The Express.
London, England, 1866-05-21 00:00:00

THE RTATE OF EtROPE.

If sympathy be worth having there is probably
no country in the world, tho Times observes, which hu
enjoyed more of it than Italy during the last seven years.
After awakening from the sleep of ages her career lay
straight before her, the first object being to consolidate
the different provinces of which she is composed, and her
second one, of far inferior importance, to aggregate to
herself Rome and Venice. The fir.d. thing was to make
her own citizens prosperous and to content them with the
present government by giving it the advantage over its pre-
decessors of superior cheapness. Prussia has done this,
and the people have remained quiet, although their constitu-
tion has beenostentatiously violated. But Italy has pursued
a different course, and during seven invaluable years has
aimed alone at completing her military and naval organisa-
tion. Her financial difficulties have grown in proportion until
at last it has become almost impossible for her to keep the
peace. The Tiines denies that Italy has any claim as a
question of justice to Venetia if treaties are of any avail,
and the expediencyof hercourse is on a parwith its justice.
Italy is coming forward to repay the sympathyof Europe by
violating a peace of fifty years for purposes in which Europe
at large has no ooneern,but which are solely connected with
her own ambition. U Italy remain quiet, it is still possible
that Austria and Prussia, influenced by the earliest remon-
strances which have been addressed to them from so many
quarters, and estimating at their just weight the inexpres-
sible calamities of war, may still refer their differences to
arbitration. But a single cannon shot fired on the Mincio
makes this impossible, and leaves these two great states
no choice but to plunge into a struggle of which no one can
see the event. Something, however, may be predicted.
As no country has suffered so much by war in the past as
Italy, so no country is likely to suffer so much in the
future. A defeat in the present state of Italian feeling
and Italian finance would probably cause the dissolution of
the Italian Kingdom.
The Pate wholly distrusts the power of a congress to
settle such matters as are at present in dispute, and the
respective governments of Austria, Prussia, and Italy act
as if they regarded pacific solutions as beyond the pale of
possibility. In cases of misunderstanding, as in the recent
quarrel between Great Britain and Brazil, or where satis-
faction is demanded for some fancied injury or affront, as
•
in the present war between Spain and Chili, a conference,
or the submission of the point at issue to the decision of
• an arbitrator, furnishes a ready means of reconciling
differences without an appeal to arms. But where a
power, relying on its strength, proposes to itself the eon-
• I quest of another's territory, it is not easy to understand in
what way a conference can be successful, unless, as the
result of its deliberations, the aggressive power obtains
that which it is prepared, if necessary, to secure by main
, force.

The TdegrapA remarks that in Germany itself, where
the real character of the dispute is, of course, better under-
steed th►n it is abroad, the importance of the succession
of the Duchies is quite disregarded in comparison with the
far wider insue of federal reform. To Saxony and Hanover,
far more than to Pelaleswig-Holstein, the attention of the
fatherland is turned. The most obvious plan would proba-
bly be a partition of Germany between Austria and Prus-
sia ; but then such a partition would be opposed to that
passion for unity which influences the Teutonic race in