The Press.
London, England, 1856-05-17 00:00:00

ins iritglzi+

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1856.

POSTSCRIPT.

The Indipendance Beige, received yesterday,
makes the following statement with reference to tho
peace :
It is certain that no one can any longer doubt the
existence of a secret treaty between France, Austria,
and England, as a corollary of the treaty of April 15. But
what is the Mar, or rather the object of that treaty ? On
this point there is room for a host of suppositions. That
some are strange and ridiculous it is unnecessary to say;
but we cannot class amongst those the supposition that
the treaty provides for the contingency of Turkey being
seriously weakened by what she has suffered during the
war, and by the attempts to introduce reforms into the
Turkish empire. In saying that this supposition is not
the moat impossible, we guard ourselves from asserting
that this alone is the special or only object of the secret
league supposed to be established between Austria and the
two great maritime powers.

The IndeTendance states, on the faith of letters
from Paris, that the Grand Duke of Tuscany has
positively refused to conclude the Concordat so
eagerly desired by the Holy See. The satisfaction
at ihie news was so great in Florence that the? are
preparing a grand ovation against the return of the
Grand Duke to the capital.

Intelligence from Paris, Friday, one p.m., states :

The Archduke Maximilian of Austria arrived here yes-
terday evening. He proceeded with his suite in the court
carriages to St. Cloud.

A despatch from Berlin announcer
the Princess Paskiewitch on the 14tb.

the death of

The Brazilian mail, with dates from Buenos
Ayres to April 3rd, Rio April 15th, arrived at
Southampton yesterday.

Letters from Buenos Ayres state that General
Urquiza was gaining ground, but an aggressive war
was not expected.
News from Monte Video is discouraging, and mat-
ters are reported as very unsatisfactory. Oribe was
in the ascendant.

A serious question had arisen between the Go•
vernment of Paraguay and the French Consul, re-
specting the treatment of a colony of French settlers,
and it was feared that some trouble would ensue with
the Italian colony at Patagonas.

A Cabinet Council was held on Saturday at the
Foreign•oflice, Downing-street. All the Ministers
were present. The Council sat two hours.

A Cabinet Council will be held at the Foreign-
office this day, at two p.m.

The Duke of Somerset, Lord Stanley, Mr. Sidney
Herbert, Mr. Edward Ellice, Lieut. General Wyn•
yard, Sir de Lacy Evans, Sir Harry Jopes, Sir Henry
Bentinck, Carr Glynn, Esq., and Colonel Wetherall,
have been appointed by special commission to in•
quire into the system of purchase in the army and
the sale of commiseions.

The review at Windsor, stated as fixed to be held
on the 20th inst., will not iake plane,
111111111&,.

THE PRESS.

The banquet proposed to be given by the Lord
Mayor and the Lady Mayoress on Tuesday, the 27th
inst., to her Majesty's judges and the members of the
bar, is unavoidably postponed to the following day.

Dr. Hassan was presented, by a number of noble-
men and gentlemen, on Thursday evening, at a
public dinner at the Freemasons' Tavern, with a
v.iry handsome testimonial for his Tabours in detect-
ing the adulteration of food.

From the number of placards put up in the metro-
polis inviting the working classes to attend in the
Parks on Sunday next, and to bring their own music,
it is much to be feared that the assemblage will not
be so orderly as for some Sundays past.

General Lord Gough has left town on Wednes-
day evening, with a numerous staff, to present to
the officers and soldiers of the French army the
medals sent by the Quen as a recognition of their
brilliant services in the Crimean campaigns.

THE CONGRESS AND THE ITALIAN
QUESTION.

Two important notes, presented by Sardinia to the
late Paris Congress, have been published this week.
The one is upon the position of the Pontifical States,
the other on the general position of Italy, and both
with respect to foreign occupation.
A memorandum upon the state of Italy of great
State importance is believed to exist in defence of
these notes.

The note verbale presented on the 27th March gives
a sketch of the state of the French Revolution of '93,
pointing out that at the general peace of 1815 the
Pope returned to Rome without perceiving the pro
gress of ideas and the profound changes which the
French regime had introduced,—the struggle
between the Government and people, and the three
interferences of Austria to re-establish the authority
of the Pope repudiated by his subjects.

The present 'deplorable position of the Legations
is then briefly touched upon as " occupied by Austrian
troops, and kept without cessation under a state of
siege and martial law since 1845." " The PAtifical
Government exists only in name," observes the note,
"since over its legates an Austrian general takes the
title and exercises the functions of civil and military
governor."

- The question than is put how to get rid of this in-
tolerable burden, and answered in the words of the
Emperor of the French, " by secularisation and by
the Code Napoleon ":

But it is evident (continues the note) that the Court of
Rome will resist to the last moment and with all the
means at its command the realisation of those two pro-
jects. It is evident that Rome may, in appearance,
consent to accept civil reforms, and even political, while
rendering them illusory in practice. But Rome under-
stands too well that secularisation and the Code Napoleon
introduced into Rome itself, where rests the edifice of her
temporal power, would undermine that power at its basis,
and bring it to the ground, by depriving it of its principal
supports—clerical privileges and canonic law.

Therefore, to secure the temporal power of the Holy
See without the necessity of foreign occupation, the
note proposes :

1. The provinces of the Roman States, situate between
the Po, the Adriatic, and the Apennines, from the province
of Cremona to that of Ferrara, remaining always subject
to the high domination of the Holy See, would be corn
pletely secularised and organised in regard to the adminis-
trative, judicial, military, a•id financial affairs, in a manner
quite separate and independent from the remainder of the
Papal States. Nevertheless the religious and diplomatic
relations would remain exclusively under the control of the
Court of Rome.

`2. The territorial and administrative organisation of this
apostolic principality would he established in conformity
with what existed under the reign of Napoleon 1., until the
year 1814. The Code Napoleon would be promulgated,
with the requisite modifications of all that refers to the
relation of Church and State.
3. The lay Pontifical Viceroy ( vicario ) to govern the
provinoes with the assistance of Ministers and a Council of
State. The proposition of the Viceroy—nominated by the
Pope—would be guaranteed as to the duration of his
functions—which should be at least for ten years.
4. The Ministers, Councillors of State, and all officials
indiscriminately, would be named by the Pontifical Vice-
roy. Their legislative power would not extend to religious
and other affairs, to mixed affairs which would be previously
determined upon, or, finally, to anything connected with
political international relations. These provinces ought
to contribute in a just proportion to the support of the
Court of Rome, and the reduction of the existing public
debt.

5. A native army would be immediately organised by
means of military conscription. Besides the provincial
and communal councils, a general council would be estab•
lished for the audit and regulation of the budget.
This note was followed by another upon " The
State of Italy," presented on the 16th of April, 1856,
the day after the signature of the treaty of the 15th
by England, France, and Austria. The note opens
with an expression of disappointment at nothing
having been done by the Congress ik ameliorate the
iAs pf an 4 attributes that unfortunate result

SATURDAY,

to the refusal of Austria to discuss any matter beyond
the limits of the Eastern ques.ion. It then briefly
touches upon the state of Italy :--

It would be superfluous to trace here an exact picture o
Italy. What has taken place in those countries is too no-
torious. The system of repression and violent reaction
commenced in 1848 and IB49—justified in its origin,
perhaps, by the revolutionary disturbances which had just
been suppressed—continues without the smallest reins.
tion. It may even be said, with few exceptions, it is exer.
cised with redoubled rigour. Never were the prisons and
dungeons more full of persona condemned for political
causes; never has the number of exiles been greater; never
has tho police been more vexatious, nor martial law more
severely applied. What is taking ph►oe at karma only
proves this too clearly.
The hope that the great Western powers would not
separate without remedying these. evils is declared to
have kept the people of late " calm and resigned,"
but the negative results of the Congress would
awaken the dormant irritation more violently then
ever :

Convinced that they have nothing to expect from diplo-
macy and the efforts of the powers which take an interest
in their fate, they will throw themselves with Southern
ardour into the ranks of the revolutionary and subversive
party, and Italy will again become a hotbed of contzpirs-
cies and tumults, which may perhaps be suppressed by
redoubled rigour, but which the least European comma-
lion will make burst forth in the most violent manner.

So lamentable a state of things, it is declared, ex-
pose the kingdom of Piedmont to the most gray
dangers, which may compromise her hitherto firm
and moderate policy. But this is not Piedmont's
only danger. The Austrian occupation of Italy is a
far greater evil :
Called by the sovereigns of the small States of Italy who
are powerless to repress the discontent of their subjects,
this power occupies militarily the greater part of the valley
of the Po and of Central Italy, and makes its influence felt
in an irresistible manner even in the countries where she
has no soldiers. Resting on one side on Ferrara and
bologna, her troops extend themselves to Ancona, the
length of the Adriatic, which has become in a manner an
Austrian lake ; on the other, mistress of Piacenza, which,
contrary to the spirit, if not to the letter, of the treaties of
Vienna, she labours to transform into a first-class fortress,
she has a garrison at Parma, and makes dispositions to
deploy her forces all along the Sardinian frontier, from the
Po to the summit of the Apennines.
These permanent occupations by Austria of terri-
tories which do not belong to her render her absolute
mistress of nearly all Italy, destroy the equilibrium
established by the treaty of Vienna, and are a con-
tinual menace .for Piedmont :

Surrounded, in some degree, on all aides, by the Aus-
trians—seeing developed on her eastern frontier, com••
pletely open, the forces of a power which she knows not
to be animated by friendly feelings towards her—this
country is held in a state of cor.stant apprehension, which
obliges her to remain armed, and to take defensive mea-
sures which are excessively burdensome for her finances,
already tasked by the events of 1848 and 1849, and by the
war in which she has just participated.

That England and France will not permit this state of
affairs to continue longer without remedy, the Sar-
dinian Plenipotentiaries, at the conclusion, express
themselves convinced, because it constitutes a seat of
danger to Europe. "If Sardinia," says the note,
" were obliged to submit to Austrian domination, then
the conquest of Italy by this power would be
achieved ; and Austria, after having obtained, with-
out it costing her the least sacrifice, the immense
benefit of the free navigation of the Danube and the
neutralisation of the Black Sea, would acquire a pre-
ponderating influence in the West."

COUNT ORLOFF, it ;s declared in Paris, was most
seriously disturbed by the publication of the tri-
partite treaty of the 15th April, and is reported to
have had a special audience of the Emperor of the
French, to ask for explanation. The Russian Pleni-
potentiary, ssys a letter from Paris, represented to
his Majesty that this treaty, unexplained, was con-
strued by his Government as a symptom of want of
confidence in the good faith of Russia. The Emperor
Napoleon protested against any such interpretation,
and assured Count Orloff that he had only signed
the treaty in compliance with the wishes of England
Austria, who desired to have a pledge of his
good feeling towards them. Count Orloff replied,
with as much vivacity as it was possible for a diplo-
matist to exhibit in presence of a reigning monarch,
that the treaty of peace of March 30th effectually
secured the independence and integrity of the Ottc-
man empire, that the Emperor Napoleon had, before
the signing of that treaty, given strong assurances
of his desire to cultivate intimate relations with
Russia, and that the unexpected step which had
been taken was calculated to sow doubt mid distrust
in the mind of his Imperial master. During this
remarkable interview the Emperor Napoleon 111.
preserved that calm and impenetrable demeanour
for which he is remarkable, while Count Orloff
scarcely concealed the excitement and surprise whic.h
the new situation had produced in bis wind,