Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-05-20 00:00:00

too. There is, in Austrian Italy, no injury pe

petrated, att

Ipted, or feared, which can in anywise

effect France, or in the slightest degree justify any

interference by her armel hosts

Of the objects

of just war—precautio,n, defence, or reparation—
France has not a single one as a pretext. There are,

on her side, none of the justifying causes of
war,—no deliberate invasion, or even threatened
invasion of her rights,—no necessity for maintaining
such a balance of power among neighbouring
nations, as that no single State, or confederacy of
States, shall overwhelm the rest. If there is to be
anything of this kind that is to be resisted, it seems
very likely to be this very confederacy which France
herself has entered into with Sardinia; the object of
which is avowed to be, to overwhelm the neighbour-
ing State of Austria, and wrest from her a dominion

which she has had given and guaranteed to her by
treaties signed, sealed, and delivered by the rest of
the Great Powers of Europe. "We are about to
second the struggle of a people now vindicating its
independence, and rescue it from foreign oppression,"
says Louis NAPOLEON to his "Army of Italy,"
when he had arrived to place himself at their head,
and lead them to the combat; and, he adds, " This
is a sacred cause, which has the sympathies of the
civilised world." And so the cause of Italy doubtless
has,—it has, at any rate, the sympathy of England.
But, then, there are other and better ways of
showing it, than by disturbing the peace of Europe ;
which, in fact, has no right to be disturbed for any
such purpose,—and least of all -by one whose own
subjects have " the sympathies of the civilised
world," or ought to have them, as themselves
suffering under oppression also. " Soldiers,

," con-

tinues this second BIIONAPARTE, "let us all do our
duty, and pit our confidence in GOD. Our country
expects much from you. From one end of
France to the other, the following words of
happy augury re-echo The new army of •Italy
will be worthy of her elder sister.'" Now

here, we see, is a most audacious attempt to
delude and to deceive. It is not their duty to wage

Austrian-Italy. Such a war, under the
circumstances of it, is a most criminal procedure ;
and to " put their confidence in GOD," in such a
course of wickedness, is profanely and blasphemously
to expect, that GOD will favour iniquity, cruelty,
and wrong. And suppose this " new Army of
Italy " should prove " worthy of her elder sister ?"
what then ? What did the " elder sister " do, to
make it so important to be worthy of her ? Did she
rescue Italy from foreign oppression ? On the

war in

contrary, did she not fasten a foreign oppression

upon her ? The former Army of Italy was no
doubt a brave army—and it fought well on the same
battle-fields which are now being revisited, leaving
heaps of slain in its victorious tracks, and dying the
soil deeply with the blood of its victims. Yet what
were those soldiers, after all ; or what are these
whose bloody deeds are to emulate the other,—that
they may be worthy of it,—what are they, one and
all, we say, but

" Ambition's tools, to cut a way
To her unlawful ends ?"

How much more becoming the character, and the
responsibilities, of a Christian Power, is the position
of England ? With her political freedom, she can
truly and sincerly sympathise with those who are
under political oppression ; and she feels hot only for
the Italians, but for the French themselves, as
deprived of that liberty which her own people
so richly enjoy. And yet she is at peace. She is
not cursed with an ambitious Monarch, who has to
make tools of the people to cut a way to unlawful
ends. And on this very account it is, that
even while remaining at peace, she will do more for
the sacred cause of Italian liberty and independence'
than all the fighting of one despotic Power against
another can ever be expected to accomplish. Her
Majesty can fortunately declare, as her Royal
Proclamation lately issued sets forth,—" And
whereas we are on terms of friendship and amicable
intercourse with all and each of the Sovereigns and
with their several subjects, and others, inhabiting'

IR JAMES GRAHAM A

.ND THE MINISTRY.

THERE was not one of the opponents of the Der

Ministry who gave it harder hits at the hustings, of
the late General Election, than Sir JAMES GRAHAM.

We question if there was one who did it anything

like the same amount of damage—fir the moment.
There are but few, in fact, who can mall their adver-

ries more mercilessly than Sir JAMES, who has, in

his public career, unlike most of his compatriots, had
opportunities of exercising his art on both parties
alternately. We used to think hiin most overwhelm-
ing in his blows upon the Whigs and Radicals, when
4.^ n while. n

~~ a t

'ative ; but on

the recent occasion lie was, as a Radical, still more

crushing upon the Conservatives,—and to some prac-
tical effect, too—for he thereby deprived _Ministers
of a steady supporter in the House of Commons, and

put in his place an out-and-out opponent.
The Liberal party, therefore, are under no slight
obligation to Sir JAMES GRAHAM for these his latest
services to their cause. He fought valiantly—and
he won. But, like too many who contend eagerly
and hotly, he did so, it now appears, somewhat un-

scrupulously; and the party has to regret, that while
he did good service to it, for the time being at least,
he did great damage, irretrievably, to himself.

Two Of the severest blows that he aimed at the

Minisiry, at his election for Carlisle, were his
charges against it, first, " that, in order to influence
the elections, the War Department—by an act of
prerogative —Parliament not sitting —had increased
the allowance to publicans for soldiers billeted on
them from I.ld. to 4d. ;" and, second, that " when
Captain CARNEGIE infdrmed the FirSt Lord of the
Admiralty he had made inquiries at Dover, and he
was satisfied success was impossible without the use
of means which, asia man of honour, he could not
use, the First Lord of the Admiralty said, There is

no option,' and intimated that he must go to Dover."
Thus did the right hon. baronet accuse the Ministry
of having had recourse to expedients for the further-
ance of their objects at the General Election, which,
if true, were certainly anything but reputable, and
in the latter case, therefore, anything but honourable.
It turns out, however, that they, both of them,
wanted the ingredient so essential to give them the
character and the force he meant them to possess,—
yet which, for the moment, they did all the same as
possess, for the purpose intended,—the ingredient of
truth.

The heads of the two departments of the
ernment thus seriously assailed by no less a
personage than Sir JAMES GRAHAM - himself
formerly at the head of one of them, and a
Cabinet Minister also,—have come forward to expose
the mendacity of the statements ; and in doing so, we
must confess, they have made the vengeful baronet

look anything but respeetable: General PEEL, writing
from the War Office, says to This is not
only untrue, but if you stated it I must leave you
to explain how it was possible for you not to have
known that it was not true. -In addition to Your
long parliamentary experience, and knowledge of
everything connected with the army, you, when
First Lord of the Admiralty, must have brought in
the Marine Mutiny Bill, and must have known that
the allowance to publicans for soldiers and marines,
billeted on them is fixed by the Mutiny Bill ; you
must also have known that, last session, a parlia-
mentary committee inquired into the billeting system,
and recommended, in their report, that the allowance
should be raised from 11d to from 4d to 6d—that
I was asked publicly in the house on the 7th of Feb.
this year' whether it was the intention of the

Government to carry this recommendation into effect,

and that I answered, that it was their intention to
raise it to 4d, but that it could not be done until the
Mutiny Bill was brought in. That, again, on the
7th of March, on the army estimates, I made the
same statement, and that Parliament voted the extra
sum required for the payment of it ; and that on
bringing in the Mutiny Bill I pointed out that the
only material alteration in it was this increased
allowance to the publicans. The Mutiny Bill passed
before there was any idea of a dissolution, and the
War Office circular directing the payment of the
additional allowance was issued previous to the dis-
solution." And Sir JOHN PAKINGTON, as First
Lord of the Admiralty, not only denies ever having
done what Sir JAMES imputed to him, but shows
that Captain CARNEGIE never said he did.
Not a word, Sir JOHN declares, ever passed
between Captain CARNEGIE and himself as
to corrupt practices being essential to success
at Dover ; and Captain CARNEGIE did not
allege in his published letter that he had made to
him any such statement. "It is true, " adds Sir
JOHN, " that I told Captain CARNEGIE he had 'in
my opinion, no honourable option ; ' but those words
referred to the conditions on which he had accepted
office, and were spoken, as I think I hardly need
assure you, without the slightest reference to
imputations upon the people of Dover, of which I
had never heard." After this, Sir JAMES had no
alternative but to " eat dirt," as the Orientals
would say. " The statement in that speech to which I