The Press.
London, England, 1857-02-14 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

for Bucks asserted that the treaty was signed,
and named the day when the signatures
were affixed. He asserted that it had been
acted on by Austria withdrawing troops from
Italy, and by communicating assurances to
the Governments of the Italian peninsula
that they had nothing to fear from insurrec-
tionary movements. Lord PALMERSTON denied
that the treaty or convention was ever signed,
and consequently denied that it could be acted
on. Again, it became impossible that a ques-
tion of fact not difficult of solution could re-
main in suspense when such great Pod ia-
mentary reputations depended on its solution.
It was necessary that the truth should be
elicited.

On Thursday, Lord PALMERSTON, not Mr.
DISRAELI, was the first to rise. He said, he
had learned that the treaty or convention
had, in point of fact, been signed, but be pre-
tended that it Was rather a military than a
political convention, and that therefore it did
not hear the character which Mr. DISRAELI
had alleged. Subsequently, Lord PALMERSTON
lost his temper, and we have no wish to
dwell on the melancholy scene that closed the
discussion.

The question of fact is now settled. The
secret treaty or convention, described by Mr.
DISRAET.L does exist. What is its bearing on
the Italian question?
Lord PALMERSTON has twice stated the nature
of the charge urged against the foreign policy
of the Government. On the first night of the
session, he said :
The Right Honourable Gentleman seems to consider
that, while on the one hand we are stimulating revolutions
in My, on the other we are advising and encouraging
the French to undertake to put them down—an incon•
sistency certainly of which no Government would be likely
to be guilty.

On Tuesday last he stated the charge in other
terms :

What, then, was the nature of the charge brought
against her Majesty's Government? Why this—that while
professing openly to have great interest in the welfare of
the Italian people, and to sympathise with their aversion
against a foreign yoke, it secretly instit,ated sod encouraged
the French Government in giving a guarantee, with respect
to the Austrian possessions in Italy, entirely at variance
with that pretended sympathy.

Whether Lord PALmERSTON'S Administration
has " stimulated revolutions in Italy," and
whether it has " sympathised with the aver-
" sion of the Italian people against a foreign
" yoke," must be decided by the public acts of
the Government, and by the declarations of
their adherents. That France has been encou-
raged to guarantee the Austrian possessions
in Italy by the Government of which Lords
PALMERSTON and C LAREN DON were principal
members, is now established by the Prime
Minister's own admission.

It was to Sardinia that the Right Honour-
able Member for Bucks principally alluded
and it is therefore important to inquire how
far this secret treaty affected Sardinia. Sar-
dinia complained, in the Memorandum of
Count CAvoun, April 16, 1856, of Austrian
supremacy in Italy. It urged that the means
taken by Austria to repress revolutionary fer-
ment in Italy gave her military possession of
the Valley of the Po and of Central Italy, and
that hence Austrian power in Italy was " a
" continual menace to Piedmont" and a " real
" danger to all Europe." With these com-
plaints Lord CLARENDON pretended to sympa-
thise, though he well knew that Austrian su-
premacy had been firmly assured by the
policy of the Foreign-office, over which he
presided.

How was the strength of Austria in Italy to
be weakened? Plainly, as Count CAVOUR fore-
saw and demonstrated, by the joint action of
France and England. But France had by
secret treaty affirmed that Austria should be
maintained in possession of her Italian domi-
nions; and England, as it now appears, had
taken part in counselling and arranging that.
treaty.
When it is said that any charge of duplicity
brought against the English Government on
this occasion must weigh equally against the
Government of France, this broad distinction
is overlooked :—the Government of France
has never instigated insurrection in Italy ; it
has never sympathised with the Liberalism of
that country ; it has, on the contrary, shown
its -determination to assist by anus, if need

SATURDAY,

be, sin suppressing any outburst of revolu-
tionary spirit, and has manifested its resolve
to maintain existing territorial arrangements.
As the ally of England, the French Govern•
ment has yielded something to the urgent
representations of Lord PALMERSTON'S Adminis-
tration. At the Paris Conferences the French
Plenipotentiary supported with reserve Lord
CLARENDON'S lead on the Italian question ; but
France has given no countenance whatever to
that support of Italian Liberalism, and those
hopes of Italian independence, which Lord
PALM E RsroN's Administration has hung forth
as it flag to conciliate its Liberal adherents in
this country.

If we are not misinformed, France engaged
in the remonstrances to Naples with reluc-
tance, and refused to move at all until the
English Government had pledged itself to
afford no support to the revolutionary party in
the Two Sicilies. That pledge, we must say,
has been redeemed. The unfertunate Sicilian
insurgents have been captured and executed ;
the soldier instigated to attempt the assassi-
nation of the King has met his doom. We can
well understand why the Government of
Naples should have replied to the English
remonstrance with contempt, if doubly assured
that no revolutionary movement in Italy would
be permitted.
There is a broader charge against Lord
PALMERSTON'S foreign policy than the Right
Hon. Member for Bucks has made. It is,—
that, for electioneering purposes in this coun-
try, he lures foreign Liberals to their ruin,—
that be encourages them to rise against their
Governments, and trades in their blood shed
in the battle-field and on the scaffold,—that,
by his consistent chicanery, he delays the
progress of improvement in those countries
where hopes of national independence linger,
and compels Governments to be harsh by
stimuliting disaffection among the people.
This policy, in the end, preserves the existing
territorial arrangements of Europe, and so far
may in some sort be thought Conservative.
But by what tortuous and detestable means is
the end attained? The insurrectionists are
disowned when the crisis arrives, and left to
perish the victims of their generous illusion.
The honour of England is stained, that the
demagogues of the country may be deceived
into the belief that our foreign policy is di-
rected by an idea of Liberal Propagandism,
when, in reality, it seeks alliances which are a
pledge for its suppression.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR'S REFORMS.
THE Lotto CHANCELLOR has laid before Par-
liament his promised measures of reform, and
they have more than realised the anticipations
that we lately expressed upon the subject.
He proposes by three separate bills, in the
first place, to abolish the testamentary juris•
diction of the Ecclesiastical Courts, and to
establish a new court in their stead ; secondly,
to alter and amend the law of divorce ; and,
lastly, to institute a new mode of procedure
for investigating aud punishing offences of
the clergy. We doubt whether the most
zealous of his Lordship's friends can look
with the slightest degree of confidence to the
future fate of any one of these important
measures.

We pointed out on a former occasion the
grave objections which we entertained to Lord
CRASWORTH'S plan for reforming the Ecclesias-
tical Courts. We showed that it was erroneous
in principle, and most unnecessarily compli-
cated in its details. His Lordship's speech on
Tuesday night confirmed our views upon the
subject. In attempting to get rid of one
tribunal which all the world admits to be bad,
he would set up another which a very mode-
rate amount of reflection must convince us
would prove a great deal worse. The abuses
at present attendant upon the testamentary
jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts are
notorious enough. The mode of procedure in
contested suits is dilatory and expensive to
the last degree ; and the rules of evidence,
being borrowed from the civil law under
which the parties on either side are examined,
not in open court, but iu private, are wholly