The Express.
London, England, 1867-04-05 00:00:00

The result of these elections, always a notable
touchstone of party strength in the Chamber, has
been condiderably more favourable to the govern-
ment than was anticipated. Once again the wool
of the advanced party has been found to be in very
small quantity in proportion to its cry. In a
Chamber of 344 Signor Mari, the president of the
late Chamber, and the government candidate for
the presidency of this one, had 195 votes to Signor
Crispi's 142. And this, without any compromise,
such as I was led to believe might probably be
effected, on the condition that Signor Crispi should
become one of the vice-presidents. In truth, the
government, as far as the evidence afforded by these
elections goes, may be said to have it all its own
way. And it is well that the ministry should be
sufficiently strong to override all merely factious
opposition to the various important legislative work
that lies before them to be done. But, for the rea-
sons I explained in a former letter, it must not be
imagined that the majority which has elected Sig-
nor Mari to the presidency of the Chamber would
be found to be a majority on which the government
could depend entirely in its more serious needs.
It is not, for example, a majority which would
stand by the government in any attempt to
in the mingled ecclesiastical and finance
bill of last session, or any modification'
that does not satisfactorily eliminate those
features of it which were so objectionable
to the last Chamber, and are so to the
country at large. As far as may be judged from
the language of the press in general, the real reasons
of the overwhelming opposition to Signor Scialoja's
scheme are much misunderstood to the north of the
Alps. Some of the new taxes proposed were felt to
be unpopular and very onerous. But this was not
the controlling cause of the rejection of the mea-
sure, as some English papers imagined. Con-
siderable difference of opinion existed, and exists,
respecting the propriety of according such a measure
of liberty to the clergy as it was proposed to give by
that bill. But neither was that the real motive
that caused the all but unanimous opposition to
it. The real cause was the unwillingness to permit
the enormous mass of Italian property intended to
be dealt with by the bill to be so handled, or to be
handled at all, by those who would, under that
measure, have had the handling of it. It was the
determinationto prevent the colossal job, bywhich a
sum of sixty millions of francs was to be put into
the hands of speculators on Italy's needs. And
notwithstanding the readiness of the new Chamber
to elect as its president the man recommended by
the government, it may be safely assumed that any
repetition of the attempt would again encounter an
opposition equally overwhelming.
At Rome, as you will have seen, affairs are going
on tolerably well ; and very much in accor-
dance with the opinion of those who have for a
long time past thought that the Roman question
would be gradually settled by means of thatslow and

piecemeal encroachment on the autonomy of the
Holy Father, which is irresistible because it is a
part of the universal movement of humanity.
No catastrophe will in all probability take place,
either now or hereafter. Italy will not put
her hand to the Pope's collar, pluck him
from his throne, and seat herself there in his
place ; but she will gradually squeeze him out.
He will be destroyed in good time by the same
process by which a vigorously growing tree planted
close by the side of a wall, however strong, shoves
the dead mass, by an insensibly slow but irresistible
force, out of its old place. There will be no moving
of the capital to Rome. Florence will, it becomes
every day more and more evident, remain perma-
nently the capital of Italy, for which it is, on the
whole, so much better adapted than any other of
the cities its competitors. The day will doubtless
come when it will be in the power of the Italian
nation to make Rome the capital of Italy, if they
should so desire it. But, as is the case with so
many other things which men long for, the power
of gratifying the wish will have come too late, for
the wish will have ceased to exist.