The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-11 00:00:00

THE WEEK.

NOTWITHSTANDING the confident announcements in Ministerial
journals that the French and English Embassies were to be forthwith
withdrawn from the Court of the King of the Two Sicilies, and that
the allied squadrons would appear in the Bay of Naples, no decided
step has yet been taken. We may hence infer that the Emperor of the
FRENCH is reluctant to commit himself to the Liberal policy of Lord
PALMERSTON'S Administration, and probably some means may be found
of composing the quarrel, and of satisfying the dignity of the Allied
Powers without coming to a direct rupture with the Neapolitan Court.
That the British Foreign-office is bent on a hostile demonstration
against Naples is well known, and its wishes and intentions have been
somewhat impudently trumpeted forth to the world before it was
certain whether those intentions could he fulfilled. In what a position
is this country placed now ? All over the Continent it is notorious
that our Government is restrained from proceeding to extremities
against Naples only through the reluctance of the Emperor of the
FRENCH to sanction such a proceeding. It is, then, his Majesty the
Emperor who imposes bounds to the action of Lord PALMERSTON'S
Cabinet, and who prevents the British flag from appearing in the Bay
of Naples ! What is to be the end of this untoward attempt at
intervention? Will the pertinacity of Lords PALMERSTON and
CLARENDON triumph? Will a signal be given to the Neapolitan
Liberals by the allied Western Powers to rise against the Government
of the King of NAPLES? Or will her Majesty's Administration, after all
its boasting, submit to be overrulel by French influence, and remain
quiet? The situation is perplexing, and for England humiliating. Our
foreign policy at the present moment appears meddling, but impotent.
How great is the contrast of our present attitude to that assumed by
Lord CASTLEREAGH, as brought to light by the Frankfort Journal!
Never did the policy of non-intervention, as propounded by, that great
statesman, appear more noble and dignified ; never did the policy of
intervention, as propounded by Lords PALMERSTON and CLARENDON at
the present time, appear more inconsistent, vexatious, and contempti-
ble. The King of NAPLES is threatened, and the King of NAPLES
stands at bay. All our Ministerial journals declare that a British
squadron is ordered to enter the Bay of Naples ; but before it can
sail, the consent of the Emperor of the FRENCH must be obtained.
His Majesty hesitates, and the order to the British Admiral is
held back.

Now, does not every one know what the tone of our Independent-
Liberal-Ministerial press wi I be whatever turn the affair may take ?
Should the Emperor of the FRENCH decide on a rupture with Naples,
there will be a jubilant shout of triumph. No matter what the subse-
quent results ►nay be, though Naples be occupied by French and
Austrian troops, and the King be kept under their tutelage, the Liberal
policy of our Foreign-office will be magnified to the skies, and the
principle of intervention against despotic government, and in favour of
Liberal institutions, will he declared to he confirtned,land to establish
a new and glorious epoch in our political annals. On the contrary,
should the Emperor of the French decide against attempting to coerce
the Neapolitan Court, advantage will be taken of any slight conces-
sions the King may consent to make, and we shall be told that we are
happily clear of the whole affair. Our Liberal contemporary, the
Daily News, the most rabid of all assailants of the King, has begun to
take this tone, on the faith of a report that the King is willing to refer
the demands made by the Western Powers to the Conference about to
open at Paris. Mark our contemporary :

A promise extorted from the fears of this caitiff King is not to be trusted. There is
one effectual step to purge the Neapolitan State from the evils that desolate it, and that
is to put away from the throne he has dishonoured, the incorrigible perturber of the
commonwealth of Europe.

But after an infinitely deal more abuse of the same kind of this " royal
madman," this "cowardly oppressor," this " Bourbon desecrating his
throne," the Daily News comes to the conclusion that "it is on all
" grounds more desirable that BOMBA should have yielded (if he have
" yielded) to the menace rather than to the actual manifestation of
" armed intervention." Bah ! all this means that our Liberals are
quite ready to draw in their horns if the Emperor of the FRENCH
should shake his head. We are loth to use hard terms. But this bul-
lying of our Liberal newspapers is discreditable to the national charac-
ter. A firm consistent tone would command our respect,though it did
not meet our approbation ; but this readiness to scatter dirt, and to eat
it afterwards, this mixed exhibition of bullying and poltroonery, is too
offensive and impudent to pass unchastised. It deprives us of all in.
fiuence on the Continent, and exposes us to the contempt of Europe.
It is quite time that the whole subject of our foreign policy should
be discussed in Parliament, and that a decision should be taken on
the principles which are to guide our intercourse with other nations.
We are curious to see whether in an assembly of English gentlemen,
there will be one person found to adopt the miserably ribald tone
which disgraces our Liberal press.

The speech of Major BERESFORD at the North• Essex Conservative
gathering was manly and honest. The Gallant Major is one of the
most earnest members of the Protestant party; and if any one could
be found to endorse the notion that anti-Maynoothism could be made
a party-cry, we might expect that he, from his zealous convictions,
would be the man. But Major BERESFORD has thesense to perceive,
and we hope some of our Protestant contemporaries will take the
lesson to heart—it is vain, we fear, to hope that they will take it to
head—that the question never can be made a party one. lie sees
that it is impossible to make it a basis of party organisation. This is
what we have insisted on. It must be, as it has been, one of those
open questions on which members—Liberal and Conservative, Church-