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

Happy, happy, happy pair !

As to the young woman herself, who will
probably elope with a Polish count, and be
no more heard of, we may very well leave her
to the enjoyment of her present reputation.
But what shall we say of Mr. WALTER SAVAGE
I.Asnoa ? If no personal considerations can
weigh with him, let him for a moment consider
the consequences that must ensue, were his
advice to be accepted by those for whose bene-
fit it was offered Let us suppose that some
inflammable Frenchman or Italian, taking Mr.
LANDOR'S words as a deliberate declaration of
English opinion, were to commit this iniquity
which Mr. LANDOR has chosen to invest with
such rank and noxious greatness, and all
Europe would rise against the cause which
Mr. LANDOR so zealously represents. Patriot-
ism would then, indeed, become but another
name for villainy, and Liberalism he robbed
of that little show of reason which it has
hitherto enjoyed. Does Mr. LANDOR suppose
that the murder of twenty kings would put
down monarchy, or that the destruction of
monarchy could lead to freedom from oppres-
sion?

It is a melancholy thing to witness the
decay of fine faculties—that mental debility
which attends extreme duration of life—when,
says the poet, we remember neither the names
of our servants nor the faces of our friends—
but a far more painful sight is that of one
in whom violence keeps pace with infirmity,
and wickedness increases with impotence.
For unless Mr. LANDOR is absolutely and
literally in his dotage, his recent publication
must be stigmatised as a gross and unpardon-
able crime. How our contemporary could
have permitted himself to insert it is inex-
plicable. Whatever our own law may have to
say on the subject, we are quite certain that
no foreign potentate would allow language to
be used in his dominions which contained
even the most covert insinuations against the
life or the authority of Queen VICTORIA.
Whether any power resides in the English
law adequate to the repression of such in-
famous and disgraceful assaults upon the con-
tinental allies of this country—assaults which,
if directed against his bitterest and most
treacherous foe, every man worthy the name
of Englishman would repudiate with disgust
—we cannot at this moment determine. We
can only express a hope that, should any one
be so foolish and flagitious as to follow Mr.
LANDOR'S example, the law will be stretched to
its limits to find some punishment that may
mark the national sense of the atrocity. Of
Mr. LANDOR himself we speak almost as much
in sorrow as in anger; but we should be glad
if it could be generally understood that such
behaviour can be brought within the scope of
the law, and that no future offender can hope
for similar impunity.

THE PRESS.

FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

Le Nord of Saturday last published and called
particular attention to the subjoined article
from the Journal de Frankfort as a communi-
cation from Vienna:—

It is clearly one of the fundamental principles of
international law that the sovereignty of every inde-
pendent State ought to be respected as sacred ; that,
consequently, other States have not the right of pre-
scribing the course of its internal policy, of exacting
that it should follow their counsels, and especially of
accompanying their demands by threats, or of having
recourse to measures of compulsion.
The only exception to this rule is the case when
the internal policy of a State threatens in an evident
manner to disturb the internal tranquillity or the
external peace of other States. In that case, the
States really threatened have a right to demand, and,
as a last resource, to obtain by force the removal of
that danger.
The principle of the sacred character of the sove-
reignty of an independent State is applicable, without
distinction, to every form of government, to monar-
chies as well as to republics. All States are there-
fore equally interested in the actual proceedings of
the Western powers towards Naples. Should they
in this instance violate the fundamental principle
above cited, they would inaugurate on our continent
a new international law, making the internal policy
of States subordinate to the will of powers strong
enough to exact it.
. .

General and indefinite wars would be the inevitable
result. The different States are therefore—for the
destinies of all are equally at stake—justified in de-
voting their full attention to the proceedings of the
Western powers towards the legitimate Sovereign of
the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The question is
not to ascertain whether the internal policy of that
monarch is deserving of praise or of censure, but to
ascertain whether that policy threatens to disturb
the internal tranquillity or the external peace of
France and of England.
If it does not threaten them—and surely there is
no manifestation of such a danger—those powers
have not the slightest right to exact a modification
of that policy, still less to acquire it by force.
Yet if those powers, because it is their good plea-
sure to declare as dangerous the system of govern-
ment of Ferdinand 11., or to see therein the germ of
a revolution which might extend over all Italy, have
made exactions, and now use threats (for every
demonstration is a threat), which they are to put
into execution should they not be complied with—
which is probable—they thereby lay down at once a
principle incompatible with the independence of
States, and, further, set an example the consequences
of which equally threaten the latter, because it makes
the fear only of possible events a legal motive for
intervention.

Thirty-six years ago there was also question of
intervention in the internal affairs of this same king-
dom—but it was asked for by the legitimate sove-
reign, the grandfather of the present Zing. Although
that fact alone justified the assistance given by
Austria with the consent of France, of Prussia, and
of Russia, the Austrian Government nevertheless,
in its diplomatic documents, referred to the imme-
diate danger which threatened it.
Thus we find in Prince Nletternich's circular
despatch of the 25th of July, 1820, the following pas-
sage :

The interests of his Majesty the Emperor are especially
compromised in these sad events in consequence of his
political and personal relations, of his near relationship
with different princely houses of Italy, and of the geogra-
phical position of his own States.
Austria possessed, moreover, the right by contract
of exacting that the Constitution of the Cortes should
not be introduced into the kingdom of Naples, for it
is said in a secret article of the treaty concluded on
the 12th of June, 1815, with Austria:—

As the engagements which their Majesties take by this
treaty with a view to insure the internal peace of Italy
make it their duty to preserve their States and their re-
spective subjects from fresh reactions and from the evil of
imprudent innovations which might occasion their re-
newal, it is agreed between the high contracting parties
that his Majesty the King of the Two Sicilies, in resuming
the government of his kingdom (of Naples), shall not in-
troduce any changes which are not in keeping either with
the ancient monarchical institutions or with the principles
adopted by his Imperial and Royal Majesty in the internal
system of his Italian provinces.
Austria had, therefore, positively the right to exact,
and even to obtain by force, a modification of the
Constitution of the Cortes promulgated at Naples,
although no one knew it exactly, even if the former
King Ferdinand had published it freely, and had not
been compelled to do so. Prussia, France, and
Russia, as allies of Austria, had fully the light to
lend her their moral and material support against
the revolutionary Government of Naples.
At the Congress of Troppau, Austria, Prussia, and
Russia went very far in principle, as appears from
the circular despatch addressed on the Bth of Decem-

963

ber, 1820, by those three powers to their representa-
tives at the Courts of Germany and the Nurth. lu
the précis which accompanied that despatch the
events of Spain, of Naples, and of Portugal are
designated as objects of the same alliance concluded
against the French Revolution, and the hope i 3
therein expressed that that aliiance will also be able
"to put a check upon a new domination, not less
tyrannical, not less horrible than that of revolt and
of crime."

The following passage then occurs :

The powers have exercised an incontestable right 1 y
taking together common measures of safety against States
in which the overthrow of the Government, effected by re-
volt, if not considered as a dangerous example, would have
for result a hostile attitude against all legitimate consti u.
dons and governments. The exercise of that right becai. •
a still more urgent necessity when those who placed them-
selves in such a situation endeavoured to extend to their
neighbours the evils they had drawn down upon them-
selves, and to propagate revolt and confusion around them.
Such a position, such conduct, is an evident infraction of
the compact which guarantees to all European Goverr..
ments, besides the inviolability of their territory, the en-
joyment of peaceful relations which exclude any reciprocal
onslaught upon theit rights. The fact is incontestable, and
is the point from which the allied Courts started. The
Ministers at Troppau, who were possibly provided with full
powers from their sovereigns, consequently concerted
together upon the line of conduct to follow relative to the
States the Governments of which had been violently over-
thrown, and upon the pacific or coercive measures which
might bring back those States into the circle of the Euro-
pean alliance.

Although this précis expressed the hope that
England would join the other powers responding to
the invitation of the King of Naples, conformable to
treaties, and although Lord Castlereagh, then
Foreign Secretary, had always shared the views of
the three allies, he could not do so on this occa-
sion ; and in a despatch dated the 19th of January,
1821, he had to declare that the King declined
participating in those measures, which he considered
diametrically opposed to the fundamental laws of
England. _ _

But (continues Lord Castlereagh in his despatch),
even did not this decided objection exist, the British
Government would not the less be of the opinion
that the principles which serve as basis for these
measures cannot be admitted with safety as a system
of laws between nations. The Government of the
King is of the opinion that the adoption of those
principles would inevitably sanction, and might
eventually lead, on the part of less well-intentioned
sovereigns, to an intervention in the internal affairs
of States much more frequent and more extensive
tban that which he is persuaded it is the intention
of the august personages to exercise, or which would
be in keeping with the general interests or with the
real authority and dignity of independent sovereigns.
The Government of his Majesty does not think that,
according to existing treaties, the allies have the
right to assume any general powers of this descrip-
tion, nor does it think that they can arrogate to
themselves such extraordinary powers in virtue of
any new diplomatic transaction between the allied
Courts, without attributing to themselves a supre-
macy incompatible with the rights of other States,
or, even on acquiring those powers by the special
consent of those same States, without introducing
into Europe a federal, oppressive system, which
would not only be inefficacious in obtaining its
object, but might lead also to the most serious con-
sequences.

These are words of wisdom, full of real respect
for international law, for Lord Castlereagh and his
colleagues had no sympathy for the revolution and
did not favour the revolutionary Government of
Naples. But the force of truth made tl e British
Government alive to the dangerous consequences of
a principle incompatible with the independence of
States, and made it reject it.

In like manner, in i 823, England refused to parti-
cipate in an intervention in the internal affairs of
Spain. _ _

A passage in the despatch of the :11st of March,
1823, addressed by Lord Canning to Sir C. Stuart,
the British Envoy at Paris, explains the sole condi-
tions under which England considered an interven-
tion justified. The Minister points out that the
British Plenipotentiary at the Congress of Verona
did not cooperate in the resolutions taken there, and
that

Not because he was not authorised to engage the faith of
his Government in any hypothetical obligation, but because
his Government had, as far back as April, 1820, uniformly
recommended to the powers of the alliance to abstain from
all intervention in the internal affairs of Spain, and
because, having since that same period remained perfectly
unconcerned in all transactions which might have taken
place between France and Spain, his Government could
not form an opinion upon what foundation the Cabinet of
the Tuillevies thought of a possible rupture of diplomatic
relations with the Court of Madrid, or upon what founda-
tion an event was feared apparently so improbable as a
commencement of hostilities against France by. Spain.
The Plenipotentiary of her Majesty (continues the Minis-
ter) did not see the proofs of the existence of any design
on the part of the Spanish Government of invading the