The Express.
London, England, 1856-07-03 00:00:00

ITALY.

(FROM OUR ITALIAN COMMISSIONER )
ROME, JUN. 22.
When I left Naples, ten days ago, the political
trials, of which you will have already heard the par-
ticulars, were in active progress, and were looked
upon by everybody as a rutted avowal, on the part
of the Kiog and his ministere, of their determination
to resist pressure for reform, come from what
quarter it may—as a sort of declaration, in fact,
that nothing whatever will be conceded. The most
sanguine friends of the prisoners hardly hoped that
the sham proceedings would result in anything but
the condemnation of the whole batch of the ac-
cued, slight as the evidence of offence was against
some of them And totally wanting as it was in the cues
of the remainder. The crown prosecutor was Fusing
fora conviction with a degree of vindictive energy that
left small ground for hope on this point, and as little
that the cruellest rigour would not be carried out in
their punishment. So far, it may be safely affirmed
that Bombs throws down a # I defiance to all
who speak of reform, and continues firm in his per.
pose to yield to no persuasive
.agency less powerful
than the broadsides of a British fleet. To auk
nuking efficiency, indeed, has he brought his n.
prams machinery over the length and breadth of
his kingdom, that he has little to fear from internal
enemies; and so long as Austria maintains a coon-'
torpid despotism in the north, he feels pretty confi-
dent of her aid in dealing with whomsoever may
assail him from without. Besides this wicked ob-
stinacy on the part of the King himself, the want
of harmony amongst the liberty party further
weakens the likelihood of any change in which foreign
lames is not to be the fast and principal agent.
The Oamstitutionalists and the Republicans are nearly
as musk opposed to each other u both are hostile to
the meat, whilst the revolutionary party in
y hems a third section that fraternises with
anther of the other t Ara. They have, it is true, a
common hood of sympathy in their hatred of the
sovereign and his dynasty, but they lack unity of
purpose and co-operative vigour ; and without tthee
no agitation possible under the present iron role is
likely to result in mush. The faintest whisper of
liberal sentiment is caught up, and its utterer be.
muss a marked man, liable at any moment to be
seenigned, unwanted and untried, to a dungeon or
the pßoys. Your servant, your Mend, your very
contemn . is a spy, and on the unproved accusation of
any one althorn you are torn from the bosom of your
family and buried in a living tomb, or sent to herd
with malefactors for a year, ten years, or the whole
period of your life. Under so vigilant and vindictive a
tyranny as this, it is sot to be wondered at that no
patriotism abort of the highest and most melf eacrillo.
beg could well continue a struggle which every suc-
ceeding month of the last half-dosend years heaonly
appeared to render more and more hopeless ; and the
remelt is, that at no period einem the commotion of
'4B have the opponents of the government been so
thoroughly crushed into helpless inaction es they are
at the present time. The See, indeed, still smoulders,
bat it has been trodden out to the very verge of ex-
tinguishment. So far as I have been able to gather
from well informed sources, the sole remaining hops
of both the moderate and the extreme branches of the
patriotic party points to external aid; and as our
own and the French governments are the only quar-
ters whence this help out come, to them it is that
the eyes of four-fifths of this °Pruned people are
turned. I say "to them "—though the moan strictly
worsts expression would be "to es," for, in the
honest sympathies of the English people and govern-
meat, moth more than in those dour allies, does the
ooaldant trust of the Italians lie; but, aware as the
leaders of all shades of liberal opinion are,
that cireanntances most compel the two governments
to act together if they act at all, the friends of liberty
look to both as the double source whence deliverance
must come. Within the last haltdosen of years
Fran* prestige has greatly suffered in all parts of
the peninsula, from South Lombardy to Naples; and
as admiration of the Gallic character and institutions
his declined, respect and esteem for those of ourselves
have more than correspondingly increased. The
result is that England is the great hope of the
patriotic party all over the wintry • and on the in-
fluence of oar own government witle.the French Em-
peror, more than on any faith which they cherish in
the sputum's impulses of the latter on hchalf of
freedom anywhere, do they rely for deliverance from
their present bondage to Austria and the priests.
Throughout the Two Sicilia, as in thereat of Italy,
the Sardinian agitation, and the unconcealed favour
it has met with from our own Premier and his
colleagues, have gives a marvellous impulse to the
spirit of liberty amongst all classes of the people—the
infinitessimel handful of government partisans alone
excepted—and if the sympathy thus shown be car-
ried a step beyond parliamentary declamation, it may
I puzzle even a Neapolitan pollee, backed by all the
bayonets Bombs can command, to keep down the
volcanic fires that are gathering strength elsewhere
than in Vesuvius. Still, there are not a few of the
patriot party who remember how often Paleneratonian
commiseration of oppressed nationalities has borne
only wordy fruit; and these rely more on the inevi-
table course of events, directed by Piedmonteee
agency, than oo all the liberty speeches his lordship
may let off in the Hoes* of Commons, or after din-
ner with the Lord Mayor. But be the justice of
their distrust what it may, one thing is certain—that
the present state of affairs in the kingdom of Naples
cannot continue : were it possible that it could, men
might fairly lose all faith in a just Pro-
vidence, and believe that Heaven itself Bleb
none the most cruel, and at the same time the most
oontemptible, tyranny that ever cursed a nation. It
may be asked, however, what governmental changes
the Neapolitan reformers themselves would aim at;
and to this I can only answer, what may be inferred
from the already stated fact of their being split up
into two parties, that a minority would, if they could,
upset the government altogether, and raise in its stead
a utopian ultra-democratic republic; whilst the
moderates—who comprise ninety-nioe per cent, of the
whole intelligence and respectability of the ceuetry—
cherish the hope of Italian unity, and, aspiring to
this, would seek to become part and parcel of one
constitutionally governed state under a Piedmonteee
head. Aware of the difficulties in the way of this,
however, they would accept a tight-fitting constitn-
Bout etnitwaistoost for their present King; and
with seek a guarantee of their personal liberties
and property would, I am assured by those who know
the political condition of the country well, prove es
loyal and unrevolutioeary subjects as any personally
disliked monarch could have. But the day dream dell
zirt the republican minority and the immediate
s of the government, is to form part of one
gnat Italian nation, stretching from Savoy to the
Adriatic, and from North Lombardy to Cape Sparti-
unto, and ruled over by an honestly constitutional
monarch. In this hope do the great majority of the
middle and upper dames of thepopulation live,and not
till some such consummation as this has been achieved

will the revolutionary fires now fiercely smouldering
under all this show of broket•spirited submission dis
our, and Italy be wholly and durably tranquillised.
Muth of the substantial of these remarks applies I
also to Rome. It is but just to confess, however, in
Amine, that in this latter there exists not a tithe of
the outcryieg governmental oppression that ex-
cites at once the traveller's indignation and his pity
in the dominions of the King of Naples. Nor, again,
can most of the abuses which are in mischievous ope-
ration here be fairly laid to the personal account of
either the Pope or his Secretary ot State; b 7 far the
larger half of them have had their origin in the
system, and in no degree whatever in the in-
dividual will of either Pius or Antonelli. So far it is
against the system, and not against its chief, that
cee's condemnatory criticism must be uttered ; but
making the widest allowance on this head, then is
still mash to be said against the existing papal go-
vernment. In attempting to apportion the blame
arising out of the remit state of things, however, it
may be worth while to remember the governmental
machinery by which these States of the Church are
ruled, es without a more or less accurate notion of
this it is less easy to tiomprebeud suggested reforms.
The whole dominions of the Pope are divided into
20 provisoes, of which Rome is the chief. Of the
remaining nineteen, six have the rank of legations,'
and are governed by cardinals, whilst the
other thirteen are delegations, under " pre-
late/B,l'mm, of whom are not necessarily church-
see. Both of them classes of provinces are
subdivided again into districts, governorships, and
semitheisin, whose administrative chiefs, as in theme

of the delegations, may or may not be ecclefiastioe
Of the whole of this territory the supreme govern.
meat lies in the hands of the Pope and a council et
minister'', of which last the Cardinal Secretary or
State is the chief, and from the nearly autocratic
. influence of his position, is generally—as in the pre.
sent case of Monsigoore Aotonelli—the virtual ruler
of the country. The old hierarchy of Coegregszioui
having been abolished since 1849 for all except ecele-
, sisatical purposes, the remsiniog members of the
, cabinet may or may not be laymen; but the practice;
; worth of this innovation is nothing, as at no time, I
believe, since it was tint permitted has the lay ale.
meet in the council been more than a third of tie
whole, and we nuy pretty safely take for greeted
; that the conservative disposition of even this quote
is made sure of before its admission to office.
satisfactory, however, as is the constitution of this
supreme board, whose functions are at once legiela.
live and executive, the system on which justice it
administered throughout the country is infinitely
more so, and constitutes, in fact, the one great go.
vern mental bane from which nine-tenths of all the
others proceed. Based entirely on the canon law, the
evils resulting from it, both in civil and criminal
procedure, are past reckoning, and can only be reme.
died by a sweeping reform which shall entirely ex.
lists this mum of antiquated absurdities and substitute
for it a code in harmony with pure justice and the
advanced intelligence of the age. By this body of
medimval outrages upon equity and common sense
the 50,000 secular and other clergy form a privileged
class, amenable to no tribunal but that of the
bishops, and enjoy a long list of immunities, every
one of which involves a wrong to the laity; whilst
means and opportunities of oppression are permitted
to the government which would be to the last degree
dangerous to liberty in any ecclesiastical hand',
and doubly so in those of such a body as the
Sacred College. It is not denied that the
judges, though appointed by the Pope and removable
at his pleasure, are for the most part impartial, but
the system of which they are the agents ties them
down to an administration that is a very mockery of
justice ; and it is the daily and hourly experience of
this all over the country that, more than any other
ground of complaint, excites dissatisfaction with the
present order of government. However other poli-
tical aspirations may operate to 'muse discontent with
the status quo, this comes home directly to all, and
permits neither lower, middle, nor upper clue of the
laity to forget contrasting the benefits of the Code Na-
poleon and a secular administration. • Add to these
and the other evils for which the canon law is to
blame, the almost Neapolitan severity and vindictive
injustice practised by the government in its treatment
of political offenders, bo'h in the manner of trial and
the subsequent punishment, and you have a case for
reform that few but whole-going papal partisans will
attempt to dispute.
Palpably behind the age, however, as this adminis-
trative system is, and crying as is the necessity
for reform, the government itself stoutly sets its face
against the lust material improvement. The Pope
is said to be personally disposed to make concessions,
bat is virtually tweeted into his present reactionary
policy by Antonelli and the Austrian majority in the
conclave, against whom the weak old pontiff and the
four or five cardinals who would support him are
little able to make headway—tor here again, u in
Naples, the curse of everything is Austrian into.
nee. It is, indeed, owing to nothing beyond the
accidental fact of his anti-reform principles being in
harmony with those of the Cabinet of Vienna that
the Secretary of State so zealously supports its
policy; for, as everybody knows, he is personally no
favourite with the Austrian government, and his
nothing to hope from its friendship were the papal
chair to become vacant to-morrow. At his back—
only, however, in his opposition to governmental
reforms, and not at all in any views of personal am•
bition—is a large majority of the cardinal,, supporters
of the Worst forms of papal despotism; and so be.
tweets them the poor Pope cannot, if he would, clean
out his Alvan stable of abuses. With each a mess
of influential opposition, then, how is reform to be
achieved ? Hardly lass than in Naples is the proper.
ties of the educated and solidly respectable popula-
tion that cry out for it; and from what quarter are
they to expect aid in its accomplishment ? No single
individual whom I have conversed with, whether of
the resident foreigners or well-informed natives, looks
to France, aware as they all are of Louis Napoleon's
desire to curry favour with the clergy both in his own
dominions and here, who are almost to a man Legiti-
mists. It is to England and Piedmont, whose vigo-
rous efforts they believe must dually compel more or
less co-operation from the French Emperor, that
reformers of every shade but the moat extreme,
look for help at this time ; and whatever
confidence the reactionary party may make pretence
of, I am assured that both Antonelli and his brother
stand-stills in and out of the Council of Ministers,
are anything but easy as to the consequences of the
present British and Sardinian agitation. And seeing
with what moderate concessions the great bulk of the
reform party would be satisfied, their Eminences'
anxiety is not without cause. The simple abolition
of the canon law as the basis of judicial procedure,
and the substitution of the Code Napoleon in its
stead, would quiet two-thirds of the party, confident
as they are that, once this is granted, other results
must follow ; and to effect this, our own, and hardly
the French, government is not likely to refuse the
aid of what moral pressure it can bring to bear on
his Holiness.

Few friends of real reform will regret to hear
that the Maszini party his dwindled down to an in-
significant handful, that can do little to hinder the
progress of sound improvement in either the social or
political condition of the country. At the present
moment, this section comprises hardly a respectable
name, and if its decline continues at the same ratio
as that of the last couple of years, it will soon be
confined to a membership of saws culottes, as impo-
tent for political mischief as they will be unworthy
of either sympathy or toleration. As this camarilli,
however, has gradually sunk into its present state,
the moderate constitutional party, which aims at
nothing beyond sound reform, has gained large et.
cessions, and now reckons on its muster-roll hun-
dreds, I might my thousands, of the wealthiest and
moat enlightened middle and upper class Romans,
who up till, and even after, the events of 1848, were
warm adherents of the government and believers in
the Pope's resolution to do away with every cor-
rectible abuse both in church and state. Many of
the party would, indeed, aspire to more sweeping
changes than those lastly mentioned, and rest en-
tirely satisfied with nothing short of their glorious day-
dream of one united Italian nationality; but these
are in a minority, and, knowing this, would offer no
difficulties to the acceptance of such moderate reforms
as those in question, and the train of minor ones to
which their introduction would give rise. But in one
thing all advocates of change, from the most mode.
rate constitutionalist to the most cemocratic repub-
lican, are agreed, in hatred of the Austrians, and in
opposition to the presence of any foreign troops what-
ever. The individual good behaviour of the French
soldiers now in Rome has, indeed, conciliated a
large amount of tolerant and even friendly feeling,
but this in no degree lessens the ill-favour with
which their occupation of the place is viewed by poli-
ticians of every shade of opinion, nor, as length of
time seems to establish a sort of half•prescriptive
right in favour of the continued presence of this
foreign garrison, is this general soreness likely to be.
• less. But lam assured that in the provinces,
where Austrian bayonet. hold sway, the popular hoe-
tility is to the last degree bitter, goaded to excess,
as it daily is, by acts of insulting vitr-
iolic*, and by the opprresive rule of an un-
scrupulous military police. Of the character of
those bat, however, and of the results attending
their occupation of the Papal territory, I shall have
early coossion to give you full details. In the mean-
time, es you are aware, Cardinal Antonini—growing
sensible, it is to be hoped, of the weighty evils attain
from the presence of this foreign soldiery, and
moved, no doubt, by the openly expressed disfavour
with which it is viewed by our own and the Sardi-
nian governments—is at work in the organisation of
his Roman army—to be 18,000 strong—which, whey
placed on an effusive footing, will do away with the
last shred of excuse that the Austrian and French
governments can plead. When the foreign force
has been thus got rid of, the first step towards
im-
provement will have been taken ; political, legal, and
educational reforms may then be safely initiated ; and
these effected, one great section of Italian abuses will
have been successfully disposed of, and a disgrace the
less exist to modern civilisation.