The Express.
London, England, 1862-04-18 00:00:00

■* WATER AT IDSOOI.. mama

Tins Day —lllaelm. a Ma ... . Ahmssi, illi. Us.
T.. soasow—liknhas. M. Wm..... atanara. EL am.

LORDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 18.

Tug Conservatives bout of their gains at re-
cent elections, and their organs speak with con-
fidence of the early accession of the party to
power. So far as mere numbers are concerned
there is nothing that we know of in the composi-
tion or character of the present inert and spirit-
less House of Commons to prevent this. But the
nation is hardly likely to acquiesce in such an ar-
rangement, unless it knows rather more clearly
than at present on what principles the business of
the country would be carried on by a Tory Admi-
nistration. This demand for fuller knowledge
refers chiefly, of course, to the foreign policy of
the Conservative leaders. Their views on do-
mestic questions are better known and less im-
portant, for the power of opinion would promptly
and effectually prevent their being earned to any
vicious or reactionary extreme. But in matters of
foreign policy great and irreparable mischief might
easily be done in comparative silence and obscurity,
especially in the present disturbed and critical
state of both hemispheres. Indirect but decisive
countenance and support might be given
to reactionary movements of the worst
kind before public opinion was sufficiently
informed to interpose its veto, or the indig-
nant voice of the nation could make itself
beard ; and, apart from any such overt action, the
known sympathies and predilections of a govern-
ment are in themselves a moral power capable of
doing no inconsiderable amount of good or harm.
This is illustrated in the state of opinion at home
and abroad at the present moment. The strong
and °hearty symp►thy of the English Government
for Italy is a tower of strength to the Italian cause.
In the other hand, the general belief both in this
country and on the Continent is, that the return of
• Tory Ministry to office would directly strengthen
the hands of despotic power, and stimulate re-
actionary movements in every part of Europe.
The universal conviction is that such an event
would encourage Austria not only in her crusade
against Hungary, but in her designs on Italy;
tempt the abettors of the Pore's temporal powir
into still more obstinate resistance, revive the hopes
of the exiled Italian l'rinces, and multiply the
gangs of savage brigands that infest Southern
Italy. In a word, according to the judgment of
those who are well informed as to the state of
parties and the tendency of opinion on the Con-
tinent, the return of Lords Damn- and 31• Le m-
at' RV to power would be a heavy blow to Italy,
and a great and positive discouragement to the
cause of freedom and independence, of order and
progress throughout Europe.
Such a decided opinion as this rarely gains uni-
versal currency except on some strong and sufficient
grounds. lu the present case we must say it is
amply justified by the language of the Conserve-
tire leaders, the conduct of the party in l'arlia-
ment, and the tone of its accredited organs out of
doors. The leaders, it is true,:especiallyof late, have
preserved a discreet silence on questions of foreign
policy, or if compelled to speak, have done so in
the meet careful and guarded manner. But this

actionary

excessive caution and reserve has not in the least
availed to conceal their real sentiments. At the

commencement of last session Lord DICZBT bold'y
defended the temporal power of the Pore, scoffed
at the very notion of a united Italy, and likened
the Italians themselves to mongrel curs. This see-
won he and his colleague Lord MALMIDISOILY have
openly identified themselves with Lord NORMIANIIIT
his imbecile attacks on the Italian Government,
and his puerile efforts on behalf of the Pees and
the exiled Princes. Last week Mr. Disetztt and
his party gave a silent but expressive support to
the same imbecile slanders and puerile attack■
when repeated in the House of Cumi.ions. The
organs of the party out of doors are far more out-
spoken in the same direction. They openly de-
fend the fetal obstinacy of the Papal Court, and
raise the mercenary cutthroats of Southern Italy
to the rank of patriots and martyrs. But it is
not merely in relation to Italy that this declared
antipathy to every movement in favour of politi-
cal freedien and social progress is manifested.
Any people struggling to defend the constitutional
freedom they possess, or to secure rights illegally
withheld, are equally the objects of Tory denun-
ciation. The Poles are severely condemned for
revolutionary movements of which they are alto-
gether innocent ; and the Hungarians are told in
the true language of political flnnkeyism that if,
instead of meekly accepting what their Imperial
master graciously chooses to offer, they still
venture to claim their constitutional righ.e, they
must take the consequencos and be subjected to
military rule. Lord Matmeeni-Ke's organ glories
in being the humble mouthpiece of these Imperial
sentiments, and is only too happy and too eager
to perform this kind of menial service for the
despotic Powers of Europe. No later than yes-
terday it called attention, with becoming modesty,
to the proud petition it occupies as a kind of
ester wart worshipper of " the right. divine to
" govern wrong ";—" We belong not to that
" wheel which pronounces boldly in favour of the
" annexation of Naples to Piedmont whatever
" reasons fidelity to engagements, knowledge of
" past history, and diversity of race, may urge to
" the contrary ; we never have been so pre-
" sumptuous as to crumple up—that is to say, on
" paper—the colossal empire of Russia, by de-
" taching from her Poland ; we have always de-
" precated the shortsightedness of those states-
" men who, in their struggle for the maintenance
" of a divine and indefeasible right in Hungary
" and Croat* have prevented that powerful king-
" dom and that warlike province from partaking
"of the benefits conferred by the Reichsrath."
Gi course the same sympathies and antipathies are
extended to the New World, and the great struggle
new going on in America is subjected to the
same reactionary and depraved principles of judg-
ment. As the slaveholding South began the war
by an unprovoked attack on the free constitution
and industrial civilization of the North, and as it