The Press. — London, England, 1856-05-31 00:00:00

cussed and debated before the whole em pire from 1834 to 1841. It was decided in favour of Proiestantism, of fixed institutions, and of strict adherence to the Act of Union ; and five cannot now have it reopened for the purpose of embittering friends, and arraying our Irish fellow.subjee.ta against etath other. Upon the religion* and mor*L views of the Irish Church, apart from its immense political importance to the entpire, we May us4e h fret remarks The lamentable troubles of Ireland in the nineteenth century, and the cruel deeds of Protector CROMWELL, had the unfortunate tendency of making the Irish people confound Protestantism with Puritanism; and the cruel penal laws (tor which there was no political necessity) were passed by a Whig aristocracy, desirJus of extinguishing Jacobitism after a mode that would have been worthy of ROBES PIERRE. But all that has passed away. The Irish Church has undergone a vast internal reform in the course of the last thirty years. Her clergy may challenge comparison with those of any Church in Christendom. Great and respected names are to be found amongst her ' divines. MAOEE, JF.BB, GRAVES, amongst them, not lung deceased, were eminent in theology. Many more are to-day to be found in her episcopacy, in her pulpits, and her schools. The tone of the Irish gentry has been raised by their exertions; and during the famine the clergy of the Establishment acted as almoners to the people. Not long before his death, the late Mr. SHELL declared that Protestantism never was so strong in Ireland. This, therefore, would be no period for mi.ddling with a Church which has thrown off the laziness of the last century, and which bids fair to be as "a light upon a hill." Lastly, there is one short consideration upon this question The private papers of Sir ROBERT PEEL are just published, and the consequences of " Emancipation without securities" are patent to all men. Suppose that the Irish Church were confiscated (sman dem Mr. MIALL), what security would there be lett for toe Union with Ireland, or for the Pro• testantisin of the empire? If the Roman Catholics could succeed so far, What next? When these questions are answered, hut not until then, we may adjourn all practical con siderations of the levelling tendencies of that odd kind of "Radicalism" which is ticketed religious." AUSTRIA ON THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE. THE Anstr'al Cabinet has given to tha world, through the medium of official journals, the interpretation it places on the Tripartite Treaty of the 16th of April. The Otiterrei ehische Correspondenz and the Weiner Zeitung have been instructA to speak plainly. They represent that tii4iree Powers, France, Eng land, and Austria;, have been closely allied in policy on the Eastern question; that in the quarrel between , Russia and the Porte the two first interfere& with the sword, the last by military demonstrations and treaties ; that their obj •ct was the same ; that iu the Vienna Con ferences they proposed an active guarantee of the inte_rity of the Ottoman empire ; that such stipulation being then objected to by Russia, it was not brought forward at the Paris Conferences, but that tho principle which dictated it survived ; that it outlived the war, that it found expression in the Treaty of April 15, and took its place among the most firmly based international treaties. Thus far the explanation accords perfectly with that which Lord PALMERSTON gave to the House of Commons on Monday se'nnight. But the Austrian official papers go further. They represent, and with the greatest truth, the Triple Alliance, not as confined to a single object, but as constituting au European policy. The Weiner Zeitung declares : It is true that the Treaty of April lb records the con tinuance of an alliance—an intimate union—between Fiance, Anitria, and England, but it is based on the grin• Moles ufjustice, which the Sovereigns openly profess, and which in do way either menace or injure any other Govern ment. The treaty is based on principles which support wd protect the balance of power in Europe, sad Ms lorri ory and authority of Me Govaninents of al! monstriew. THE PRESS. The Treats of April 15, by its contents and sense, is s guarantee that the parties to it will nowhere and never swerve from the principles of international law and justice. . . • ' • The t-- - i•. •1 :'es *cadres the prolonged anion of Austria, 4,egisnd44llld od the principles of law and insane. : k a This 4 a fair thd ta Ail statement of the tell principle of the "rti Alliance. Its purpdie r i is to *ure i ptedo nating power to prevent any 4Paurbante 111 P " A ctual state of Europa. The i t llia.ice of the t Ale Powers, it is said, " was cons,,lidated 111 a most conservative " sense after the war Which had led to it was " at an end." Then how does this Triple Alliance affect our relations with Sardinia ? The Correspon denz shows that the Austrian and the Sardi nian Governments are in direct antagonism on the question of Italy, and that the former will never recognise the right of the latter to speak in the name of Italy : As to the policy of the Austrian empire, it is based on a respect for all acquired rights. True to its principle—regard fer the independence of all sovereignties—the Imperial Royal Government can never recognise the right which is clai.ned by the Sar dinian Court to speak in the name of Italy. Although regarding things from a point of view entirely different, we cannot but agree with the opinion eapresaed by that Minister, that in the perception of international relations, rights, and duties, there is an impassable gulf between Austria and the present Sardinian Cabinet. Throughout this document Austria speaks of the Italian Sovereigns alone. It is with the sovereignties of Italy that she is allied; it is to the sovereignties of Italy that she is bound to afford aid against insurrectionary movements ; she will support the " advantageous changes " which may emanate from the free will of the Italian Sovereigns, but she will not suffer them to be coerced by popular movements : She will firmly repel any unjustifiable attack which may be made on those Italian States that are allied to her, and will do all in her power to counteract the machinations of the anarchis►i, and to prevent revolutionary agitation. Surely this is plain speaking. Austria will support the Italian Courts against any effort of the Italian people to overthrow them; and to maintain this principle, she relies on her internal strength. and on "European treaties " which are recognised and respected by all " the Powers." Austria feels that she has gained an accession of strength by the Triple Alliance, and her determination to uphold the sovereignties of Italy is clearer and more de cided than it has ever been before. The Courts in her estimation are all ; the people are nothing. Whatever changes are required must come from the Governments, not from the governed.— Wherever Austria has intervened in Italy, she has done so in the most disinterested manner; she has intervened at the request of the different sovereigns, and as soon as one or other of them has declared his ability to maintain public peace and order without foreign assis . ance, the Imperial forces have been withdrawn from his territories. Willie the doctrine of intervention prevails, the Italian people must of necessity be at the mercy of their Courts ; and to speak to them of their rights, to encourage them to rise or to agitate for tneir liberties, is to prepare for them all the calamities inevitably resulting from the domination and licence of a foreign military force. Against this right of intervention m iintained by Austria, Sardinia protests with all her power. Between the policy.of the two Go• vernments there is an " impassable gulf." In what position the. is the Administration of Lord PALM ERSTON ? If A and B are tit mly and intimately allied, and B is directly opposed to C. what is I.ll* relation of Ato C? This is the point to be determined. It is this question which our Legislature is imperatively called on to discuss. We can no longer tolerate without dishonour professions favorable to Italian liberalism and conduct upholding Italian despotism. England will be branded with hypucrisy in the face of the world, should she continue to stimulate liberal principles in Italy while strengthening the authority of the Austrian Government, which openly proclaims its intention of suppressing those principles. This policy of holding with the hounds and running with the hare is contemptible in a small Power, but odious in a great one. Austria must despise our sympathy with the Italian Liberals while secure of our alliance. Her answer to our support of the Sardinian re monstrance is conveyed in the assertion she makes that she has the right and the power to suppress all popular effervescent.* in the Italian States. The Court of Austria must feel that it has at last made Lord Patatsasrox safe. Ills .m=ll SATURDAY, declaration that the British Government separated itself from the Sicilian move ment 4n 1849, because the Sicilians re. fused to acknowledge the sovereignty of the King of N&IPLE% is so notoriously opposed to fain, and to repugnant to all the opinions ha las perviously expressed, that It hen been eViitywhale received with un bouatled astonishnitint. It is opposed to the expos% tliclaratiima itdOit Mum that he w as will*/ to recogniS t e independe nce of Sicily, hut tliat he could not overcome the opposition of the Court of Naples. Were not guns sent to the Sicilian inEurgents with the Tower brand upon them? Was not the Duke of GENOA intimated by Lord PALMERSTON as a desirable prince for Sicily ? It is difficult to account for his Lordship's sudden change of tone. Does it arise from profound con tempt of what is called the Liberal party in this country ? No other explanation is adequate to the fact. This party is at his foot. He can now be as absolutist in his avowals as he pleases. There is some shrewdness in his contempt, fur it is shared by the enlightened opinion of the whole country. OUR CIVILISATION IN THE EAST WE see by the last Indian twill that the Mop halls have again risen in rebellion in Malabar, and that a body of her Majesty's troops have been sent down from Bombay to Calicut to quell the outbreak. These are the people, it may be remembered, who, a short time since, murdered their collector, Mr. CONOLLY, and who have been with short intervals perpetu ally giving trouble for the last fourteen years. An attempt was made on the last occasion to terrorise them into future submission by burn ing the corpses of those who fell in their collision with our troops, but the result has been, as we predicted, to infuriate their pas sions instead of allaying them, and to make them less amenable to reason, if possible, than tuey were before. A similar measure has had a similar result on our north-west frontier. There, too, the practice of burning the bodies of Mahomcdau insurgents, and so depriving them of the rites of sepulture, has been adopted ; and there, too, assassinations, in- stead of diminishing, have greatly increased, since the introduction of this barbarous law. Nor does the evil end here ; for it seems to have had an influence the very reverse of desirable over the minds of our own officials in India Having entered upon this p.eth, and found it so far a failure, they appear in clined to follow it out to the most revolting extremes The organ of the Government actually deplores the existence of feelings on the part of the public which render it impos sible to resort to the measure of burning alive malefactors of this description ; but it ex presses itself as not disinclined to resort to mutilation, which it supposes may have terrors for such minds as theirs. At any rate, all forms of trial, it affirms, should be dispensed with in such cases, and the offender, or sup posed offender, hung as soon as caught upon the nearest tree. If anything were wanting to show that the backwardness in civilisation which is said to exist in India is not confined to the natives of the country, it would be the publication, in a respectable English journal, of such atro cious sentiments. No wonder that torture , though formally denounced, excites little horror in India and meets with little real effort at repression, when modes are advocated of en forcing submission to the Government more barbarous than those to which even the most barbarous and inhuman of' Asiatic sovereigns have ever had recourse. The propounders of such doctrines are evidently blind to the fact that vigour in the Government and a tyran nical abuse of power are not synon ymous,. and that cruelty always productive of weakness is a sign of it, rather than of strength. In no country has a recourse to such expedients ever been permanently suc cessful. Even if effectual at the instant, a terrible reaction is always, sooner or later, the . inevitable result. Nor does our experience of 111