The Express.
London, England, 1861-11-08 00:00:00

TO OUR READERS.

SPORTING DITILLIGENCR.

A !ate utlitiuu of the Express is published every
eveumg during the racists NWIIIIIOII, cuutsduing the
results of the clar's races.

Tin: political temper of the Italian people has
been severely tried since the peace of Villafranca,
and it will hardly be denied even by the bitterest
ailveniary of their cause that the very qualities in
which they were supposed to be deficient have
been those in which they have excelled. Patience
and persaverance are acquired, rather than innate
national virtues ; acquired in the school of expe-
rience, if not through the discipline of adversity.
M. Teory vizi. himself, when be takes occasion to
recommend the exercise of these virtues to the
Cabinet of Turin, may be gently reminded—if, in-
deed, it were possible for any Frenchman familiar
with the history of modern Europe to forget—that
nations more fortunate and more powerful than
modern Italy, mourning even to control the des-
tinies of civilization, have not always succeeded
in exhibiting that union of self-control and self-re-
spect which, in the world of public affairs, is
equivalent to temperance and moral fortitude in
private life. There are Powers, for instance, which
poessiming a giant's strength have been known to
prostitute it to the provocations of a restless vain-
glory or an insatiable rapacity, and, as often as
domestic difficulties seemed to require a diversion
of rnen's minds, have sought it in the pursuit of
" ideas " and enterprmes at the expense of weaker
neighbours, with a reckless disregard of the
responsibilities and results of an aggressive and
adventurous policy. When settled States and
great Powers are the frequent and wilful dis-
turbers of public conlidenes, it would ill become
M. Twit- . to criticise leo messotionely say
symptoms of haste or heat is the Lamp of his
clients and allies beyond the Alps, who, after beig
invited to become the citizens of a great country,
and paying • high pries for a partial deliver-
ance, find themselves the sport of disap-
pointments and the dupes of delays grievous enough
to cancel the heaviest obligation. It must be par-
ticularly irritating to Italian susceptibilities to ob-
serve that the tedious suspense which they are suf-
fering is justified only by reasons of state conveni-
ence, or by pleas of political necessity entirely
foreign to their own affairs, and of the forte of
which they can only form • dark and distant guess.
The mamma, in fact, whatever they may be, for an
indefinite adjournment of the Rosaili question, exist
at Pans, and have nothing to do with Italian
politics. For, to put the case in the briefest
form, the terms which Berm litcssou has
offered to the Vatican for the virtual abandon-
ment of the temporal power are as easy as any that
the Court of Rome can possibly obtain at • later
date, and almost word for word such as the
Emperor of the Fasireir is known to have put for-
ward with his own inierieurter. It is not a
question, therefore, of terms with the Pots, but
of times and seasons for the Imperial patron
of two opposite causes. It is alleged that NAPO-
LEON 111. professes an undiminished sympathy for
Italy. M. RATAZSI has no doubt received the most
flattering assurances ; but that he will resume the
chair in the Chamber of Deputies a fortnight hence
under hopeful and encouraging auspices is more
than present appearances indicate.
Here, then, the question arises : bow will,
Baron %came.: present himself before the
Italian Parliament, morally pledged as he was at the
close of the summer session, to obtain possession
of the capital of Italy ? There was a moment, just
after the death of Cavues, when French policy
towards Italy seemed to be on the point of emerging
from the clouds. But the burst of sunshine passed
away, and the straightforward declarations of the
Italian Minister encountered an increasing coldness
and ill-will in Paris. Not that the case itself as
between the Papacy and the Italian people halted
or receded ; Papal brigandage and Papal allocu-
tions conspired with the austere sophistries of M.
Gt izar, and the fervent wrath of M. DE MOITTALEW
DIRT, to quicken the effect on public opinion of the
treatises of Mgor. Li . . i and Father PAMAOLIA.
Every day's delay has loosened a stone in the Papal
fabric, and now the very foundations are tottering,
and a rent is yawning in the walls. The Pro-
testant world has no cense to regret the pro-
longed agony of the temporal power. It is as a
national and political question for Italy that the
ambiguous policy of France at Rome constitutes a
difficulty, perhaps • danger, for the government
administered in so high • spirit by Baron RI-
CAXOLI. One cannot be surprised to learn that
the First 31inister of Italy feels discouraged
and disgusted by the burden of silence and dis-
simulation which the Cabinet of the Empire
bears without shame. It is more than enough
to chafe the proud and sensitive nature of the
Tuscan noble ; this enforced compact with equi-
vocation and duplicity. Still it is to be hoped
that Rerun Itii.veits will have sufficient faith in
his own name and fame to set his countrymen an
example of self.denyang patience and unflinching
constancy. It will he his earliest duty, and an act
of simple self-defence, to lay before the Parlia-
ment the diplomatic i'orrespondence on the Roman
question, and to leave to the public opinion of
Italy and of liberal Europe to judge once more
between the false and the true. The Pays has