The Express.
London, England, 1866-09-01 00:00:00

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PRINCESS'S.

Tams EYWXI. THE IfietTiNOT CmAIN. Mesas. Yining,
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Two Mnarnm, TIM MUTINY AT 11111 NORM—Mr. Y.
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VON WATIDI AT LONDON DZIDGZ.
Tim DAY —Unrning, 6h. Om Aglimkoom. 4OL tOs.
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LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1.

To make war with rigour and success, and to
make peace with generosity and sincerity—is
not this the mark of a great Power t Austria
has not, we believe, abandoned the rights
or titles of a great Power, so far as an ancient and
proud dynasty, and the maintenance by military
force of a rale over various and disunited races,
and unbending pride and unsurpassed diplomatic
skill, and fortunate marriages, and the supersti-
tious reverence of statesmen, can make a Power
great. Yet there is none of the old-established
Powers in Europe thathas madewar with more con-
stant ill-success, or peace in a meaner spirit than
Austria. All the world sees and says that it must
be for the evident interest of Austria, having rid I
herself of the distressing burden of Venetia, to be-
come thoroughly reconciled with Italy, and
to leave in that blood-stained soil not a
seed of the old enmities and grievances of
long servitude and oppression to germinate and
fructify into future wars. Italians have often
remarked that there is nothing to prevent the
Austrian' and themselves from being fast friends
and close allies, when once the cities and the fields
of the Peninsula are free from the stranger. That
the well-understood material and moral interests
of the two countries should cement this friendly
intimacy and mutual good will is beyond all
doubt. Why, then, at tho close of a war which
liberates the Peninsula from the Austrians, should
a lasting peace between the combatants seem
almost as remote as before, and the present paci-
fication look like a hollow truce?

Within the last few days we have heard from
those who are friends of Italy, and certainly not
enemies of Austria, that the relations between the
two Governments are becoming since the armistice
more frank and cordial every day, and that at the
Court of Vienna there is a manifest disposition to
deal handsomely with the Italian Government and
nation, to acknowledge their existence, titular
and corporate, to meet them at least half way on
the frontier question, and to make reasonable con-
cessions in a generous and even friendly spirit.
We heartily trust these welcome rumours may
be confirmed when the negotiations for
the final treaty of peace begin. That it
would be to the permanent interest and
advantage of Austria to atandon once for aB that
policy of infatuation to which she owes a suc-
cession of disasters—loss of territory and prestige,
a bankrapt treasury, and arrested progress—no
dispassionate observer of events can doubt. BuL
it is difficult to believe in these sudden conversions.
Those military and ecclesiastical traditions of the
Austrian Court, over which a flood of destructive
and irreparable change has swept, survive dis-
comfiture and defeat, and are still to be found in the
ante-chambers of the Palace, if not in the councils
of the Crown. Better instincts and impulses may
occasionally prevail ; visions of an empire recon-
structed by freedom and sustained by loyal and
devoted populations may visit the dreams of a
Sovereign whose earlier education, divided between
the sacristy and the corps de garde, with courtiers,
aides-de-camp, and priests for tutors, has been
finished in the school of adversity. FRANCIS
JOSEPH has undoubtedly surrounded himself since
1859 with statesmen of a new era,who have honestly
striven to emancipate him and his dominions
from the fatalities of long misrule. He has made
advances to free trade and to liberal institutions,
and has given up the theory of restraining the dis-
content of rival nationalities by dividing them
one against the other. Yet, at the very moment
when he hid most need of the confidence of his
subjects, he suppressed the constitution; on the eve
of a war for which he had afforded some sort of
colourable pretext when he summoned the
German sovereigns to meet under his patronage
in the Imperial city of Frankfort, and at a later
date, by consenting with Prussia to supersede the
action of the Federal Diet and to attack Denmark,
whether as an accomplice or as a dupe, mat-
tered little to the stronger and clearer purpose'
of Count BISMARCK. If the recent campaign
in Germany has not been lost to Austria, like
the Italian campaign of 1859, if Sardinia has
taught a lesson which Solferino could not teach,
it may be hoped that the Court and Cabinet of
Vienna are beginning to regret that they did
not accept from Prussia the price of half the
provinces of the Elbe, and from Italy a far more
honourable compensation for a spontaneous amnion
of Venetia. Blinded by pride and obstinacy, the
Austrian Government persisted in detaining its
share of the ill-gotten spoils of Denmark until
it could no longer give them up with honour ;
and it would not so much as listen calmly to pro-
posals for a peaceful and honourable. cession of
Venetia to Italy until, in a tit of amazement and

66.