores of the most necessary munitions of war, and will be ready to attack us at any moment. We may be quite sure that if hostilities ever should break out between England and France, the emperor will not neglect the chances of surprising us; and he is, seemingly, making every preparation for such a course, if we may judge by his actions. He has sailors in reserve to man an enormous fleet. We are told that he has already two hundred and fifty thousand tons of coal laid up in his dockyards, and we are enabling him to increase the quantity to any extent he pleases. Worse still at the moment we are taught to regard the new treaty as a masterpiece, because it tends to knit more closely the bonds of amity between the two nations, the estimates for our army and navy have reached an amount never before paralleled in peace time.

We

The ministerial organs protest most vigorously against the idea that the commercial treaty was wrung from the fear of our government; but there are very awkward surmises on the point. When Mr. Bentinck, startled by the way in which the case was put to the House, asked if the rejection of the treaty would cause a breach of friendly relations with France, Lord John sharply replied that every private member of the House was quite as capable of judging on that matter as the government could be. We can only interpret such a reply unfavourably, and may, therefore, be pardoned if we still regard the treaty as a sop offered to Cerberus have not the slightest objections to the enormous defensive measures the government are taking, for we see in them a far better guarantee of peace than any treaty can afford; but we insist, at the same time, that there is an anomaly in the course Mr. Gladstone is pursuing. If the treaty be so valuable, as we are told, as preservative of peace, we are throwing away our money in defending our coasts from an impossible danger; if, on the other hand, we require a powerful armament to keep the peace, we need not make concessions of revenue for the sake

of bribing France into good behaviour. But even if the balance were the other side, we still protest against the policy of paving the way for an age of peace by retaining a war taxation.

There cannot be a doubt that the solution of the Italian difficulty is purposely delayed by the Emperor of the French until he has learned the fate of that treaty by which he hopes to make England his accomplice. Towards the middle of the month we were told that the King of Sardinia was growing so heartily wearied of the delays, that he intended to cut the Gordian knot by making a final appeal to the populations of Central Italy, and, if the decision were favourable, proceeding at once to the annexation of the duchies. Had he done so, the difficulty would have been temporarily settled, but the mot d'ordre from the Tuileries appears to have been delayed, and Victor Emmanuel still bides his time. He demands the fulfilment of the pledge: he is eager to hold Venetia, and it was promised to him. Unfortunately for his ambitious hopes, his imperial ally has no hesitation in breaking his plighted word when its performance runs counter to his own plans, and there seems but slight prospect now of Victor Emmanuel being put in peaceful possession of Venetia, for the Austrians are fearfully exasperated, and will hold on to their last Italian possession with the energy of despair. Louis Napoleon, however, has had enough fighting for the present, and we doubt whether Victor Emmanuel, daring to rashness as he is, would venture to run his head against such a stone wall as Verona opposes to him. If the struggle break out anew, it will be a terrible one, and may plunge us into the horrors of a general The liberal party in Italy are anxiously looking for some collision in the Papal States or Naples which may lead to a general revolution, and then the chance of re-establishing order without some dreadful crisis would be almost impossible. Such are the results of an Emperor of the

war.

French fighting for an idea!

The worst part of the whole Italian business is the indecent haste with which a Whig ministry have recognised the provisional government of Tuscany. Not long ago one of our men-of-war, entering the port of Leghorn, saluted the insurrectionist flag, and since then Mr. Corbett has appeared at the public reception of Signor Buoncompagni, now acting as Governor-General of Tuscany. Lord Malmesbury, speaking officially, let in considerable light on the character of this worthy Italian, and his report, deserving better preservation than the columns of a daily paper, we readily insert it here:

As to Buoncompagni, I regret that any mark of respect, not positively necessary, should have been paid to him. If the code of honour as well as the dictates of morality are to be set at naught, the whole state of society will be reduced to disruption, and social intercourse cannot be carried on. Buoncompagni stood in the sacred character of an ambassador from one friendly sovereign, the King of Sardinia, to another, the Duke of Tuscany. And yet, by the evidence of Mr. Scarlett, our own minister at Florence, this man appeared to have been one of the most active of the conspirators for bringing about the revolution in Tuscany, and dethroning the sovereign to whom he was accredited. Our English ideas revolt from such conduct; and though we cannot expect revolutions to be carried on without faults and crimes, we are not obliged to honour the criminals with useless and needless compliments.

It must not be forgotten that Lord John Russell stated at Aberdeen that everything hitherto done in Italy must be deemed provisional. He

also spoke of the Italian peoples as free, but Lord Normanby has con clusively proved his error. Lord John, too, eulogised the Italian states for the remarkable order maintained, but he forgot to state that this tranquillity was preserved by Sardinian despotism and foreign bayonets. Perhaps Lord John was so enamoured of this order that he hastened to recognise the temporary authority, and of course deluded the Italians with hopes that the English nation were about to become the defenders of insurrection. When appealed to on the subject by the leaders of the opposition, Lord Wodehouse shirked the question: he said that Mr. Corbett had received no directions to attend the levee in any "official" capacity, and no importance could be attached to the circumstance, as he had no power to recognise the new government. But such an explanation is insincere: every movement of our envoys is now eagerly watched in Central Italy, and there is not the slightest doubt Mr. Corbett's presence at Signor Buoncompagni's reception has been exploitée by the patriots as significant of England's adhesion to their cause. The Italians will not stop to analyse the distinction between "officious" and "official" relation. All they care for is the fact that an English minister, by his presence, seemed to sanction insurrection, and the circumstance will be dilated and commented on till the Italians are forced into the belief that England is prepared to back them through thick and thin.

men.

Against the unhappy consequences of such a self-deception the Marquis of Normanby has thought it his duty to protest on more than one occasion. He has a moral courage, rare at the present moment of sentimental fancy for Italy, and, moreover, is better acquainted with the real character and temper of the Italians than the majority of his countryA lengthened residence in Florence has enabled him to appreciate the defects of the Italian character, and he has uttered some most unpalatable truths, which the Marquis of Clanricarde has in vain attempted to palliate. The Liberal organs have raised an intense pother at his lordship's revelations, and have sought by the most laboured arguments to disarm them; but they only admit of a point-blank denial or perfect acceptance. Lord Normanby, however, is not the man to put forward any statement which he is not prepared to prove, and the bead-roll of accusations he brings against the Piedmontese authorities is very significant at the present moment. From his place in the House he declared that not one of the new governments in Italy had been chosen by popular election, and no opposition to the government established was allowed. Signor Buoncompagni had denounced the penalties of treason against all who should oppose the existing order of things. The liberty of the press had been destroyed, and thousands of people arbitrarily imprisoned, yet Lord John Russell, at Aberdeen, declared these people free. Signor Buoncompagni had been recalled by the King of Sardinia, but by his influence the Baron Ricasoli was substituted. So Signor Buoncompagni substituted Signor Farini at Modena. So of Signor Palleri at Parma. To talk of these rulers as elected by popular choice was absurd. The Duchess of Parma had left her territories amidst the tears of her people, in order to avoid the effusion of blood. As to the case of Colonel Anviti, who was murdered at Parma, he was travelling from Verona to Vicenza, where he lived; nor was it at all true that he had any mission at Parma. He took refuge in the government barracks, and was dragged thence,