The Express.
London, England, 1859-01-07 00:00:00

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&ONDON. FRIDAY. JAN. 7.

•• Ac+Taft mutt well know that from England
she could ecrect no help in a war waged for the
•' !maintenance of her Italian dominions, and that
" no S!atesman, whatever might be his tiews aa to

maintaining the balance of policy, world venture
" to make such a proposition to the popular branch
"of the Itratinh Legislature." This plain truth
was stated in the limes of yesterday. We

think it of some importance to fix oar contemporary
. • . . .

with the explicit sad unqualified admission of this
significant fait. It is even so. English stateless
cannot, if they would, aid Auattia in Italy, foe the
simple and sufficient memo that the English People
will not consent to the expenditure of tows drop of

English blood or one coin of English money in the
Dam attempt to rivet a foreign and oppresaive yoke

on the neck of a down-trodden people straggling to
be free. We should like to see the English Minister
who would due to more war estimates for such a

ptuposo as that. The thing is so palpably absurd
that 'Tea the Loses, compelled for once to love
Truth better than Austria, has been moved, in

terms the most unequivocal, to confess its
impossibility. That much, then, is clear—that
dream is gone—that bad hope has vanished
into space. The Diplomats and the Balance-of-
Power men will never be gratified by the spectacle
of free and Protestant England fighting side by side
with despotic and Pope-riiden Austria, in order to
mash out, under the hoofs of her old oppression, the
resistance and the hopes of Italy.
Wbat then is the part which England is to
play in that struggle of the Nations which all
signs announce to be not far distant ? The answer
to those who look with a single eye to the welfare of
their country, is simple in the extreme. England
has no part or lot in tale strife. She cannot and she
will not strike a stroke for Austria in Italy; she need
not, and therefore she will not, strike a stroke on
the other side. If what all the aspects of the time
announce should coma to pass, if the cloud that now
gathers over Europe should burst in war, English
statesmen will have but one duty—the observation
of a strict though of courses watchful neutrality. If,
u we are confidently told, France and Russia are
pledged tosuppurt Sardinia in the impending struggle.
the aid of England craned be required to increase the
strength of such an alliance embarked in such a
canes. The Italians are twenty-five millions, and the
Italians have at length been crushed by despotism
into an unanimity of hatred. Here then are the
parties to the strife on the one side, France, Russia,
Sardinia, and a vast population impassioned by hate
and panting for vengeance : on the other aide,
Austria, commanding no loyalty which she cannot
coerce by her cannon, and safe in the possession of
not an inch of territory which is not covered

by her troops or contained within her fortreeves.
We are told that Austria will make a stout fight of it.
No doubt she will. Her army is brave and well-
diaciplined. Her garrisons are skilfully planted,
and fortified with the utmost skill of which engineer-
ing science is capable. The spirit of her young
Er canon is high; that of her aristocracy proverbially
elastic under discouragement and defeat. Her his-
tory has been one long record of a national life tena-
ciously prolonged under disasters, and miraculously
restored after ruin. No doubt Austria will make a
sturdy fight of it ; but will her resistance be so
obstinate and prolonged that France, Russia,
Sardinia, and the twenty-five millions will
be compelled, before they can do their
work, to ask England to Sing her sword into
the balance ? The very question is an insult to the
prowess of the three Powers and to the spirit of the
Italian population. No; England cannot and will
not draw the sword on behalf of Austria—she will
not, for she need not, =sheath it on behalf of the
enemies of Au,tria. Her line is absolute neutrality ;
her strengtn is to sit still. She has work to do at
home from winch our Politicians and our Diplomats
would only he too glad to call her away by
raising the disturbing slogan of European
war. Let us give no heed to this interested
clamour. We have had enough and too much of
mere Valance-01-Power wars. It is time that the
world shook itselt free (torn this costly nightmare
of its ruler.. We w not war in Europe for fir
mints ; we will work at home to realities. We
want to strengthen and complete that free polity
which in its•;f and in its fruits is the first concern
for us and fir our children. We wish to see that
freedom e 'tended to others ; but we have deeply
learned this lesson, that the °sly freedom worth
having is that w►ich men and nations earn for them-
selves. That which is conferred or imposed on them
by others proves too often but a fatal gift—a veil
of Crewel or a shirt of N which dooms the
wearers to colivalsions and death. If twenty-
five millions of Italians, aided by France and
Rossi's, cannot shake off the yoke of Austria, no
assistance which England can buitow will enable
them to do so.
In the apprehension of a calamity so terrible as a
general European war, it is natural for all the friends
of human happiness and human progress to desire
that every available means should be exhausted

before reverting to the actual arbitrament of arms.
No doubt if the paaaiona of princes were

amenable to reason, and snbotdinate to an en-
lightened sense of their own interest and that of
their people, the question of Austrian domination in
Italy might be an eminently tit subject for a
European Congress. If the condition-of-Italy ques-
tion, as submitted to the Paris Conference by Count
CAtollit had really been entertained by that
Parliament of the Nations in a spirit worthy
of its paramount importance, much evil that now
presses upon tie might have been avoided,
and many imminent dangers have been averted
or postponed. The mode in which the subject was

. .
introduced to the notice of the Conference by the
Representative of Sardinia was worthy of the im-
portance of the theme and the gravity of the crisis.
It was earnestly submitted to the collected Powers
of Europe that the state of the Italian Peninsula i
was the common concern of all, inasmuch as it in-
volved a standing menace to the general peace of the
world. The Ministers of England and of France
were not indisposed to support the reasonable
and farsighted views of Count Cxvottit. But
there was an insurmountable obstacle. Austria
would not for a moment allow any proposal
to be mooted which in any degree tended to interfere
with the unimpaired ascendancy of her detested rule-
And so it would be always. Austria is not to be
Foto:oiled out of the Lombardo-Venetian provinces.
Inheriting the traditions of the old Oerman Raison,
and counting back some centuries of her own domi-
nion, the Imperial House can only be uprooted
from the land in which her supremacy is felt to
be a blight and a bane, by successful insurrection
or ♦ictorious war. It is one of those cases of
usurped dominion which still necessitate an
appeal to the ultimo rats'., of arms. It is an oppres-
sion exercised over an alien and reluctant race, a
sway which nothing but force could have imposed,
and nothing but stronger force can sweep away. It
is not a thing of yesterday. It is closely inter-
woven with all the traditions of a proud and
dominant aristocracy. It has long been a
constitutive portion of the modern State-System
of Europe. if, as we firmly believe, the
time has come when Italy, under the con-
stitutional headship of Sardinia, is ripe for
national independence, it must be obvious
to all that the days of this foreign oppres-
sion are numbered. lint to suppose that it will be
surrendered without a struggle, to imagine that good
offices, and moral simian, and diplomatic interven-
tion will sap the base of this old proud fabric of
Imperial domination, appears to %iv rather a dream
of the closet, than a reasonable anticipation of the
Council Chamber.

If, however, we be wrong in this judgment,
if the time for available interposition be not gone
by, if the passions of an oppressed people on the

one side, and of their foreign rulers on the
other, he not raised to • pitch which makes both
equally deaf to terms of compromise and tenders of
accommodation, we shall only be too happy to be
convinced of oar error. if the English Cabinet are
of opinion that the way is yet open for this species of
amicable intervention, it is of cone.e their bounden
duty to interpose their good offices without loss of
time. If there be, indeed, any chance that the con-
current action of England, France, Russia, and Sar-
dinia can amicably settle the Italian question, let the
experiment be made forthwith. Vies, If/S Coagres!
Trois, ()stars Coagris ! —OA many Congresses as
you please—should, without sarcasm, be the burden
of our song. We confess, indeed, we hare no
such hope. Vienna, Verona, Paris—lBls, 1822,
and 1858—have somewhat shaken our faith in
Congresses. Be this as it may, we return once more
to the point with which we started : if Diplomacy
fails and war ensues, in that war England must be
neutral, as long, at all events, as the contest is con-
fined to the settlement of the Italian question so be-
tween France, Russia, Austria, and Sardinia. In the
issues of that war we have no substantial interest.l
As far as the internal condition of Italy is con-
owned, almost any change would be a change for
the better ; the substitution in the North of Italy
of Sardinian supremacy for Austrian domination
would be an infinite improvement ; nor can
it possibly concern the tax-payers of this
country that a MunAr, in the South, should
take the place of a BoesA. On the other band,
as regard, our external relations, we should lose
nothing by observing • wise neutrality while the
contending powers were exhausting their resources
in the costly struggles of an internecine war. Till
England's interests or Europe's freedom are endan-
gered it is our policy to be neutral ; when either is
imperilled—then, but not till then, it will be time to
strike the blow.